Pippa
The year’s at the spring,The day’s at the morn;Morning’s at seven;The hillside’s dew pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;The snail’s on the thorn;God’s in His heaven--All’s right with the world!
Words in this poem
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Pippa is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, Pippa, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/pippa.html, id L25158.
Form and metre
Pippa is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The year’s at the spring, | 5 | ····· |
| The day’s at the morn; | 5 | ····· |
| Morning’s at seven; | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| The hillside’s dew pearled; | 5 | ·/··· |
| The lark’s on the wing; | 5 | ····· |
| The snail’s on the thorn; | 5 | ····· |
| God’s in His heaven-- | 5 | ···/˘ |
| All’s right with the world! | 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.