How many a father have I seen
How many a father have I seen,A sober man, among his boys,Whose youth was full of foolish noise,Who wears his manhood hale and green;
And dare we to this doctrine giveThat had the wild oat not been sown,The soil, left barren, had not grownThe grain by which a man may live?
Oh! if we held the doctrine soundFor life outliving heats of youth,Yet who would preach it as a truthTo those that eddy round and round?
Hold thou the good: define it well:For fear divine philosophyShould push beyond her mark, and beProcuress to the Lords of Hell.
Words in this poem
- procuress n.
- A female procurer, or pander.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
How many a father have I seen is in the public domain. This text is taken from In memoriam, Project Gutenberg ebook #70950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, How many a father have I seen, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-52.html, id L18412.
Form and metre
How many a father have I seen is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% 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 ABBA seenA · boysB · noiseB · greenA
- 2 ABBA giveA · sownB · grownB · liveA
- 3 ABBA soundA · youthB · truthB · roundA
- 4 ABBA wellA · philosophyB · beB · hellA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How many a father have I seen, | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| A sober man, among his boys, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Whose youth was full of foolish noise, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Who wears his manhood hale and green; | 8 | ···/···· |
| And dare we to this doctrine give | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That had the wild oat not been sown, | 8 | ········ |
| The soil, left barren, had not grown | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The grain by which a man may live? | 8 | ········ |
| Oh! if we held the doctrine sound | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| For life outliving heats of youth, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Yet who would preach it as a truth | 8 | ········ |
| To those that eddy round and round? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Hold thou the good: define it well: | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| For fear divine philosophy | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Should push beyond her mark, and be | 8 | ········ |
| Procuress to the Lords of Hell. | 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.