The Burned Child
Love has had his way with me.This my heart is torn and maimedSince he took his play with me.Cruel well the bow-boy aimed,
Shot, and saw the feathered shaftDripping bright and bitter red.He that shrugged his wings and laughed--Better had he left me dead.
Sweet, why do you plead me, then,Who have bled so sore of that?Could I bear it once again? ...Drop a hat, dear, drop a hat!
Words in this poem
- dripping n.
- A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Burned Child is in the public domain. This text is taken from Enough Rope: Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #68353; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dorothy Parker, The Burned Child, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/the-burned-child.html, id L27406.
Form and metre
The Burned Child is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAB meA · maimedB · meA · aimedB
- 2 ABAB shaftA · redB · laughedA · deadB
- 3 ABAB thenA · thatB · againA · hatB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Love has had his way with me. | 7 | ······· |
| This my heart is torn and maimed | 8 | ·······˘ |
| Since he took his play with me. | 7 | ······· |
| Cruel well the bow-boy aimed, | 8 | /˘·····˘ |
| Shot, and saw the feathered shaft | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Dripping bright and bitter red. | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| He that shrugged his wings and laughed-- | 8 | ···˘···· |
| Better had he left me dead. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Sweet, why do you plead me, then, | 7 | ······· |
| Who have bled so sore of that? | 7 | ······· |
| Could I bear it once again? ... | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Drop a hat, dear, drop a hat! | 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.