Frae the Friends and Land I Love
Frae the friends and land I love,Driv’n by Fortune’s felly spite;Frae my best belov’d I rove,Never mair to taste delight:Never mair maun hope to findEase frae toil, relief frae care;When Remembrance wracks the mind,Pleasures but unveil despair.
Brightest climes shall mirk appear,Desert ilka blooming shore,Till the Fates, nae mair severe,Friendship, love, and peace restore,Till Revenge, wi’ laurel’d head,Bring our banished hame again;And ilk loyal, bonie ladCross the seas, and win his ain.
Words in this poem
- felly
- , adv. In a fell or cruel manner; fiercely; barbarously; savagely.
- unveil v. t.
- To remove a veil from; to divest of a veil; to uncover; to disclose to view; to reveal; as, she unveiled her face. [1st pref. un- + veil.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- mirk a.
- Dark; gloomy; murky. Spenser. Mrs. Browning. [See Murky.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Frae the Friends and Land I Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, Project Gutenberg ebook #1279; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Burns, Frae the Friends and Land I Love, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/frae-the-friends-and-land-i-love.html, id L03251.
Form and metre
Frae the Friends and Land I Love is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 12% 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 -A-ABCBC love · spiteA · rove · delightA · findB · careC · mindB · despairC
- 2 ABAB-C-C appearA · shoreB · severeA · restoreB · head · againC · lad · ainC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Frae the friends and land I love, | 7 | ······· |
| Driv’n by Fortune’s felly spite; | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Frae my best belov’d I rove, | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| Never mair to taste delight: | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Never mair maun hope to find | 7 | /˘····· |
| Ease frae toil, relief frae care; | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| When Remembrance wracks the mind, | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Pleasures but unveil despair. | 7 | /˘·˘/˘/ |
| Brightest climes shall mirk appear, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Desert ilka blooming shore, | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| Till the Fates, nae mair severe, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Friendship, love, and peace restore, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Till Revenge, wi’ laurel’d head, | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Bring our banished hame again; | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And ilk loyal, bonie lad | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Cross the seas, and win his ain. | 7 | ······· |
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.