Water-Lilies
Where the water-lilies goTo and fro,Rocking in the ripples of the water,Lazy on a leaf lies the Lake King’s daughter,And the faint winds shake her.Who will come and take her?I will! I will!Keep still! Keep still!Sleeping on a leaf lies the Lake King’s daughter . . .Then the wind comes skippingTo the lilies on the water;And the kind winds wake her.Now who will take her?With a laugh she is slippingThrough the lilies on the water.Wait! Wait!Too late, too late!Only the water-lilies goTo and fro,Dipping, dipping,To the ripples of the water.
About this text
Water-Lilies 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, Water-Lilies, in When We Were Very Young (1924), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70271, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/milne-when-we-were-very-young/water-lilies.html, id L27188.
Form and metre
Water-Lilies is 21 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes AABBCCDDBEBCCEBFFAAEB.
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 AABBCCDDBEBCCEBFFAAEB goA · froA · waterB · daughterB · herC · herC · willD · stillD · daughterB · skippingE · waterB · herC · herC · slippingE · waterB · waitF · lateF · goA · froA · dippingE · waterB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Where the water-lilies go | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| To and fro, | 3 | ··· |
| Rocking in the ripples of the water, | 10 | /˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Lazy on a leaf lies the Lake King’s daughter, | 11 | /˘·······/˘ |
| And the faint winds shake her. | 6 | ······ |
| Who will come and take her? | 6 | ······ |
| I will! I will! | 4 | ···· |
| Keep still! Keep still! | 4 | ···· |
| Sleeping on a leaf lies the Lake King’s daughter . . . | 11 | /˘·······/˘ |
| Then the wind comes skipping | 6 | ····/˘ |
| To the lilies on the water; | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| And the kind winds wake her. | 6 | ······ |
| Now who will take her? | 5 | ····· |
| With a laugh she is slipping | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Through the lilies on the water. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Wait! Wait! | 2 | ·· |
| Too late, too late! | 4 | ···· |
| Only the water-lilies go | 8 | /˘·/˘/˘· |
| To and fro, | 3 | ··· |
| Dipping, dipping, | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| To the ripples of the water. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
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.