A Chill
What can lambkins doAll the keen night through?Nestle by their woolly motherThe careful ewe.
What can nestlings doIn the nightly dew?Sleep beneath their mother's wingTill day breaks anew.
If in a field or treeThere might only beSuch a warm soft sleeping-placeFound for me!
Words in this poem
- nestle v. i.
- To make and occupy a nest; to nest. [AS. nestlian.]
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Chill is in the public domain. This text is taken from Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #16950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Christina Rossetti, A Chill, in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-goblin-market/a-chill.html, id L04330.
Form and metre
A Chill is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 58% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 AA-A doA · throughA · mother · eweA
- 2 AA-A doA · dewA · wing · anewA
- 3 AA-A treeA · beA · place · meA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| What can lambkins do | 5 | ····· |
| All the keen night through? | 5 | ····· |
| Nestle by their woolly mother | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| The careful ewe. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| What can nestlings do | 5 | ··/˘· |
| In the nightly dew? | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Sleep beneath their mother's wing | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Till day breaks anew. | 5 | ···˘/ |
| If in a field or tree | 6 | ······ |
| There might only be | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Such a warm soft sleeping-place | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Found for me! | 3 | ··· |
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.