Thou Art Not False, but Thou Art Fickle.Bu
Thou art not false, but thou art fickle,To those thyself so fondly sought;The tears that thou hast forced to trickleAre doubly bitter from that thought:'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest,Too well thou lov'st--too soon thou leavest.
The wholly false the heart despises,And spurns deceiver and deceit;But she who not a thought disguises,bvWhose love is as sincere as sweet,--When she can change who loved so truly,It feels what mine has felt so newly.
To dream of joy and wake to sorrowIs doomed to all who love or live;And if, when conscious on the morrow,We scarce our Fancy can forgive,That cheated us in slumber only,To leave the waking soul more lonely,
What must they feel whom no false visionBut truest, tenderest Passion warmed?Sincere, but swift in sad transition:As if a dream alone had charmed?Ah! sure such grief is Fancy's scheming,And all thy Change can be but dreaming!
Words in this poem
- fondly adv.
- Foolishly. Verstegan (1673).
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
- scheming a.
- Given to forming schemes; artful; intriguing.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Thou Art Not False, but Thou Art Fickle.Bu is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3, Project Gutenberg ebook #21811; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, Thou Art Not False, but Thou Art Fickle.Bu, in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/thou-art-not-false-but-thou-art-fickle-bu.html, id L23854.
Form and metre
Thou Art Not False, but Thou Art Fickle.Bu is 24 lines in 4 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
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 ABABCC fickleA · soughtB · trickleA · thoughtB · grievestC · leavestC
- 2 -A-ABB despises · deceitA · disguises,bv · sweetA · trulyB · newlyB
- 3 ABABCC sorrowA · liveB · morrowA · forgiveB · onlyC · lonelyC
- 4 ----AA vision · warmed · transition · charmed · schemingA · dreamingA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou art not false, but thou art fickle, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| To those thyself so fondly sought; | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| The tears that thou hast forced to trickle | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Are doubly bitter from that thought: | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| 'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Too well thou lov'st--too soon thou leavest. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| The wholly false the heart despises, | 9 | ·/˘···˘/˘ |
| And spurns deceiver and deceit; | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| But she who not a thought disguises,bv | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Whose love is as sincere as sweet,-- | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| When she can change who loved so truly, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| It feels what mine has felt so newly. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| To dream of joy and wake to sorrow | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Is doomed to all who love or live; | 8 | ········ |
| And if, when conscious on the morrow, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| We scarce our Fancy can forgive, | 8 | ··//˘·˘/ |
| That cheated us in slumber only, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| To leave the waking soul more lonely, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| What must they feel whom no false vision | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| But truest, tenderest Passion warmed? | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Sincere, but swift in sad transition: | 9 | ˘/····˘/˘ |
| As if a dream alone had charmed? | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Ah! sure such grief is Fancy's scheming, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| And all thy Change can be but dreaming! | 9 | ·······/˘ |
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.