Winter in Durnover Field (Triolet)
Rook.—Throughout the field I find no grain;The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!Starling.—Aye: patient pecking now is vainThroughout the field, I find . . .Rook.—No grain!Pigeon.—Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,Or genial thawings loose the lorn landThroughout the field.Rook.—I find no grain:The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
Words in this poem
- rook n.
- Mist; fog. See Roke.
- genial a.
- Contributing to, or concerned in, propagation or production; generative; procreative; productive. [L. genialis: cf. OF. genial. See Genius.]
- lorn a.
- Lost; undone; ruined. [Strong p. p. of Lose. See Lose, Forlorn.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Winter in Durnover Field (Triolet) is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hardy, Winter in Durnover Field (Triolet), in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/winter-in-durnover-field-triolet.html, id L16915.
Form and metre
Winter in Durnover Field (Triolet) is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 87% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABABAAB-AB grainA · cornlandB · vainA · findB · grainA · rainA · landB · field · grainA · cornlandB
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 iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Rook.—Throughout the field I find no grain; | 9 | ········· |
| The cruel frost encrusts the cornland! | 8 | ·/·˘/··· |
| Starling.—Aye: patient pecking now is vain | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| Throughout the field, I find . . . | 6 | ······ |
| Rook.—No grain! | 3 | ··· |
| Pigeon.—Nor will be, comrade, till it rain, | 10 | /˘···/···· |
| Or genial thawings loose the lorn land | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
| Throughout the field. | 4 | ···· |
| Rook.—I find no grain: | 5 | ····· |
| The cruel frost encrusts the cornland! | 8 | ·/·˘/··· |
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.