The Turn
It is not growing like a treeIn bulk, doth make men better be;Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:A lily of a day,Is fairer far in May,Although it fall and die that night;It was the plant, and flower of light.In small proportions we just beauties see;And in short measures, life may perfect be.
About this text
The Turn is in the public domain. This text is taken from Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #5134; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ben Jonson, The Turn, in Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems (1616), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5134, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/jonson-poems/the-turn-3.html, id L23815.
Form and metre
The Turn is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDDAA treeA · beA · yearB · searB · dayC · mayC · nightD · lightD · seeA · beA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| It is not growing like a tree | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In bulk, doth make men better be; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear: | 10 | ·········· |
| A lily of a day, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Is fairer far in May, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Although it fall and die that night; | 8 | ········ |
| It was the plant, and flower of light. | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| In small proportions we just beauties see; | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| And in short measures, life may perfect be. | 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.