To Francis Beaumont
HOW I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse,That unto me dost such religion use!How I do fear myself, that am not worthThe least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth!At once thou mak’st me happy, and unmak’st;And giving largely to me, more thou takest!What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves?What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives?When even there, where most thou praisest me,For writing better, I must envy thee.
About this text
To Francis Beaumont 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, To Francis Beaumont, in Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems (1616), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5134, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/jonson-poems/to-francis-beaumont.html, id L23800.
Form and metre
To Francis Beaumont is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 AA----BBCC museA · useA · worth · forth · unmak'st · takest · bereavesB · deceivesB · meC · theeC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| HOW I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| That unto me dost such religion use! | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| How I do fear myself, that am not worth | 10 | ·····/···· |
| The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth! | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| At once thou mak’st me happy, and unmak’st; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And giving largely to me, more thou takest! | 11 | ·/˘/˘······ |
| What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves? | 10 | ······˘/˘/ |
| What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives? | 10 | ········˘/ |
| When even there, where most thou praisest me, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| For writing better, I must envy thee. | 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.