A Little Girl’s Prayer
Grant me the moment, the lovely momentThat I may lean forth to seeThe other buds, the other blooms,The other leaves on the tree:
That I may take into my bosomThe breeze that is like his brother,But stiller, lighter, whose faint laughterEchoes the joy of the other.
Above on the blue and white cloud-spacesThere are small clouds at play.I watch their remote, mysterious play-timeIn the other far-away.
Grant I may hear the small birds singingThe song that the silence knows ...(The Light and the Shadow whisper together,The lovely moment grows,
Ripples into the air like waterAway and away without sound,And the little girl gets up from her prayingOn the cold ground.)
Words in this poem
- stiller n.
- One who stills, or quiets.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Little Girl’s Prayer is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59276; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Katherine Mansfield, A Little Girl’s Prayer, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59276, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mansfield-poems/a-little-girl-s-prayer.html, id L27613.
Form and metre
A Little Girl’s Prayer is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See 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 -A-A moment · seeA · blooms · treeA
- 2 -A-A bosom · brotherA · laughter · otherA
- 3 -A-A spaces · playA · time · awayA
- 4 -A-A singing · knowsA · together · growsA
- 5 -A-A water · soundA · praying · groundA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Grant me the moment, the lovely moment | 10 | ···/˘·/˘/˘ |
| That I may lean forth to see | 7 | ······· |
| The other buds, the other blooms, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The other leaves on the tree: | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| That I may take into my bosom | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| The breeze that is like his brother, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| But stiller, lighter, whose faint laughter | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Echoes the joy of the other. | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Above on the blue and white cloud-spaces | 10 | ········/˘ |
| There are small clouds at play. | 6 | ······ |
| I watch their remote, mysterious play-time | 10 | ···˘/˘/˘·· |
| In the other far-away. | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Grant I may hear the small birds singing | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| The song that the silence knows ... | 7 | ····/˘· |
| (The Light and the Shadow whisper together, | 11 | ····/·/˘˘/˘ |
| The lovely moment grows, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Ripples into the air like water | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| Away and away without sound, | 8 | ˘/·˘/··· |
| And the little girl gets up from her praying | 11 | ··/˘·····/˘ |
| On the cold ground.) | 4 | ···· |
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.