Second Winter-Song
Cold till Doom!Glowers more fearfully the gloom!Each gleaming furrow is a river,A loch in each ford's room.
Each pool is deepened to a perilous pit,A standing-stone each plain, a wood each moor;The clamouring flight of birds no shelter finds,White snow winds towards the door.
Like to a spectral host each sharp slim shape,Each leaping lake swelled to a mighty main;Wide as a wether's skin each falling flake,Shield-broad, each drop of rain.
Swift frost again hath fastened all the ways,It strove and struggled upwards o'er the wold,About Colt's standing-stone the tempest sways,Shuddering, men cry, "'Tis cold!"
Words in this poem
- fearfully adv.
- In a fearful manner.
- loch n.
- A lake; a bay or arm of the sea. [Gael. & Olr. loch. See Lake of water.]
- flake n.
- A paling; a hurdle. [prov. Eng.] [Cf. Icel. flaki, fleki, Dan. flage, D. vlaak.]
- wold n.
- A wood; a forest. [OE. wold, wald, AS. weald, wald, a wood, forest; akin to OFries. & OS. wald, D. woud, G. wald, Icel. völlr, a field, and probably to Gr. va a garden, inclosure.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Second 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, Second Winter-Song, in The Poem-Book of the Gael (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #46917, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hull-gael/second-winter-song.html, id L11676.
Form and metre
Second Winter-Song is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.5 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 AA-A doomA · gloomA · river · roomA
- 3 -A-A shape · mainA · flake · rainA
- 4 ABAB waysA · woldB · swaysA · coldB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cold till Doom! | 3 | ··· |
| Glowers more fearfully the gloom! | 8 | /˘·/˘˘·· |
| Each gleaming furrow is a river, | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| A loch in each ford's room. | 6 | ······ |
| Each pool is deepened to a perilous pit, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| A standing-stone each plain, a wood each moor; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The clamouring flight of birds no shelter finds, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| White snow winds towards the door. | 7 | ······· |
| Like to a spectral host each sharp slim shape, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Each leaping lake swelled to a mighty main; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Wide as a wether's skin each falling flake, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Shield-broad, each drop of rain. | 6 | ······ |
| Swift frost again hath fastened all the ways, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| It strove and struggled upwards o'er the wold, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| About Colt's standing-stone the tempest sways, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Shuddering, men cry, "'Tis cold!" | 7 | /˘˘···· |
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.