Indian
It is an Indian maid, who chanced to hearThy tale of sorrow, as she wandered near:I loved a white man once; but he is flown,And now I wander heartless and alone.I traced the dark and winding way beneath:But well I know to lead thee hence were death.Oh, say! what fortunes cast thee o'er the wave,On these sad shores perhaps to find a grave?
Words in this poem
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
- heartless a.
- Without a heart.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Indian is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan, Project Gutenberg ebook #18915; 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 Lisle Bowles, Indian, in The Poetical Works, Volume I (1789–1837), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18915, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bowles-sonnets/indian-2.html, id L10008.
Form and metre
Indian is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 75% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABB--CC hearA · nearA · flownB · aloneB · beneath · death · waveC · graveC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| It is an Indian maid, who chanced to hear | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Thy tale of sorrow, as she wandered near: | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| I loved a white man once; but he is flown, | 10 | ·········· |
| And now I wander heartless and alone. | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| I traced the dark and winding way beneath: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But well I know to lead thee hence were death. | 10 | ·········· |
| Oh, say! what fortunes cast thee o'er the wave, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| On these sad shores perhaps to find a grave? | 10 | ····˘/···· |
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.