The Mirror
The mirror held your fair, my Fair,A fickle moment’s space.You looked into mine eyes, and thereFor ever fixed your face.
Keep rather to your looking-glassThan my more faithful eyes:It told the truth--Alas! my lass,My constant memory lies.
Words in this poem
- lass n.
- A youth woman; a girl; a sweetheart. [OE. lasse; prob. of Celtic origin; cf. W. llodes girl, fem. of llawd lad. (Lad a youth.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Mirror is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, The Mirror, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/the-mirror.html, id L21714.
Form and metre
The Mirror is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABAB fairA · spaceB · thereA · faceB
- 2 ABAB glassA · eyesB · lassA · liesB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The mirror held your fair, my Fair, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| A fickle moment’s space. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| You looked into mine eyes, and there | 8 | ········ |
| For ever fixed your face. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Keep rather to your looking-glass | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Than my more faithful eyes: | 6 | ···/˘· |
| It told the truth--Alas! my lass, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| My constant memory lies. | 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.