Love's Flame Doth Feed on Age
If some mild heat of love in youth confessedBurns a fresh heart with swift consuming fire,What will the force be of a flame more direShut up within an old man's cindery breast?If the mere lapse of lengthening years hath pressedSo sorely that life, strength, and vigour tire,How shall he fare who must ere long expire,When to old age is added love's unrest?Weak as myself, he will be whirled awayLike dust by winds kind in their cruelty,Robbing the loathly worm of its last prey.A little flame consumed and fed on meIn my green age: now that the wood is dry,What hope against this fire more fierce have I?
Words in this poem
- dire a.
- Ill-boding; portentous; as, dire omens. [L. dirus; of uncertain origin.]
- cindery a.
- Resembling, or composed of, cinders; full of cinders.
- sorely adv.
- In a sore manner; grievously; painfully; as, to be sorely afflicted.
- vigour v. t.
- To invigorate. Feltham.
- 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,]
- unrest n.
- Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
- loathly adv.
- Unwillingly; reluctantly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love's Flame Doth Feed on 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's Flame Doth Feed on Age, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/love-s-flame-doth-feed-on-age.html, id L15188.
Form and metre
Love's Flame Doth Feed on Age is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% 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 ABBAABBAC-CDDD confessedA · fireB · direB · breastA · pressedA · tireB · expireB · unrestA · awayC · cruelty · preyC · meD · dryD · iD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If some mild heat of love in youth confessed | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Burns a fresh heart with swift consuming fire, | 11 | ······˘/˘/˘ |
| What will the force be of a flame more dire | 10 | ·········· |
| Shut up within an old man's cindery breast? | 11 | ·······/˘˘· |
| If the mere lapse of lengthening years hath pressed | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| So sorely that life, strength, and vigour tire, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘/˘ |
| How shall he fare who must ere long expire, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| When to old age is added love's unrest? | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Weak as myself, he will be whirled away | 10 | ···/····˘/ |
| Like dust by winds kind in their cruelty, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Robbing the loathly worm of its last prey. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| A little flame consumed and fed on me | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| In my green age: now that the wood is dry, | 10 | ·········· |
| What hope against this fire more fierce have I? | 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.