The Lowlands o’ Holland
‘My love has built a bonny ship, and set her on the sea,With seven score good mariners to bear her companỳ;There’s three score is sunk, and three score dead at sea,And the Lowlands o’ Holland has twin’d my love and me.
‘My love he built another ship, and set her on the main,And nane but twenty mariners for to bring her hame;But the weary wind began to rise, and the sea began to rout,My love then and his bonny ship turn’d withershins about.
‘Then shall neither coif come on my head nor comb come in my hair;Then shall neither coal nor candle-light shine in my bower mair;Nor will I love another one until the day I die,Sin’ the Lowlands o’ Holland has twin’d my love and me.’--
‘O haud your tongue, my daughter dear, be still and be content;There are mair lads in Galloway, ye neen nae sair lament.’--‘O there is none in Gallow, there’s none at a’ for me,For I never loved a love but one, and he’s drown’d in the sea.’
Words in this poem
- bonny a.
- Handsome; beautiful; pretty; attractively lively and graceful. [OE. boni, prob. fr. F. bon, fem. bonne, good, fr. L. bonus good. See Bounty, and cf. Bonus, Boon.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- galloway n.
- A small horse of a breed raised at Galloway, Scotland; -- called also garran, and garron.
- gallow v. t.
- To fright or terrify. See Gally, v. t. [Cf. AS. agelwan to stupefy.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Lowlands o’ Holland is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of Ballads, Project Gutenberg ebook #44593; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Lowlands o’ Holland, in The Oxford Book of Ballads (before 1800), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #44593, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/oxford-ballads/the-lowlands-o-holland.html, id L08508.
Form and metre
The Lowlands o’ Holland is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.5 syllables.
See other poems in iambic heptameter.
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-AA seaA · companỳ · seaA · meA
- 2 --AA main · hame · routA · aboutA
- 3 AABB hairA · mairA · dieB · meB
- 4 AABB contentA · lamentA · meB · seaB
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| ‘My love has built a bonny ship, and set her on the sea, | 14 | ·····/˘······· |
| With seven score good mariners to bear her companỳ; | 11 | ·/··/˘····· |
| There’s three score is sunk, and three score dead at sea, | 11 | ··········· |
| And the Lowlands o’ Holland has twin’d my love and me. | 13 | ··/··/˘······ |
| ‘My love he built another ship, and set her on the main, | 14 | ····˘/˘······· |
| And nane but twenty mariners for to bring her hame; | 12 | ···/˘/˘····· |
| But the weary wind began to rise, and the sea began to rout, | 16 | ··/˘·˘/·····˘/·· |
| My love then and his bonny ship turn’d withershins about. | 14 | ·····/˘······· |
| ‘Then shall neither coif come on my head nor comb come in my hair; | 15 | ··/˘··········· |
| Then shall neither coal nor candle-light shine in my bower mair; | 14 | ··/˘··/˘····/· |
| Nor will I love another one until the day I die, | 14 | ····˘/˘······· |
| Sin’ the Lowlands o’ Holland has twin’d my love and me.’-- | 13 | ··/··/˘······ |
| ‘O haud your tongue, my daughter dear, be still and be content; | 14 | ·····/˘·····˘/ |
| There are mair lads in Galloway, ye neen nae sair lament.’-- | 14 | ·····/˘·····˘/ |
| ‘O there is none in Gallow, there’s none at a’ for me, | 13 | ·····/˘······ |
| For I never loved a love but one, and he’s drown’d in the sea.’ | 14 | ··/··········· |
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