Come
Wull ye come in eaerly Spring,Come at Easter, or in May?Or when Whitsuntide mid bringLonger light to show your way?Wull ye come, if you be true,Vor to quicken love anew.Wull ye call in Spring or Fall?Come now soon by zun or moon?Wull ye come?
Come wi' vaice to vaice the whileAll their words be sweet to hear;Come that feaece to feaece mid smile,While their smiles do seem so dear;Come within the year to seekWoone you have sought woonce a week?Come while flow'rs be on the bow'rs.And the bird o' zong's a-heaerd.Wull ye come?
Ees come to ye, an' come vor ye, is my word,I wull come.
Words in this poem
- whitsuntide n.
- The week commencing with Whitsunday, esp. the first three days -- Whitsunday, Whitsun Monday, and Whitsun Tuesday; the time of Pentecost. R. of Gloucester. [Whitsunday + tide.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Come is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, Project Gutenberg ebook #21785; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Barnes, Come, in Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect (1844–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/barnes-dorset/come.html, id L02279.
Form and metre
Come is 20 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.9 syllables. 15% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABABCC--- springA · mayB · bringA · wayB · trueC · anewC · fall · moon · come
- 2 ABABCC--- whileA · hearB · smileA · dearB · seekC · weekC · bow'rs · heaerd · come
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Wull ye come in eaerly Spring, | 8 | ········ |
| Come at Easter, or in May? | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Or when Whitsuntide mid bring | 7 | ··/˘˘·· |
| Longer light to show your way? | 7 | /˘····· |
| Wull ye come, if you be true, | 8 | ········ |
| Vor to quicken love anew. | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Wull ye call in Spring or Fall? | 8 | ········ |
| Come now soon by zun or moon? | 7 | ······· |
| Wull ye come? | 4 | ···· |
| Come wi' vaice to vaice the while | 7 | ······· |
| All their words be sweet to hear; | 7 | ······· |
| Come that feaece to feaece mid smile, | 7 | ······· |
| While their smiles do seem so dear; | 7 | ······· |
| Come within the year to seek | 7 | ······· |
| Woone you have sought woonce a week? | 7 | ······· |
| Come while flow'rs be on the bow'rs. | 7 | ······· |
| And the bird o' zong's a-heaerd. | 7 | ······· |
| Wull ye come? | 4 | ···· |
| Ees come to ye, an' come vor ye, is my word, | 11 | ··········· |
| I wull come. | 4 | ···· |
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.