Ryno
The wind and the rain are over:calm is the noon of day. Theclouds are divided in heaven. Overthe green hills flies the inconstant sun.Red through the stony vale comesdown the stream of the hill. Sweet arethy murmurs, O stream! but moresweet is the voice I hear. It is the voiceof Alpin the son of the song, mourningfor the dead. Bent is his head of age,and red his tearful eye. Alpin, thouson of the song, why alone on the silenthill? why complainest thou, as ablast in the wood; as a wave on thelonely shore?
Words in this poem
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- tearful a.
- Abounding with tears; weeping; shedding tears; as, tearful eyes.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ryno 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, Ryno, in Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8161, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macpherson-ossian/ryno.html, id L09651.
Form and metre
Ryno is 15 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 73% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABA---C-----BBC overA · theB · overA · sun · comes · are · moreC · voice · mourning · age · thou · silent · aB · theB · shoreC
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 trochaic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The wind and the rain are over: | 8 | ········ |
| calm is the noon of day. The | 7 | ······· |
| clouds are divided in heaven. Over | 10 | ··˘/˘·/˘·· |
| the green hills flies the inconstant sun. | 9 | ·····˘/˘· |
| Red through the stony vale comes | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| down the stream of the hill. Sweet are | 8 | ········ |
| thy murmurs, O stream! but more | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| sweet is the voice I hear. It is the voice | 10 | ·········· |
| of Alpin the son of the song, mourning | 10 | ·˘/·····/˘ |
| for the dead. Bent is his head of age, | 9 | ········· |
| and red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou | 9 | ···/˘·˘/· |
| son of the song, why alone on the silent | 11 | ·····˘/··/˘ |
| hill? why complainest thou, as a | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| blast in the wood; as a wave on the | 9 | ········· |
| lonely shore? | 3 | /˘· |
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.