Amour 7
Stay, stay, sweet Time; behold, or ere thou passeFrom world to world, thou long hast sought to see,That wonder now wherein all wonders be,Where heauen beholds her in a mortall glasse.Nay, looke thee, Time, in this Celesteall glasse,And thy youth past in this faire mirror see:Behold worlds Beautie in her infancie,What shee was then, and thou, or ere shee was.Now passe on, Time: to after-worlds tell this,Tell truelie, Time, what in thy time hath beene,That they may tel more worlds what Time hath seene,And heauen may ioy to think on past worlds blisse.Heere make a Period, Time, and saie for mee,She was the like that neuer was, nor neuer more shalbe.
Words in this poem
- passe a.
- Past; gone by; hence, past one's prime; worn; faded; as, a passée belle. Ld. Lytton. [F.]
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- mortall a.
- Subject to death; destined to die; as, man is mortal. [F. mortel, L. mortalis, from mors, mortis, death, fr. moriri 8die; akin to E. murder. See Murder, and cf. Filemot, Mere a lake, Mortgage.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Amour 7 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 7, in Minor Poems (1594–1619), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17873, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drayton-minor-poems/amour-7.html, id L20548.
Form and metre
Amour 7 is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 -AABBA---CC-A- passe · seeA · beA · glasseB · glasseB · seeA · infancie · was · this · beeneC · seeneC · blisse · meeA · shalbe
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Stay, stay, sweet Time; behold, or ere thou passe | 11 | ····˘/····/ |
| From world to world, thou long hast sought to see, | 10 | ·········· |
| That wonder now wherein all wonders be, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Where heauen beholds her in a mortall glasse. | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Nay, looke thee, Time, in this Celesteall glasse, | 10 | ·········· |
| And thy youth past in this faire mirror see: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Behold worlds Beautie in her infancie, | 10 | ˘/········ |
| What shee was then, and thou, or ere shee was. | 10 | ·········· |
| Now passe on, Time: to after-worlds tell this, | 11 | ··/········ |
| Tell truelie, Time, what in thy time hath beene, | 10 | ·········· |
| That they may tel more worlds what Time hath seene, | 10 | ·········· |
| And heauen may ioy to think on past worlds blisse. | 10 | ·········· |
| Heere make a Period, Time, and saie for mee, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| She was the like that neuer was, nor neuer more shalbe. | 13 | ·····/˘··/˘·· |
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.