For My Grandchild IV
I've a very long nose, but what of that?It is not too long to lie on a mat!
I have very big jaws, but never get fat:I don't go to church, and I'm not a church rat!
I've a mouth in my middle my food goes in at,Just like a skate's--that's a fish that's a flat.
In summer I'm seldom able to breathe,But when winter his blades in ice doth sheathe
I swell my one lung, I look big and I puff,And I sometimes hiss.--There, that's enough!
About this text
For My Grandchild IV is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #9984; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George MacDonald, For My Grandchild IV, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/for-my-grandchild-iv.html, id L22341.
Form and metre
For My Grandchild IV is 10 lines in 5 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AA thatA · matA
- 2 AA fatA · ratA
- 3 AA atA · flatA
- 4 AA breatheA · sheatheA
- 5 AA puffA · enoughA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I've a very long nose, but what of that? | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| It is not too long to lie on a mat! | 10 | ·········· |
| I have very big jaws, but never get fat: | 10 | ··/˘···/·· |
| I don't go to church, and I'm not a church rat! | 11 | ··········· |
| I've a mouth in my middle my food goes in at, | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| Just like a skate's--that's a fish that's a flat. | 10 | ·········· |
| In summer I'm seldom able to breathe, | 10 | ·/˘·/˘/˘·· |
| But when winter his blades in ice doth sheathe | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| I swell my one lung, I look big and I puff, | 11 | ··········· |
| And I sometimes hiss.--There, that's enough! | 9 | ··/····˘/ |
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.