The Child Alone
I The Unseen PlaymateII My Ship and IIII My KingdomIV Picture-Books in WinterV My TreasuresVI Block CityVII The Land of Story-BooksVIII Armies in the FireIX The Little Land
Words in this poem
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- playmate n.
- A companion in diversions; a playfellow.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Child Alone 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, The Child Alone, in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #136, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevenson-childs-garden/the-child-alone.html, id L07170.
Form and metre
The Child Alone is 9 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.4 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 100% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I The Unseen Playmate | 6 | ··˘//· |
| II My Ship and I | 5 | ····· |
| III My Kingdom | 4 | ··/˘ |
| IV Picture-Books in Winter | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| V My Treasures | 4 | ··/˘ |
| VI Block City | 4 | ··/˘ |
| VII The Land of Story-Books | 7 | ····/˘· |
| VIII Armies in the Fire | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| IX The Little Land | 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.