From Her Boy
For the long nights you lay awakeAnd watched for my unworthy sake:For your most comfortable handThat led me through the uneven land:For all the story-books you read:For all the pains you comforted:
For all you pitied, all you bore,In sad and happy days of yore:--My second Mother, my first Wife,The angel of my infant life--From the sick child, now well and old,Take, nurse, the little book you hold!
And grant it, Heaven, that all who readMay find as dear a nurse at need,And every child who lists my rhyme,In the bright, fireside, nursery clime,May hear it in as kind a voiceAs made my childish days rejoice!
Words in this poem
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
- fireside n.
- A place near the fire or hearth; home; domestic life or retirement.
- nursery n.
- The act of nursing. [Cf. F. nourricerie.]
- clime n.
- A climate; a tract or region of the earth. See Climate. [L. clima. See Climate.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
From Her Boy is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Child's Garden of Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #136; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Louis Stevenson, From Her Boy, in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #136, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevenson-childs-garden/from-her-boy.html, id L07168.
Form and metre
From Her Boy is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBCC. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 94% 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. 22% 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 awakeA · sakeA · handB · landB · readC · comfortedC
- 2 AABBCC boreA · yoreA · wifeB · lifeB · oldC · holdC
- 3 AABBCC readA · needA · rhymeB · climeB · voiceC · rejoiceC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| For the long nights you lay awake | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And watched for my unworthy sake: | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| For your most comfortable hand | 8 | ···/˘˘˘· |
| That led me through the uneven land: | 9 | ·····˘/˘· |
| For all the story-books you read: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| For all the pains you comforted: | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| For all you pitied, all you bore, | 8 | ···/···· |
| In sad and happy days of yore:-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My second Mother, my first Wife, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The angel of my infant life-- | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| From the sick child, now well and old, | 8 | ········ |
| Take, nurse, the little book you hold! | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And grant it, Heaven, that all who read | 8 | ···/···· |
| May find as dear a nurse at need, | 8 | ········ |
| And every child who lists my rhyme, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In the bright, fireside, nursery clime, | 9 | ···/˘·/˘· |
| May hear it in as kind a voice | 8 | ········ |
| As made my childish days rejoice! | 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.