God Lyaeus
God Lyaeus, ever young,Ever honour’d, ever sung,Stain’d with blood of lusty grapes,In a thousand lusty shapesDance upon the mazer’s brim,In the crimson liquor swim;
From thy plenteous hand divineLet a river run with wine:God of youth, let this day hereEnter neither care nor fear.
Words in this poem
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
God Lyaeus is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Fletcher, God Lyaeus, in Poems (1579–1625), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-john-fletcher/god-lyaeus.html, id L16027.
Form and metre
God Lyaeus is 10 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.9 syllables. 30% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 AABBCC youngA · sungA · grapesB · shapesB · brimC · swimC
- 2 AABB divineA · wineA · hereB · fearB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| God Lyaeus, ever young, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Ever honour’d, ever sung, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Stain’d with blood of lusty grapes, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| In a thousand lusty shapes | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Dance upon the mazer’s brim, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| In the crimson liquor swim; | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| From thy plenteous hand divine | 8 | ··/˘˘·˘/ |
| Let a river run with wine: | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| God of youth, let this day here | 7 | ······· |
| Enter neither care nor fear. | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
Notes from the edition 1
Quiller-Couch's glosses on the hard words, from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900, chosen and edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch (Oxford, 1900; Project Gutenberg #66619)
- Stanza 1 _214._ mazer] a bowl of maple-wood.
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.