Morna
Whence the son of Mugruch, Duchommarthe most gloomy of men? Darkare thy brows of terror. Red thy rollingeyes. Does Garve appear on thesea? What of the foe, Duchommar?
About this text
Morna 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, Morna, in Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8161, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macpherson-ossian/morna.html, id L09655.
Form and metre
Morna is 5 lines in a single stanza. 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.
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 A---A duchommarA · dark · rolling · the · duchommarA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Whence the son of Mugruch, Duchommar | 9 | ········· |
| the most gloomy of men? Dark | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| are thy brows of terror. Red thy rolling | 10 | ····/˘··/˘ |
| eyes. Does Garve appear on the | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| sea? What of the foe, Duchommar? | 8 | ········ |
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.