The Fathers
Snug at the club two fathers sat,Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.One of them said: "My eldest ladWrites cheery letters from Bagdad.But Arthur's getting all the funAt Arras with his nine-inch gun."
"Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck!My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuckIn England training all this year.Still, if there's truth in what we hear,The Huns intend to ask for moreBefore they bolt across the Rhine."I watched them toddle through the door--These impotent old friends of mine.
Words in this poem
- arras n.
- Tapestry; a rich figured fabric; especially, a screen or hangings of heavy cloth with interwoven figures. [From Arras the capital of Artois, in the French Netherlands.]
- intend v. t.
- To stretch' to extend; to distend. [OE. entenden to be attentive, F. entendre, fr. L. intendre, intentum, and intensum, to intend, attend, stretch out, extend; pref. in- in + tendere to stretch, s]
- toddle v. i.
- To walk with short, tottering steps, as a child. [Akin to tottle, totter.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Fathers is in the public domain. This text is taken from Counter-Attack and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8930; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Siegfried Sassoon, The Fathers, in Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8930, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sassoon-counter-attack/the-fathers.html, id L04697.
Form and metre
The Fathers is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 AABBCC satA · chatA · ladB · bagdadB · funC · gunC
- 2 AABBCDCD luckA · stuckA · yearB · hearB · moreC · rhineD · doorC · mineD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Snug at the club two fathers sat, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| One of them said: "My eldest lad | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. | 8 | ·/˘/˘·/˘ |
| But Arthur's getting all the fun | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| At Arras with his nine-inch gun." | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| "Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck! | 9 | ··˘·/˘··· |
| My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| In England training all this year. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Still, if there's truth in what we hear, | 8 | ········ |
| The Huns intend to ask for more | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Before they bolt across the Rhine." | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| I watched them toddle through the door-- | 9 | ··˘·/˘··· |
| These impotent old friends of mine. | 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.