On His "Book of Joyous Children"
Yours is a garden of old-fashioned flowers;Joyous children delight to play there;Weary men find rest in its bowers,Watching the lingering light of day there.
Old-time tunes and young love-laughterRipple and run among the roses;Memory's echoes, murmuring after,Fill the dusk when the long day closes.
Simple songs with a cadence olden--These you learned in the Forest of Arden:Friendly flowers with hearts all golden--These you borrowed from Eden's garden.
This is the reason why all men love you;Truth to life is the finest art:Other poets may soar above you--You keep close to the human heart.
Words in this poem
- olden a.
- Old; ancient; as, the olden time.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On His "Book of Joyous Children" 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, On His "Book of Joyous Children", in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/on-his-book-of-joyous-children.html, id L22966.
Form and metre
On His "Book of Joyous Children" is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAB flowersA · thereB · bowersA · thereB
- 2 ABAB laughterA · rosesB · afterA · closesB
- 3 ABAB oldenA · ardenB · goldenA · gardenB
- 4 ABAB youA · artB · youA · heartB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Yours is a garden of old-fashioned flowers; | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Joyous children delight to play there; | 9 | /˘/˘˘/··· |
| Weary men find rest in its bowers, | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| Watching the lingering light of day there. | 10 | /˘·/˘˘···· |
| Old-time tunes and young love-laughter | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Ripple and run among the roses; | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| Memory's echoes, murmuring after, | 10 | /˘˘/˘/˘˘·· |
| Fill the dusk when the long day closes. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Simple songs with a cadence olden-- | 9 | /˘···/˘/˘ |
| These you learned in the Forest of Arden: | 10 | ·····/˘·/˘ |
| Friendly flowers with hearts all golden-- | 9 | /˘/˘···/˘ |
| These you borrowed from Eden's garden. | 10 | ··/·˘·/˘/˘ |
| This is the reason why all men love you; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Truth to life is the finest art: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Other poets may soar above you-- | 9 | /˘/˘····· |
| You keep close to the human heart. | 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.