Look on Me Thus No More
It is thy pity makes me weep,My soul was strong before;Silent, yet strong its griefs to keepFrom vainly gushing o’er.Turn from me, turn those gentle eyes!In this fond gaze my spirit dies:Look on me thus no more!
Too late that softness comes to bless,My heart’s glad life is o’er;It will but break with tenderness,Which cannot now restore!The lyre-strings have been jarr’d too long,Winter hath touch’d the source of song!Look on me thus no more!
About this text
Look on Me Thus No More is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Felicia Hemans, Project Gutenberg ebook #66785; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Felicia Hemans, Look on Me Thus No More, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/look-on-me-thus-no-more.html, id L19694.
Form and metre
Look on Me Thus No More is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABA-CCB weepA · beforeB · keepA · o'er · eyesC · diesC · moreB
- 2 A-ABCCB blessA · o'er · tendernessA · restoreB · longC · songC · moreB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| It is thy pity makes me weep, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My soul was strong before; | 6 | ······ |
| Silent, yet strong its griefs to keep | 8 | /˘······ |
| From vainly gushing o’er. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Turn from me, turn those gentle eyes! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In this fond gaze my spirit dies: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Look on me thus no more! | 6 | ······ |
| Too late that softness comes to bless, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My heart’s glad life is o’er; | 6 | ······ |
| It will but break with tenderness, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Which cannot now restore! | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| The lyre-strings have been jarr’d too long, | 8 | ········ |
| Winter hath touch’d the source of song! | 8 | /˘······ |
| Look on me thus no more! | 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.