The Three
On the trail that thou must treadTo the thresholds of our dread,Where the Flower blossoms red;Through the nights when thou shalt liePrisoned from our Mother-sky,Hearing us, thy loves, go by;In the dawns when thou shalt wakeTo the toil thou canst not break,Heartsick for the Jungle's sake:Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy,Jungle-Favour go with thee!
Words in this poem
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
- heartsick a.
- Sick at heart; extremely depressed in spirits; very despondent. [AS. heoriseóc.]
- jungle n.
- A dense growth of brushwood, grasses, reeds, vines, etc.; an almost impenetrable thicket of trees, canes, and reedy vegetation, as in India, Africa, Australia, and Brazil. [Hind. jangal desert, forest, jungle; Skr. ja desert.]
- favour n.
- Kind regard; propitious aspect; countenance; friendly disposition; kindness; good will. [Written also favour.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Three is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, The Three, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/the-three.html, id L20316.
Form and metre
The Three is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AAABBBCCCD-D treadA · dreadA · redA · lieB · skyB · byB · wakeC · breakC · sakeC · treeD · courtesy · theeD
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| On the trail that thou must tread | 7 | ······· |
| To the thresholds of our dread, | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| Where the Flower blossoms red; | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Through the nights when thou shalt lie | 7 | ······· |
| Prisoned from our Mother-sky, | 8 | /˘·/˘/˘· |
| Hearing us, thy loves, go by; | 7 | /˘····· |
| In the dawns when thou shalt wake | 7 | ······· |
| To the toil thou canst not break, | 7 | ······· |
| Heartsick for the Jungle's sake: | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy, | 7 | /˘··/˘˘ |
| Jungle-Favour go with thee! | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.