On Seeing Mrs. —— Perform in the Character of
FOR you, bright fair, the nine address their lays,And tune my feeble voice to sing thy praise.The heartfelt power of every charm divine,Who can withstand their all-commanding shine?See how she moves along with every grace,While soul-brought tears steal down each shining face.She speaks! ’tis rapture all, and nameless bliss,Ye gods! what transport e’er compared to this.As when in Paphian groves the Queen of LoveWith fond complaint addressed the listening Jove,’Twas joy, and endless blisses all around,And rocks forgot their hardness at the sound.Then first, at last even Jove was taken in,And felt her charms, without disguise, within.
Words in this poem
- heartfelt a.
- Hearty; sincere.
- nameless a.
- Without a name; not having been given a name; as, a nameless star.
- paphian a.
- Of or pertaining to Paphos, an ancient city of Cyprus, having a celebrated temple of Venus; hence, pertaining to Venus, or her rites.
- jove n.
- The chief divinity of the ancient Romans; Jupiter. [L. Jupiter, gen. Jovis, OL. Jovis, nom. & gen. for Djovis; akin to E. Tuesday. See Tuesday, and cf. Jupiter.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On Seeing Mrs. —— Perform in the Character of is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, Project Gutenberg ebook #3545; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Oliver Goldsmith, On Seeing Mrs. —— Perform in the Character of, in Poems (1764–1774), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3545, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/goldsmith-poems/on-seeing-mrs-perform-in-the-character-of.html, id L00429.
Form and metre
On Seeing Mrs. —— Perform in the Character of is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 86% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCDD--EEFF laysA · praiseA · divineB · shineB · graceC · faceC · blissD · thisD · love · jove · aroundE · soundE · inF · withinF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| FOR you, bright fair, the nine address their lays, | 10 | ······/··· |
| And tune my feeble voice to sing thy praise. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The heartfelt power of every charm divine, | 10 | ·/·/·/˘·˘/ |
| Who can withstand their all-commanding shine? | 10 | ··˘/··˘/˘· |
| See how she moves along with every grace, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| While soul-brought tears steal down each shining face. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| She speaks! ’tis rapture all, and nameless bliss, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Ye gods! what transport e’er compared to this. | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| As when in Paphian groves the Queen of Love | 11 | ···/˘˘····· |
| With fond complaint addressed the listening Jove, | 10 | ··˘/˘/·/˘· |
| ’Twas joy, and endless blisses all around, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And rocks forgot their hardness at the sound. | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| Then first, at last even Jove was taken in, | 10 | ····/··/˘· |
| And felt her charms, without disguise, within. | 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.