First Volume
An American Tale.Sonnet to Mrs. Bates.Sonnet to Twilight.To Sensibility.A Song.An Ode on the Peace.Edwin and Eltruda, a Legendary Tale.A Hymn.Paraphrases from Scripture.
Words in this poem
- sonnet n.
- A short poem, -- usually amatory. [F., fr. It. sonetto, fr. suono a sound, a song, fr. L. sonus a sound. See Sound noise.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
First Volume is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems (1786), Volume I., Project Gutenberg ebook #11054; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Helen Maria Williams, First Volume, in Poems (1786) (1786), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #11054, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-helen-poems/first-volume.html, id L10019.
Form and metre
First Volume is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 76% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.7 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in trochaic 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 A-----A-- taleA · bates · twilight · sensibility · song · peace · taleA · hymn · scripture
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| An American Tale. | 6 | ·˘/˘˘· |
| Sonnet to Mrs. Bates. | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Sonnet to Twilight. | 5 | /˘·/· |
| To Sensibility. | 6 | ··˘/˘˘ |
| A Song. | 2 | ·· |
| An Ode on the Peace. | 5 | ····· |
| Edwin and Eltruda, a Legendary Tale. | 12 | /˘·····/˘·˘· |
| A Hymn. | 2 | ·· |
| Paraphrases from Scripture. | 7 | /˘·˘·/˘ |
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.