Gude Ale Keeps the Heart Aboon
Chorus—O gude ale comes and gude ale goes;Gude ale gars me sell my hose,Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon—Gude ale keeps my heart aboon!
I had sax owsen in a pleugh,And they drew a’ weel eneugh:I sell’d them a’ just ane by ane—Gude ale keeps the heart aboon!O gude ale comes, &c.
Gude ale hauds me bare and busy,Gars me moop wi’ the servant hizzie,Stand i’ the stool when I hae done—Gude ale keeps the heart aboon!O gude ale comes, &c.
Words in this poem
- aboon prep.
- and adv. Above.
- weel
- A kind of trap or snare for fish, made of twigs. Carew. [Prov. E. weel, weal, a wicker basket to catch eels; prob. akin to willow, and so called as made of willow twigs.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Gude Ale Keeps the Heart Aboon 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, Gude Ale Keeps the Heart Aboon, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/gude-ale-keeps-the-heart-aboon.html, id L03410.
Form and metre
Gude Ale Keeps the Heart Aboon is 14 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 AABB goesA · hoseA · shoonB · aboonB
- 2 AA--- pleughA · eneughA · ane · aboon · —
- 3 AA--- busyA · hizzieA · done · aboon · —
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Chorus—O gude ale comes and gude ale goes; | 10 | /˘········ |
| Gude ale gars me sell my hose, | 7 | ······· |
| Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon— | 7 | ······· |
| Gude ale keeps my heart aboon! | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| I had sax owsen in a pleugh, | 8 | ········ |
| And they drew a’ weel eneugh: | 7 | ······· |
| I sell’d them a’ just ane by ane— | 8 | ········ |
| Gude ale keeps the heart aboon! | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| O gude ale comes, &c. | 5 | ····· |
| Gude ale hauds me bare and busy, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Gars me moop wi’ the servant hizzie, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Stand i’ the stool when I hae done— | 8 | ········ |
| Gude ale keeps the heart aboon! | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| O gude ale comes, &c. | 5 | ····· |
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.