A Boy
Out of the noise of tired people working,Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead,His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing,Clean boyish beauty and high-held head.
Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them,Fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes--Men die by millions now, because God blunders,Yet to have made this boy he must be wise.
Words in this poem
- boyish a.
- Resembling a boy in a manners or opinions; belonging to a boy; childish; trifling; puerile.
- unwearied a.
- Not wearied; not fatigued or tired; hence, persistent; not tiring or wearying; indefatigable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Boy is in the public domain. This text is taken from Flame and Shadow, Project Gutenberg ebook #591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sara Teasdale, A Boy, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/a-boy.html, id L17002.
Form and metre
A Boy is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 -A-A working · deadA · blowing · headA
- 2 -AAA them · eyesA · blundersA · wiseA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Out of the noise of tired people working, | 10 | ·····//˘/˘ |
| Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead, | 10 | /˘········ |
| His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing, | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| Clean boyish beauty and high-held head. | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
| Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them, | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| Fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes-- | 10 | /˘····˘/˘· |
| Men die by millions now, because God blunders, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Yet to have made this boy he must be wise. | 10 | ·········· |
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.