Analysis of No Boy Knows
There are many things that boys may know--
Why this and that are thus and so,--
Who made the world in the dark and lit
The great sun up to lighten it:
Boys know new things every day--
When they study, or when they play,--
When they idle, or sow and reap--
But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
Boys who listen--or should, at least,--
May know that the round old earth rolls East;--
And know that the ice and the snow and the rain--
Ever repeating their parts again--
Are all just water the sunbeams first
Sip from the earth in their endless thirst,
And pour again till the low streams leap.--
But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
A boy may know what a long glad while
It has been to him since the dawn's first smile,
When forth he fared in the realm divine
Of brook-laced woodland and spun-sunshine;--
He may know each call of his truant mates,
And the paths they went,--and the pasture-gates
Of the 'cross-lots home through the dusk so deep.--
But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
O I have followed me, o'er and o'er,
From the flagrant drowse on the parlor-floor,
To the pleading voice of the mother when
I even doubted I heard it then--
To the sense of a kiss, and a moonlit room,
And dewy odors of locust-bloom--
A sweet white cot--and a cricket's cheep.--
But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
Scheme | aabbccdD eexfggdD hhiijjdD xxffkkdD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111011111 11011101 110100101 01111101 11111001 11101111 11101101 111111111 11101111 111011111 01101001001 100101101 11110011 110101101 010110111 111111111 011110111 1111110111 111100101 1111011 1111111101 0011100101 1011110111 111111111 11110110010 1010110101 1010110101 110101111 1011010011 010101101 011100101 111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,284 |
Words | 262 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 246 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 63 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 1:19 min read
- 138 Views
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"No Boy Knows" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20981/no-boy-knows>.
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