A Dirge
Rough wind, that moanest loudGrief too sad for song;Wild wind, when sullen cloudKnells all the night long;Sad storm whose tears are vain,Bare woods, whose branches strain,Deep caves and dreary main,--Wail, for the world's wrong!
Words in this poem
- sullen a.
- Lonely; solitary; desolate. Wyclif (Job iii. 14). [OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.]
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Dirge is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #4798; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Dirge, in Ode to the West Wind, and Other Poems (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/a-dirge.html, id L16485.
Form and metre
A Dirge is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCCCB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.6 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABABCCCB loudA · songB · cloudA · longB · vainC · strainC · mainC · wrongB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Rough wind, that moanest loud | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Grief too sad for song; | 5 | ····· |
| Wild wind, when sullen cloud | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Knells all the night long; | 5 | ····· |
| Sad storm whose tears are vain, | 6 | ······ |
| Bare woods, whose branches strain, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Deep caves and dreary main,-- | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Wail, for the world's wrong! | 5 | ····· |
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.