Little Brother’s Secret
When my birthday was comingLittle Brother had a secret:He kept it for days and daysAnd just hummed a little tune when I asked him.But one night it rainedAnd I woke up and heard him crying:Then he told me.“I planted two lumps of sugar in your gardenBecause you love it so frightfullyI thought there would be a whole sugar tree for your birthday,And now it will all be melted.”O the darling!
Words in this poem
- frightfully adv.
- In a frightful manner; to a frightful dagree.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Little Brother’s Secret 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, Little Brother’s Secret, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59276, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mansfield-poems/little-brother-s-secret.html, id L27572.
Form and metre
Little Brother’s Secret is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%).
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When my birthday was coming | 7 | ··/··/˘ |
| Little Brother had a secret: | 8 | /˘/˘··/˘ |
| He kept it for days and days | 7 | ······· |
| And just hummed a little tune when I asked him. | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| But one night it rained | 5 | ····· |
| And I woke up and heard him crying: | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Then he told me. | 4 | ···· |
| “I planted two lumps of sugar in your garden | 12 | ·/˘···/˘··/˘ |
| Because you love it so frightfully | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| I thought there would be a whole sugar tree for your birthday, | 14 | ·······/˘···/· |
| And now it will all be melted.” | 8 | ······/˘ |
| O the darling! | 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.