Poem III
See, what a wonderful smile! Does it meanThat my little one knows of my love?Was it meant for an angel that passed unseen,And smiled at us both from above?Does it mean that he knows of the birds and the flowersThat are waiting to sweeten his childhood's hours,And the tales I shall tell and the games he will play,And the songs we shall sing and the prayers we shall prayIn his boyhood's May,He and I, one day?
Words in this poem
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poem III 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 III, in Collected Poems, Volume One (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #30501, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/noyes-collected/poem-iii.html, id L21492.
Form and metre
Poem III is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in anapaestic 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 ABABCCDDDD meanA · loveB · unseenA · aboveB · flowersC · hoursC · playD · prayD · mayD · dayD
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| See, what a wonderful smile! Does it mean | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| That my little one knows of my love? | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| Was it meant for an angel that passed unseen, | 11 | ·····/˘··˘/ |
| And smiled at us both from above? | 9 | ··˘······ |
| Does it mean that he knows of the birds and the flowers | 12 | ···········/ |
| That are waiting to sweeten his childhood's hours, | 11 | ··/˘·/˘·/·/ |
| And the tales I shall tell and the games he will play, | 12 | ············ |
| And the songs we shall sing and the prayers we shall pray | 12 | ············ |
| In his boyhood's May, | 5 | ··/·· |
| He and I, one day? | 5 | ····· |
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.