With rosy hand a little girl prest down
With rosy hand a little girl prest downA boss of fresh-cull'd cowslips in a rill:Often as they sprang up again, a frownShow'd she disliked resistance to her will:But when they droopt their heads and shone much less,She shook them to and fro, and threw them by,And tript away. 'Ye loathe the heavinessYe love to cause, my little girls!' thought I,'And what had shone for you, by you must die.'
Words in this poem
- prest a.
- Ready; prompt; prepared. [OF. prest, F. prêt, fr. L. praestus ready. Cf. Presto.]
- rill n.
- A very small brook; a streamlet. [Cf. LG. rille a small channel or brook, a furrow, a chamfer, OE. rigol a small brook, F. rigole a trench or furrow for water, W. rhill a row, rhigol a little di]
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
- heaviness n.
- The state or quality of being heavy in its various senses; weight; sadness; sluggishness; oppression; thickness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
With rosy hand a little girl prest down is in the public domain. This text is taken from Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, Project Gutenberg ebook #21628; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walter Savage Landor, With rosy hand a little girl prest down, in Imaginary Conversations and Poems (1795–1863), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21628, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/landor-poems/with-rosy-hand-a-little-girl-prest-down.html, id L12194.
Form and metre
With rosy hand a little girl prest down is 9 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDD. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABABCDCDD downA · rillB · frownA · willB · lessC · byD · heavinessC · iD · dieD
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 iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| With rosy hand a little girl prest down | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| A boss of fresh-cull'd cowslips in a rill: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Often as they sprang up again, a frown | 10 | /˘····˘/·· |
| Show'd she disliked resistance to her will: | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| But when they droopt their heads and shone much less, | 10 | ·········· |
| She shook them to and fro, and threw them by, | 10 | ·········· |
| And tript away. 'Ye loathe the heaviness | 10 | ··˘/···/˘˘ |
| Ye love to cause, my little girls!' thought I, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| 'And what had shone for you, by you must die.' | 10 | ·········· |
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.