The Cow
The friendly cow all red and white,I love with all my heart:She gives me cream with all her might,To eat with apple-tart.
She wanders lowing here and there,And yet she cannot stray,All in the pleasant open air,The pleasant light of day;
And blown by all the winds that passAnd wet with all the showers,She walks among the meadow grassAnd eats the meadow flowers.
Words in this poem
- lowing n.
- The calling sound made by cows and other bovine animals.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Cow 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 Cow, in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #136, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevenson-childs-garden/the-cow.html, id L07195.
Form and metre
The Cow is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABAB whiteA · heartB · mightA · tartB
- 2 ABAB thereA · strayB · airA · dayB
- 3 ABAB passA · showersB · grassA · flowersB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The friendly cow all red and white, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I love with all my heart: | 6 | ······ |
| She gives me cream with all her might, | 8 | ········ |
| To eat with apple-tart. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| She wanders lowing here and there, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And yet she cannot stray, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| All in the pleasant open air, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The pleasant light of day; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And blown by all the winds that pass | 8 | ········ |
| And wet with all the showers, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| She walks among the meadow grass | 8 | ·····/·· |
| And eats the meadow flowers. | 7 | ···/·/˘ |
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.