First Winter-Song
Take my tidings!Stags contend;Snows descend--Summer's end!
A chill wind raging;The sun low keeping,Swift to setO'er seas high sweeping.
Dull red the fern;Shapes are shadows:Wild geese mournO'er misty meadows.
Keen cold limesEach weaker wing.Icy times--Such I sing!Take my tidings!
About this text
First Winter-Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poem-Book of the Gael Translations from Irish Gaelic Poetry into English Prose and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #46917; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eleanor Hull, First Winter-Song, in The Poem-Book of the Gael (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #46917, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hull-gael/first-winter-song.html, id L11675.
Form and metre
First Winter-Song is 17 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is trochaic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 3.8 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 18% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic dimeter.
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 tidings · contendA · descendA · endA
- 2 -A-A raging · keepingA · set · sweepingA
- 3 -A-A fern · shadowsA · mourn · meadowsA
- 4 ABAB- limesA · wingB · timesA · singB · tidings
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Take my tidings! | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Stags contend; | 3 | ·˘/ |
| Snows descend-- | 3 | ·˘/ |
| Summer's end! | 3 | /˘· |
| A chill wind raging; | 5 | ···/˘ |
| The sun low keeping, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Swift to set | 3 | ··· |
| O'er seas high sweeping. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Dull red the fern; | 4 | ···· |
| Shapes are shadows: | 4 | ··/· |
| Wild geese mourn | 3 | ··· |
| O'er misty meadows. | 5 | ·/˘/· |
| Keen cold limes | 3 | ··· |
| Each weaker wing. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Icy times-- | 3 | /˘· |
| Such I sing! | 3 | ··· |
| Take my tidings! | 4 | ··/˘ |
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.