Song of the Little White Girl
Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter?Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter?Because it is just a white baby you see,And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree?
Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellowWith your green hair and your legs browny-yellow.Wouldn’t you like to have curls, dear, like me?What! No one to make them? O poor cabbage tree!
Never mind, cabbage tree, when I am taller,And if you grow, please, a little bit smaller,I shall be able by that time, may be,To make you the loveliest curls, cabbage tree.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song of the Little White Girl 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, Song of the Little White Girl, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59276, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mansfield-poems/song-of-the-little-white-girl.html, id L27624.
Form and metre
Song of the Little White Girl is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is dactylic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%).
See other poems in dactylic 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 AABB matterA · chatterA · seeB · treeB
- 2 AABB fellowA · yellowA · meB · treeB
- 3 AABB tallerA · smallerA · beB · treeB
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 dactylic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter? | 11 | /˘·/˘····/˘ |
| Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter? | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Because it is just a white baby you see, | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree? | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellow | 11 | /˘·/˘····/˘ |
| With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow. | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| Wouldn’t you like to have curls, dear, like me? | 10 | /˘········ |
| What! No one to make them? O poor cabbage tree! | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Never mind, cabbage tree, when I am taller, | 11 | /˘·/˘····/˘ |
| And if you grow, please, a little bit smaller, | 11 | ······/˘·/˘ |
| I shall be able by that time, may be, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| To make you the loveliest curls, cabbage tree. | 11 | ········/˘· |
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.