Upon the Curtaine of Lucasta's Picture, It Was Thus Wrought
Oh, stay that covetous hand; first turn all eye,All depth and minde; then mystically spyeHer soul's faire picture, her faire soul's, in allSo truely copied from th' originall,That you will sweare her body by this lawIs but its shadow, as this, its;--now draw.
Words in this poem
- covetous a.
- Very desirous; eager to obtain; -- used in a good sense. [OF. coveitos, F. convoiteux. See Covet, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Upon the Curtaine of Lucasta's Picture, It Was Thus Wrought is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lucasta, Project Gutenberg ebook #703; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Richard Lovelace, Upon the Curtaine of Lucasta's Picture, It Was Thus Wrought, in Lucasta (1649), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #703, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lovelace-lucasta/upon-the-curtaine-of-lucasta-s-picture-it-was-thus-wrought.html, id L13000.
Form and metre
Upon the Curtaine of Lucasta's Picture, It Was Thus Wrought is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 --AABB eye · spye · allA · originallA · lawB · drawB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oh, stay that covetous hand; first turn all eye, | 11 | ···/˘˘····· |
| All depth and minde; then mystically spye | 10 | ·········· |
| Her soul's faire picture, her faire soul's, in all | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| So truely copied from th' originall, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| That you will sweare her body by this law | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Is but its shadow, as this, its;--now draw. | 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.