Love Feeds the Flame of Age
When masters bind a slave with cruel chain,And keep him hope-forlorn in bondage pent,Use tames his temper to imprisonment,And hardly would he fain be free again.Use curbs the snake and tiger, and doth trainFierce woodland lions to bear chastisement;And the young artist, all with toil forspent,By constant use a giant's strength doth gainBut with the force of flame it is not so:For while fire sucks the sap of the green wood,It warms a frore old man and makes him grow;With such fine heat of youth and lustihoodFilling his heart and teaching it to glow,That love enfolds him with beatitude.If then in playful moodHe sport and jest, old age need no man blame;For loving things divine implies no shame.The soul that knows her aim,Sins not by loving God's own counterfeit--Due measure kept, and bounds, and order meet.
Words in this poem
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- pent p. p.
- Penned or shut up; confined; -- often with up. [From Pen, v. t.]
- fain v. t.
- To be glad ; to wish or desire.
- artist n.
- One who practices some mechanic art or craft; an artisan. [F. artiste, LL. artista, fr. L. ars. See Art, n., and cf. Artiste.]
- forspent a.
- Wasted in strength; tired; exhausted. [AS. forspendan to consume; pref. for- + spendan to spend.]
- lustihood n.
- State of being lusty; vigor of body. [Lusty + -hood.]
- beatitude n.
- Felicity of the highest kind; consummate bliss. [L. beatitudo: cf. F. béatitude. See Beatify.]
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love Feeds the Flame of Age is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, the John Addington Symonds translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Love Feeds the Flame of Age, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/love-feeds-the-flame-of-age.html, id L15187.
Form and metre
Love Feeds the Flame of Age is 20 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.6 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABBAABBACDCDCEEFFF-- chainA · pentB · imprisonmentB · againA · trainA · chastisementB · forspentB · gainA · soC · woodD · growC · lustihoodD · glowC · beatitudeE · moodE · blameF · shameF · aimF · counterfeit · meet
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When masters bind a slave with cruel chain, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And keep him hope-forlorn in bondage pent, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| Use tames his temper to imprisonment, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| And hardly would he fain be free again. | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Use curbs the snake and tiger, and doth train | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Fierce woodland lions to bear chastisement; | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| And the young artist, all with toil forspent, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| By constant use a giant's strength doth gain | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| But with the force of flame it is not so: | 10 | ·········· |
| For while fire sucks the sap of the green wood, | 10 | ··/······· |
| It warms a frore old man and makes him grow; | 10 | ·········· |
| With such fine heat of youth and lustihood | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Filling his heart and teaching it to glow, | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| That love enfolds him with beatitude. | 10 | ··˘/··˘/˘˘ |
| If then in playful mood | 6 | ···/˘· |
| He sport and jest, old age need no man blame; | 10 | ·········· |
| For loving things divine implies no shame. | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘/·· |
| The soul that knows her aim, | 6 | ······ |
| Sins not by loving God's own counterfeit-- | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Due measure kept, and bounds, and order meet. | 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.