Come Out with Me
There's sun on the river and sun on the hill....You can hear the sea if you stand quite still!There's eight new puppies at Roundabout Farm—And I saw an old sailor with only one arm!
But every one says, "Run along!"(Run along, run along!)All of them say "Run along! I'm busy as can be."Every one says, "Run along,There's a little darling!"If I'm a little darling, why don't they run with me?
There's wind on the river and wind on the hill....There's a dark dead water-wheel under the mill!I saw a fly which had just been drowned—And I know where a rabbit goes into the ground!
But every one says, "Run along!"(Run along, run along!)All of them say "Yes, dear," and never notice me.Every one says, "Run along,There's a little darling!"If I'm a little darling, why won't they come and see?
About this text
Come Out with Me is in the public domain. This text is taken from Now We Are Six, Project Gutenberg ebook #70516; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: A. A. Milne, Come Out with Me, in Now We Are Six (1927), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70516, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/milne-now-we-are-six/come-out-with-me.html, id L27236.
Form and metre
Come Out with Me is 20 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 AABB hillA · stillA · farmB · armB
- 2 AABAAB alongA · alongA · beB · alongA · darlingA · meB
- 3 AABB hillA · millA · drownedB · groundB
- 4 AABAAB alongA · alongA · meB · alongA · darlingA · 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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There's sun on the river and sun on the hill.... | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| You can hear the sea if you stand quite still! | 10 | ·········· |
| There's eight new puppies at Roundabout Farm— | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| And I saw an old sailor with only one arm! | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘·· |
| But every one says, "Run along!" | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| (Run along, run along!) | 6 | ·˘/·˘/ |
| All of them say "Run along! I'm busy as can be." | 13 | ·····˘/·/˘··· |
| Every one says, "Run along, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| There's a little darling!" | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| If I'm a little darling, why don't they run with me? | 13 | ···/˘/˘······ |
| There's wind on the river and wind on the hill.... | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| There's a dark dead water-wheel under the mill! | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| I saw a fly which had just been drowned— | 9 | ········· |
| And I know where a rabbit goes into the ground! | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| But every one says, "Run along!" | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| (Run along, run along!) | 6 | ·˘/·˘/ |
| All of them say "Yes, dear," and never notice me. | 11 | ·······//˘· |
| Every one says, "Run along, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| There's a little darling!" | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| If I'm a little darling, why won't they come and see? | 13 | ···/˘/˘······ |
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.