Out Over the Forth
Out over the Forth, I look to the North;But what is the north and its Highlands to me?The south nor the east gie ease to my breast,The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea.
But I look to the west when I gae to rest,That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;For far in the west lives he I loe best,The man that is dear to my babie and me.
About this text
Out Over the Forth 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, Out Over the Forth, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/out-over-the-forth.html, id L03222.
Form and metre
Out Over the Forth is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.5 syllables.
See other poems in anapaestic 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-A north · meA · breast · seaA
- 2 ABAB restA · beB · bestA · meB
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Out over the Forth, I look to the North; | 9 | ········· |
| But what is the north and its Highlands to me? | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, | 10 | ·········· |
| The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea. | 11 | ··/˘····/˘· |
| But I look to the west when I gae to rest, | 11 | ··········· |
| That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be; | 11 | ·/˘····/˘·· |
| For far in the west lives he I loe best, | 10 | ·········· |
| The man that is dear to my babie and me. | 11 | ··········· |
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.