Triolet
I'm a puir man I grant,But I am weel neiboured;And nane shall me dauntThough a puir man, I grant;For I shall not want--The Lord is my Shepherd!I'm a puir man I grant,But I am weel neiboured!
Words in this poem
- weel
- A kind of trap or snare for fish, made of twigs. Carew. [Prov. E. weel, weal, a wicker basket to catch eels; prob. akin to willow, and so called as made of willow twigs.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- daunt v. t.
- To overcome; to conquer. [OF. danter, F. dompter to tame, subdue, fr. L. domitare, v. intens. of domare to tame. See Tame.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Triolet 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, Triolet, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/triolet-4.html, id L22556.
Form and metre
Triolet is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See other poems in iambic 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 ABCAC-AB grantA · neibouredB · dauntC · grantA · wantC · shepherd · grantA · neibouredB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I'm a puir man I grant, | 6 | ······ |
| But I am weel neiboured; | 6 | ······ |
| And nane shall me daunt | 5 | ····· |
| Though a puir man, I grant; | 6 | ······ |
| For I shall not want-- | 5 | ····· |
| The Lord is my Shepherd! | 6 | ····/˘ |
| I'm a puir man I grant, | 6 | ······ |
| But I am weel neiboured! | 6 | ······ |
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.