Analysis of The happy household
Eugene Field 1850 (St. Louis) – 1895 (Chicago)
It's when the birds go piping and the daylight slowly breaks,
That, clamoring for his dinner, our precious baby wakes;
Then it's sleep no more for baby, and it's sleep no more for me,
For, when he wants his dinner, why it's dinner it must be!
And of that lacteal fluid he partakes with great ado,
While gran'ma laughs,
And gran'pa laughs,
And wife, she laughs,
And I - well, I laugh, too!
You'd think, to see us carrying on about that little tad,
That, like as not, that baby was the first we'd ever had;
But, sakes alive! he isn't, yet we people make a fuss
As if the only baby in the world had come to us!
And, morning, noon, and night-time, whatever he may do,
Gran'ma, she laughs,
Gran'pa, he laughs,
Wife, she laughs,
And I, of course, laugh, too!
But once - a likely spell ago - when that poor little chick
From teething or from some such ill of infancy fell sick,
You wouldn't know us people as the same that went about
A-feelin' good all over, just to hear him crow and shout;
And, though the doctor poohed our fears and said he'd pull him through,
Old gran'ma cried,
And gran'pa cried,
And wife, she cried,
And I - yes, I cried, too!
It makes us all feel good to have a baby on the place,
With his everlastin' crowing and his dimpling, dumpling face;
The patter of his pinky feet makes music everywhere,
And when he shakes those fists of his, good-by to every care!
No matter what our trouble is, when he begins to coo,
Old gran'ma laughs,
And gran'pa laughs,
Wife, she laughs,
And I - you bet, I laugh, too!
Scheme | aabbcdDdc eeffcddDc gghhciiic jjkkcdDDc |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101110001101 110011101010101 111111100111111 11111101110111 011110111101 1111 0111 0111 011111 111111001011101 11111101011101 11011101110101 11010100011111 010101110111 1111 1111 111 011111 11010101111101 11011111110011 11011101011101 0111101111101 010101101011111 1111 0111 0111 011111 11111111010101 11110011101 0101110111010 011111111111001 110110101110111 1111 0111 111 0111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,506 |
Words | 292 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 9, 9, 9 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 283 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 73 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:32 min read
- 108 Views
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"The happy household" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13076/the-happy-household>.
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