A Winter Song
“SWIFT away, swift away,”Sang the fickle swallow,Oh! the fickle swallow,Flying to the sun!“Come, my little brothers,Bring your feathered mothers,Come away, come away,Each and every one.”
“Only stay, only stay,”Sang the lonely poet,Oh! the lonely poet,All among the snow!Robin Redbreast heard, and said,“I am here though summer’s dead;Cheer up, cheer up,I will never go!”
About this text
A Winter Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #50591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Radclyffe Hall, A Winter Song, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/a-winter-song.html, id L22695.
Form and metre
A Winter Song is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 ABBCDDAC awayA · swallowB · swallowB · sunC · brothersD · mothersD · awayA · oneC
- 2 -AABCC-B stay · poetA · poetA · snowB · saidC · deadC · up · goB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| “SWIFT away, swift away,” | 6 | ·˘/·˘/ |
| Sang the fickle swallow, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Oh! the fickle swallow, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Flying to the sun! | 5 | /˘··· |
| “Come, my little brothers, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Bring your feathered mothers, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Come away, come away, | 6 | ·˘/·˘/ |
| Each and every one.” | 6 | ··/˘˘· |
| “Only stay, only stay,” | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Sang the lonely poet, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Oh! the lonely poet, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| All among the snow! | 5 | ····· |
| Robin Redbreast heard, and said, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| “I am here though summer’s dead; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Cheer up, cheer up, | 4 | ···· |
| I will never go!” | 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.