Sweet Evenings Come and Go, Love
Sweet evenings come and go, love,They came and went of yore:This evening of our life, love,Shall go and come no more.
When we have passed away, love,All things will keep their name;But yet no life on earth, love,With ours will be same.
The daisies will be there, love,The stars in heaven will shine:I shall not feel thy wish, love,Nor thou my hand in thine.
A better time will come, love.And better souls be born:I would not be the best, love,To leave thee now forlorn.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sweet Evenings Come and Go, Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems (ten poems from The poems of George Eliot, Crowell, 1884, on Wikisource; four from The Spanish Gypsy; The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems, Old and New, Worthington, 1890, Internet Archive spanishgypsylege00elio), Wikisource and Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George Eliot, Sweet Evenings Come and Go, Love, in The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems (1874), text of Wikisource and Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/eliot-poems/sweet-evenings-come-and-go-love.html, id L29780.
Form and metre
Sweet Evenings Come and Go, Love is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABABCC loveA · yoreB · loveA · moreB
- 2 ABAB loveA · nameB · loveA · sameB
- 3 ABAB loveA · shineB · loveA · thineB
- 4 ABAB loveA · bornB · loveA · forlornB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet evenings come and go, love, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| They came and went of yore: | 6 | ······ |
| This evening of our life, love, | 7 | ·/˘·/·· |
| Shall go and come no more. | 6 | ······ |
| When we have passed away, love, | 7 | ····˘/· |
| All things will keep their name; | 6 | ······ |
| But yet no life on earth, love, | 7 | ······· |
| With ours will be same. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The daisies will be there, love, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| The stars in heaven will shine: | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| I shall not feel thy wish, love, | 7 | ······· |
| Nor thou my hand in thine. | 6 | ······ |
| A better time will come, love. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| And better souls be born: | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| I would not be the best, love, | 7 | ······· |
| To leave thee now forlorn. | 6 | ····˘/ |
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.