Wee Willie Gray
Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet,Peel a willow wand to be him boots and jacket;The rose upon the breir will be him trews an’ doublet,The rose upon the breir will be him trews an’ doublet,Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet,Twice a lily-flower will be him sark and cravat;Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet,Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet.
Words in this poem
- trews n.
- Trowsers; especially, those of the Scotch Highlanders.
- sark v. t.
- To cover with sarking, or thin boards.
- cravat n.
- A neckcloth; a piece of silk, fine muslin, or other cloth, worn by men about the neck. [F. cravate, fr. Cravate a Croat, an inhabitant of Croatia, one of a body of Austrian troops, from whom, in 1636, this article of dress was adopted in France.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Wee Willie Gray 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, Wee Willie Gray, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/wee-willie-gray.html, id L03408.
Form and metre
Wee Willie Gray is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 87% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.8 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic hexameter.
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-BBA-CC walletA · jacket · doubletB · doubletB · walletA · cravat · bonnetC · bonnetC
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet, | 10 | ·/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Peel a willow wand to be him boots and jacket; | 12 | ··/·······/˘ |
| The rose upon the breir will be him trews an’ doublet, | 13 | ···········/˘ |
| The rose upon the breir will be him trews an’ doublet, | 13 | ···········/˘ |
| Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet, | 10 | ·/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Twice a lily-flower will be him sark and cravat; | 12 | ··/˘/·····˘/ |
| Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet, | 12 | /˘····/˘··/˘ |
| Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet. | 12 | /˘····/˘··/˘ |
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.