Annie She's Dowie
Annie she's dowie, and Willie he's wae:What can be the matter wi' siccan a twae,For Annie she's fair as the first o' the day,And Willie he's honest and stalwart and gay?
Oh, the tane has a daddy is poor and is proud,And the tither a minnie that cleiks at the goud '.They lo'ed are anither, and said their say,But the daddy and minnie hae partit the twae!
Words in this poem
- stalwart a.
- Brave; bold; strong; redoubted; daring; vehement; violent. [OE. stalworth, AS. stælwyrth serviceable, probably originally, good at stealing, or worth stealing or taking, and afterwards extended to other causes of estimat]
- daddy n.
- Diminutive of Dad.
- tither n.
- One who collects tithes.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Annie She's Dowie is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #9984; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George MacDonald, Annie She's Dowie, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/annie-she-s-dowie.html, id L22528.
Form and metre
Annie She's Dowie is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
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 AABB waeA · twaeA · dayB · gayB
- 2 AA-- proudA · goudA · say · twae
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Annie she's dowie, and Willie he's wae: | 10 | /˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| What can be the matter wi' siccan a twae, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| For Annie she's fair as the first o' the day, | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| And Willie he's honest and stalwart and gay? | 11 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Oh, the tane has a daddy is poor and is proud, | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| And the tither a minnie that cleiks at the goud '. | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| They lo'ed are anither, and said their say, | 10 | ·········· |
| But the daddy and minnie hae partit the twae! | 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.