Now
LOVE me now! Love has such a little minute!Day crowds on day with swift and noiseless tread,Life’s end comes ere fairly we begin it;Pain jostles joy, and hope gives place to dread.Love me now!It will be too late when we are dead!
Love me now! While we still are young together,While glad and brave the sun shines overhead,Hand locked in hand, in blue, smiling weather.Sighing were sin, and variance ill bestead;It will be too late when you are dead!
Love me now! Shadows hover in the distance,Cold winds are coming, green leaves must turn red.Frownest thou, my Love, at this sad insistence?Even this moment may the dart be sped.Love me now!It will be too late when I am dead!
Words in this poem
- fairly adv.
- In a fairmanner; clearly; openly; plainly; fully; distinctly; frankly.
- bestead v. t.
- To put in a certain situation or condition; to circumstance; to place. [Only in p. p.] [Pref. be- + stead a place.]
- hover n.
- A cover; a shelter; a protection. Carew. C. Kingsley. [Etymol. doubtful.]
- insistence n.
- The quality of insisting, or being urgent or pressing; the act of dwelling upon as of special importance; persistence; urgency.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Now is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Few More Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #49518; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Susan Coolidge, Now, in A Few More Verses (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49518, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coolidge-few-more-verses/now.html, id L23470.
Form and metre
Now is 17 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%).
See other poems in trochaic 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-B minuteA · treadB · itA · dreadB · now · deadB
- 2 ABABB togetherA · overheadB · weatherA · besteadB · deadB
- 3 ABAB-B distanceA · redB · insistenceA · spedB · now · deadB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| LOVE me now! Love has such a little minute! | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| Day crowds on day with swift and noiseless tread, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Life’s end comes ere fairly we begin it; | 10 | ····/˘·˘/· |
| Pain jostles joy, and hope gives place to dread. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Love me now! | 3 | ··· |
| It will be too late when we are dead! | 9 | ········· |
| Love me now! While we still are young together, | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| While glad and brave the sun shines overhead, | 10 | ·······/˘/ |
| Hand locked in hand, in blue, smiling weather. | 10 | ······/˘/˘ |
| Sighing were sin, and variance ill bestead; | 10 | /˘···/˘·˘/ |
| It will be too late when you are dead! | 9 | ········· |
| Love me now! Shadows hover in the distance, | 11 | ···/·/˘··/˘ |
| Cold winds are coming, green leaves must turn red. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Frownest thou, my Love, at this sad insistence? | 11 | /˘······˘/˘ |
| Even this moment may the dart be sped. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Love me now! | 3 | ··· |
| It will be too late when I am dead! | 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.