Pleasure! why thus desert the heart
Pleasure! why thus desert the heartIn its spring-tide?I could have seen her, I could part,And but have sigh'd!
O'er every youthful charm to stray,To gaze, to touch....Pleasure! why take so much away,Or give so much?
About this text
Pleasure! why thus desert the heart is in the public domain. This text is taken from Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, Project Gutenberg ebook #21628; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walter Savage Landor, Pleasure! why thus desert the heart, in Imaginary Conversations and Poems (1795–1863), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21628, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/landor-poems/pleasure-why-thus-desert-the-heart.html, id L12185.
Form and metre
Pleasure! why thus desert the heart is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.0 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAB heartA · tideB · partA · sigh'dB
- 2 ABAB strayA · touchB · awayA · muchB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Pleasure! why thus desert the heart | 8 | /˘··/˘·· |
| In its spring-tide? | 4 | ···· |
| I could have seen her, I could part, | 8 | ········ |
| And but have sigh'd! | 4 | ···· |
| O'er every youthful charm to stray, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| To gaze, to touch.... | 4 | ···· |
| Pleasure! why take so much away, | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| Or give so much? | 4 | ···· |
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.