The Owl
When cats run home and light is come,And dew is cold upon the ground,And the far-off stream is dumb,And the whirring sail goes round,And the whirring sail goes round;Alone and warming his five wits,The white owl in the belfry sits.
When merry milkmaids click the latch,And rarely smells the new-mown hay,And the cock hath sung beneath the thatchTwice or thrice his roundelay,Twice or thrice his roundelay;Alone and warming his five wits,The white owl in the belfry sits.
Words in this poem
- belfry n.
- A movable tower erected by besiegers for purposes of attack and defense. [OE. berfray movable tower used in sieges, OF. berfreit, berfroit, F. beffroi, fr. MHG. bervrit, bercvrit, G. bergfriede, fr. MHG. bergen to protect (G. bergen t]
- latch v. t.
- To smear; to anoint. [Cf. F. lécher to lick (of German origin). Cf. Lick.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Owl 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, The Owl, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/the-owl.html, id L25185.
Form and metre
The Owl is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABBCC, the Rhyme royal. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in rhyme royal, other poems in iambic 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 ABABBCC comeA · groundB · dumbA · roundB · roundB · witsC · sitsC
- 2 ABABBCC latchA · hayB · thatchA · roundelayB · roundelayB · witsC · sitsC
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When cats run home and light is come, | 8 | ········ |
| And dew is cold upon the ground, | 8 | ········ |
| And the far-off stream is dumb, | 7 | ······· |
| And the whirring sail goes round, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And the whirring sail goes round; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Alone and warming his five wits, | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| The white owl in the belfry sits. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| When merry milkmaids click the latch, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And rarely smells the new-mown hay, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch | 9 | ········· |
| Twice or thrice his roundelay, | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Twice or thrice his roundelay; | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Alone and warming his five wits, | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| The white owl in the belfry sits. | 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.