Vinvela
Then thou art gone, O Shilric!and I am alone on the hill. Thedeer are seen on the brow; void offear they graze along. No more theydread the wind; no more the rustlingtree. The hunter is far removed;he is in the field of graves. Strangers!sons of the waves! spare mylovely Shilric.
About this text
Vinvela 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, Vinvela, in Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8161, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macpherson-ossian/vinvela-2.html, id L09634.
Form and metre
Vinvela is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 56% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 A-------A shilricA · the · of · they · rustling · removed · strangers · my · shilricA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Then thou art gone, O Shilric! | 7 | ······· |
| and I am alone on the hill. The | 9 | ···˘/···· |
| deer are seen on the brow; void of | 8 | ········ |
| fear they graze along. No more they | 8 | ···˘/··· |
| dread the wind; no more the rustling | 8 | ······/˘ |
| tree. The hunter is far removed; | 8 | ··/˘··˘/ |
| he is in the field of graves. Strangers! | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| sons of the waves! spare my | 6 | ······ |
| lovely Shilric. | 4 | /˘·· |
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.