Hide and Seek I
All the trees are sleeping, all the winds are still,All the fleecy flocks of cloud, gone beyond the hill;Through the noon-day silence, down the woods of June,Hark, a little hunter's voice, running with a tune."Hide and seek!When I speak,You must answer me:Call again,Merry men,Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!"
Now I hear his footsteps rustling in the grass:Hidden in my leafy nook, shall I let him pass?Just a low, soft whistle,--quick the hunter turns,Leaps upon me laughing loud, rolls me in the ferns."Hold him fast,Caught at last!Now you're it, you see.Hide your eye,Till I cry,Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!"
Words in this poem
- fleecy a.
- Covered with, made of, or resembling, a fleece.
- nook n.
- A narrow place formed by an angle in bodies or between bodies; a corner; a recess; a secluded retreat. [OE. nok; cf. Gael. & Ir. niuc.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hide and Seek I is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, Hide and Seek I, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/hide-and-seek-i.html, id L22857.
Form and metre
Hide and Seek I is 20 lines in 2 stanzas of 10 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDEED stillA · hillA · juneB · tuneB · seekC · speakC · meD · againE · menE · eeD
- 2 AABBAACDDC grassA · passA · turnsB · fernsB · fastA · lastA · seeC · eyeD · cryD · eeC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| All the trees are sleeping, all the winds are still, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| All the fleecy flocks of cloud, gone beyond the hill; | 12 | ··/˘········ |
| Through the noon-day silence, down the woods of June, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Hark, a little hunter's voice, running with a tune. | 12 | ··/˘/˘·/˘··· |
| "Hide and seek! | 3 | ··· |
| When I speak, | 3 | ··· |
| You must answer me: | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Call again, | 3 | ·˘/ |
| Merry men, | 3 | /˘· |
| Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!" | 6 | ······ |
| Now I hear his footsteps rustling in the grass: | 11 | ····/·/˘··· |
| Hidden in my leafy nook, shall I let him pass? | 12 | /˘··/˘······ |
| Just a low, soft whistle,--quick the hunter turns, | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| Leaps upon me laughing loud, rolls me in the ferns. | 12 | ····/˘······ |
| "Hold him fast, | 3 | ··· |
| Caught at last! | 3 | ··· |
| Now you're it, you see. | 5 | ····· |
| Hide your eye, | 3 | ··· |
| Till I cry, | 3 | ··· |
| Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!" | 6 | ······ |
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.