Corner-of-the-Street
Down by the corner of the street,Where the three roads meet,And the feetOf the people as they pass go “Tweet-tweet-tweet—”Who comes tripping round the corner of the street?One pair of shoes which are Nurse’s;One pair of slippers which are Percy’s . . .Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!
About this text
Corner-of-the-Street 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, Corner-of-the-Street, in When We Were Very Young (1924), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70271, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/milne-when-we-were-very-young/corner-of-the-street.html, id L27175.
Form and metre
Corner-of-the-Street is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AAAAA--A streetA · meetA · feetA · tweetA · streetA · nurse's · percy's · tweetA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Down by the corner of the street, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Where the three roads meet, | 5 | ····· |
| And the feet | 3 | ··· |
| Of the people as they pass go “Tweet-tweet-tweet—” | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| Who comes tripping round the corner of the street? | 11 | ··/˘··/˘··· |
| One pair of shoes which are Nurse’s; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| One pair of slippers which are Percy’s . . . | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! | 3 | ··· |
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