Poem I
Sleep, little baby, I love thee.Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee.How should I know what to singHere in my arms as I swing thee to sleep?Hushaby low,Rockaby so,Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring,Mother has only a kiss for her king!Why should my singing so make me to weep?Only I know that I love thee, I love thee,Love thee, my little one, sleep.
About this text
Poem I is in the public domain. This text is taken from Collected Poems: Volume One, Project Gutenberg ebook #30501; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Noyes, Poem I, in Collected Poems, Volume One (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #30501, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/noyes-collected/poem-i.html, id L21490.
Form and metre
Poem I is 11 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 55% of the lines. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic trimeter.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 AABCDDBBCAC theeA · theeA · singB · sleepC · lowD · soD · bringB · kingB · weepC · theeA · sleepC
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sleep, little baby, I love thee. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee. | 11 | ·/˘···/˘··· |
| How should I know what to sing | 7 | ······· |
| Here in my arms as I swing thee to sleep? | 10 | ·········· |
| Hushaby low, | 4 | ···· |
| Rockaby so, | 4 | ···· |
| Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring, | 10 | ···/˘˘/˘·· |
| Mother has only a kiss for her king! | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Why should my singing so make me to weep? | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Only I know that I love thee, I love thee, | 11 | /˘········· |
| Love thee, my little one, sleep. | 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.