Amour 22
My hart, imprisoned in a hopeless Ile,Peopled with Armies of pale iealous eyes,The shores beset with thousand secret spyes,Must passe by ayre, or else dye in exile.He framd him wings with feathers of his thought,Which by theyr nature learn'd to mount the skye;And with the same he practised to flye,Till he himself thys Eagles art had taught.Thus soring still, not looking once below,So neere thyne eyes celesteall sunne aspyred,That with the rayes his wafting pyneons fired:Thus was the wanton cause of his owne woe.Downe fell he, in thy Beauties Ocean drenched,Yet there he burnes in fire thats neuer quenched.
Words in this poem
- peopled a.
- Stocked with, or as with, people; inhabited.
- passe a.
- Past; gone by; hence, past one's prime; worn; faded; as, a passée belle. Ld. Lytton. [F.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Amour 22 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 22, in Minor Poems (1594–1619), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17873, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drayton-minor-poems/amour-22.html, id L20563.
Form and metre
Amour 22 is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ABBAC--CD--D-- ileA · eyesB · spyesB · exileA · thoughtC · skye · flye · taughtC · belowD · aspyred · fired · woeD · drenched · quenched
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My hart, imprisoned in a hopeless Ile, | 11 | ··˘/˘··/˘·· |
| Peopled with Armies of pale iealous eyes, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| The shores beset with thousand secret spyes, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘/˘· |
| Must passe by ayre, or else dye in exile. | 11 | ··/······/· |
| He framd him wings with feathers of his thought, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Which by theyr nature learn'd to mount the skye; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And with the same he practised to flye, | 10 | ·······˘·· |
| Till he himself thys Eagles art had taught. | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| Thus soring still, not looking once below, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| So neere thyne eyes celesteall sunne aspyred, | 10 | ·········· |
| That with the rayes his wafting pyneons fired: | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| Thus was the wanton cause of his owne woe. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Downe fell he, in thy Beauties Ocean drenched, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Yet there he burnes in fire thats neuer quenched. | 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.