Brownie
In a corner of the bedroom is a great big curtain,Someone lives behind it, but I don’t know who;I think it is a Brownie, but I’m not quite certain.(Nanny isn’t certain, too.)
I looked behind the curtain, but he went so quickly—Brownies never wait to say, “How do you do?”They wriggle off at once because they’re all so tickly.(Nanny says they’re tickly too.)
Words in this poem
- bedroom n.
- A room or apartment intended or used for a bed; a lodging room.
- brownie n.
- An imaginary good-natured spirit, who was supposed often to perform important services around the house by night, such as thrashing, churning, sweeping. [So called from its supposed tawny or swarthy color.]
- nanny n.
- A diminutive of Ann or Anne, the proper name. Nanny goat, a female goat.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Brownie is in the public domain. This text is taken from When We Were Very Young, Project Gutenberg ebook #70271; 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, Brownie, in When We Were Very Young (1924), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70271, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/milne-when-we-were-very-young/brownie.html, id L27183.
Form and metre
Brownie is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in trochaic heptameter.
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 curtainA · whoB · certainA · tooB
- 2 ABAB quicklyA · doB · ticklyA · tooB
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In a corner of the bedroom is a great big curtain, | 14 | ··/˘··/·····/˘ |
| Someone lives behind it, but I don’t know who; | 11 | /·········· |
| I think it is a Brownie, but I’m not quite certain. | 13 | ·····/˘····/˘ |
| (Nanny isn’t certain, too.) | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| I looked behind the curtain, but he went so quickly— | 13 | ·····/˘····/˘ |
| Brownies never wait to say, “How do you do?” | 10 | /˘/······· |
| They wriggle off at once because they’re all so tickly. | 13 | ·/˘·········· |
| (Nanny says they’re tickly too.) | 7 | /˘····· |
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.