Sonnet
Your own fair youth, you care so little for it,Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advancesOf time and change upon your happiest fancies.I keep your golden hour, and will restore it.
If ever, in time to come, you would explore it--Your old self whose thoughts went like last year's pansies,Look unto me; no mirror keeps its glances;In my unfailing praises now I store it.
To keep all joys of yours from Time's estranging,I shall be then a treasury where your gay,Happy, and pensive past for ever is.
I shall be then a garden charmed from changing,In which your June has never passed away.Walk there awhile among my memories.
Words in this poem
- explore v. t.
- To seek for or after; to strive to attain by search; to look wisely and carefully for. [L. explorare to explore; ex out+plorare to cry out aloud,prob. orig., to cause to flow; perh. akin to E. flow: cf. F. explorer.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- awhile adv.
- For a while; for some time; for a short time. [Adj. a + while time, interval.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1186; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alice Meynell, Sonnet, in Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1186, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/meynell-poems/sonnet.html, id L12854.
Form and metre
Sonnet is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.6 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic hexameter.
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.
- 3 AB- estrangingA · gayB · is
- 4 AB- changingA · awayB · memories
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 trochaic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Your own fair youth, you care so little for it, | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advances | 12 | /˘·/·····˘/˘ |
| Of time and change upon your happiest fancies. | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| I keep your golden hour, and will restore it. | 11 | ···/˘/··˘/· |
| If ever, in time to come, you would explore it-- | 11 | ·/······˘/· |
| Your old self whose thoughts went like last year's pansies, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Look unto me; no mirror keeps its glances; | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| In my unfailing praises now I store it. | 11 | ··˘/˘/˘···· |
| To keep all joys of yours from Time's estranging, | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| I shall be then a treasury where your gay, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Happy, and pensive past for ever is. | 9 | /˘·/˘··/· |
| I shall be then a garden charmed from changing, | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| In which your June has never passed away. | 9 | ·····/·˘/ |
| Walk there awhile among my memories. | 9 | ··˘/···/˘ |
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.