Tune—“The Quaker’s Wife”
Blythe hae I been on yon hill,As the lambs before me;Careless ilka thought and free,As the breeze flew o’er me;Now nae langer sport and play,Mirth or sang can please me;Lesley is sae fair and coy,Care and anguish seize me.
Heavy, heavy is the task,Hopeless love declaring;Trembling, I dow nocht but glow’r,Sighing, dumb despairing!If she winna ease the thrawsIn my bosom swelling,Underneath the grass-green sod,Soon maun be my dwelling.
Words in this poem
- despairing a.
- Feeling or expressing despair; hopeless.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Tune—“The Quaker’s Wife” 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, Tune—“The Quaker’s Wife”, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/tune-the-quaker-s-wife.html, id L03321.
Form and metre
Tune—“The Quaker’s Wife” is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.6 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 6% 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 -AAA-A-A hill · meA · freeA · meA · play · meA · coy · meA
- 2 -A-A-B-B task · declaringA · glow'r · despairingA · thraws · swellingB · sod · dwellingB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Blythe hae I been on yon hill, | 7 | ······· |
| As the lambs before me; | 6 | ······ |
| Careless ilka thought and free, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| As the breeze flew o’er me; | 6 | ······ |
| Now nae langer sport and play, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Mirth or sang can please me; | 6 | ······ |
| Lesley is sae fair and coy, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Care and anguish seize me. | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Heavy, heavy is the task, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Hopeless love declaring; | 6 | /˘·˘/˘ |
| Trembling, I dow nocht but glow’r, | 8 | /˘˘····· |
| Sighing, dumb despairing! | 6 | /˘·˘/˘ |
| If she winna ease the thraws | 7 | ······· |
| In my bosom swelling, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Underneath the grass-green sod, | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Soon maun be my dwelling. | 6 | ····/˘ |
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.