Completion
What voice is that I hear?That voice like the summer wind. ("Fragment I")
The warriours saw her, and loved;Their souls were fixed on the maid.Each loved her, as his fame;Each must possess her or die.But her soul was fixed on Oscur;My son was the youth of her love. ("Fragment VII")
Autumn is dark on the mountains;Grey mist rests on the hills.The whirlwind is heard on the heath.Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. ("Fragment V")
About this text
Completion is in the public domain. This text is taken from Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Project Gutenberg ebook #8161; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: James Macpherson, Completion, in Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8161, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macpherson-ossian/completion.html, id L09631.
Form and metre
Completion is 12 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| What voice is that I hear? | 6 | ······ |
| That voice like the summer wind. ("Fragment I") | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| The warriours saw her, and loved; | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Their souls were fixed on the maid. | 7 | ······· |
| Each loved her, as his fame; | 6 | ······ |
| Each must possess her or die. | 7 | ··˘/··· |
| But her soul was fixed on Oscur; | 8 | ········ |
| My son was the youth of her love. ("Fragment VII") | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Autumn is dark on the mountains; | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Grey mist rests on the hills. | 6 | ······ |
| The whirlwind is heard on the heath. | 8 | ·/······ |
| Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. ("Fragment V") | 13 | ···/˘··/˘·/˘· |
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.