The Christmas Child
"Little one, who straight hast comeDown the heavenly stair,Tell us all about your home,And the father there."
"He is such a one as I,Like as like can be.Do his will, and, by and by,Home and him you'll see."
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Christmas Child 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, The Christmas Child, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/the-christmas-child.html, id L22358.
Form and metre
The Christmas Child is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 ABAB comeA · stairB · homeA · thereB
- 2 ABAB iA · beB · byA · seeB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "Little one, who straight hast come | 7 | /˘····· |
| Down the heavenly stair, | 6 | ··/˘˘· |
| Tell us all about your home, | 7 | ······· |
| And the father there." | 5 | ··/˘· |
| "He is such a one as I, | 7 | ······· |
| Like as like can be. | 5 | ····· |
| Do his will, and, by and by, | 7 | ······· |
| Home and him you'll see." | 5 | ····· |
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.