Poems
Fra bank to bank, fra wood to wood I rin,Ourhailit with my feeble fantasie;Like til a leaf that fallis from a tree,Or til a reed ourblawin with the win.
Twa gods guides me: the ane of tham is blin,Yea and a bairn brocht up in vanitie;The next a wife ingenrit of the sea,And lichter nor a dauphin with her fin.
Unhappy is the man for evermairThat tills the sand and sawis in the air;But twice unhappier is he, I lairn,That feidis in his hairt a mad desire,And follows on a woman throw the fire,Led by a blind and teachit by a bairn.
Words in this poem
- blin v. t.
- To stop; to cease; to desist. [OE. blinnen, AS. blinnan; pref. be- + linnan to cease.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poems is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mark Alexander Boyd, Poems, (1563–1601), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-mark-alexander-boyd/sonet.html, id L15985.
Form and metre
Sonet is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 --AB rin · fantasie · treeA · winB
- 2 --AB blin · vanitie · seaA · finB
- 3 CC-DD- evermairC · airC · lairn · desireD · fireD · bairn
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Fra bank to bank, fra wood to wood I rin, | 10 | ·········· |
| Ourhailit with my feeble fantasie; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Like til a leaf that fallis from a tree, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Or til a reed ourblawin with the win. | 10 | ·········· |
| Twa gods guides me: the ane of tham is blin, | 10 | ·········· |
| Yea and a bairn brocht up in vanitie; | 10 | ·········· |
| The next a wife ingenrit of the sea, | 10 | ·········· |
| And lichter nor a dauphin with her fin. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Unhappy is the man for evermair | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| That tills the sand and sawis in the air; | 10 | ·········· |
| But twice unhappier is he, I lairn, | 9 | ········· |
| That feidis in his hairt a mad desire, | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| And follows on a woman throw the fire, | 11 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Led by a blind and teachit by a bairn. | 10 | ·········· |
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.