"Tu Mi Chamas"
In moments to delight devoted,"My Life!" with tenderest tone, you cry;Dear words! on which my heart had doted,If Youth could neither fade nor die.
To Death even hours like these must roll,Ah! then repeat those accents never;Or change "my Life!" into "my Soul!"Which, like my Love, exists for ever.
Words in this poem
- doted a.
- Stupid; foolish.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"Tu Mi Chamas" 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, "Tu Mi Chamas", in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/tu-mi-chamas.html, id L23859.
Form and metre
"Tu Mi Chamas" is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 ABAB devotedA · cryB · dotedA · dieB
- 2 ABAB rollA · neverB · soulA · everB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In moments to delight devoted, | 9 | ·/˘·˘/˘/˘ |
| "My Life!" with tenderest tone, you cry; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Dear words! on which my heart had doted, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| If Youth could neither fade nor die. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To Death even hours like these must roll, | 8 | ··//···· |
| Ah! then repeat those accents never; | 9 | ··˘/·/˘/˘ |
| Or change "my Life!" into "my Soul!" | 8 | ········ |
| Which, like my Love, exists for ever. | 9 | ····˘/·/˘ |
Notes from the edition 1
E. H. Coleridge's notes to The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry, Vol. III (John Murray, 1900; Project Gutenberg #21811). Bracketed passages are the editor's; unbracketed are Byron's own or earlier editors'. Lettered variant readings (manuscript and edition collations) are not harvested here, matching the treatment of Coleridge's Don Juan notes.
- Stanza 1, line 1 ["In moments to delight devoted 'My Life!' is still the name you give, Dear words! on which my heart had doted Had Man an endless term to live. But, ah! so swift the seasons roll That name must be repeated never, For 'Life' in future say, 'My Soul,' Which like my love exists for ever."
Byron wrote these lines in 1815, in Lady Lansdowne's album, at Bowood.--Note by Mr. Richard Edgecombe, Notes and Queries, Sixth Series, vii. 46.]
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