Amour 1
Reade heere (sweet Mayd) the story of my wo,The drery abstracts of my endles cares,With my liues sorow enterlyned so;Smok'd with my sighes, and blotted with my teares:The sad memorials of my miseries,Pend in the griefe of myne afflicted ghost;My liues complaint in doleful Elegies,With so pure loue as tyme could neuer boast.Receaue the incense which I offer heere,By my strong fayth ascending to thy fame,My zeale, my hope, my vowes, my praise, my prayer,My soules oblation to thy sacred name:Which name my Muse to highest heauen shal raiseBy chast desire, true loue, and vertues praise.
Words in this poem
- pend n.
- Oil cake; penock. [India]
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- oblation n.
- The act of offering, or of making an offering. [L. oblatio: cf. F. oblation. See Oblate.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Amour 1 is in the public domain. This text is taken from Minor Poems of Michael Drayton, Project Gutenberg ebook #17873; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Michael Drayton, Amour 1, in Minor Poems (1594–1619), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17873, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drayton-minor-poems/amour-1.html, id L20542.
Form and metre
Amour 1 is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
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-C-C-D-DEE woA · caresB · soA · tearesB · miseries · ghostC · elegies · boastC · heere · fameD · prayer · nameD · raiseE · praiseE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Reade heere (sweet Mayd) the story of my wo, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The drery abstracts of my endles cares, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| With my liues sorow enterlyned so; | 10 | ········˘· |
| Smok'd with my sighes, and blotted with my teares: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The sad memorials of my miseries, | 11 | ··˘/˘˘··/˘˘ |
| Pend in the griefe of myne afflicted ghost; | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| My liues complaint in doleful Elegies, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘/˘˘ |
| With so pure loue as tyme could neuer boast. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Receaue the incense which I offer heere, | 9 | ··/···/˘· |
| By my strong fayth ascending to thy fame, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| My zeale, my hope, my vowes, my praise, my prayer, | 11 | ··········· |
| My soules oblation to thy sacred name: | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Which name my Muse to highest heauen shal raise | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| By chast desire, true loue, and vertues praise. | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
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.