Vanitas Vanitatum
All the flowers of the springMeet to perfume our burying;These have but their growing prime,And man does flourish but his time:Survey our progress from our birth--We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.Courts adieu, and all delights,All bewitching appetites!Sweetest breath and clearest eyeLike perfumes go out and die;And consequently this is doneAs shadows wait upon the sun.Vain the ambition of kingsWho seek by trophies and dead thingsTo leave a living name behind,And weave but nets to catch the wind.
About this text
Vanitas Vanitatum 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 Webster, Vanitas Vanitatum, in Poems (1630), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-john-webster/vanitas-vanitatum.html, id L16033.
Form and metre
Vanitas Vanitatum is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 31% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH springA · buryingA · primeB · timeB · birthC · earthC · delightsD · appetitesD · eyeE · dieE · doneF · sunF · kingsG · thingsG · behindH · windH
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| All the flowers of the spring | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Meet to perfume our burying; | 8 | ··˘///˘˘ |
| These have but their growing prime, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And man does flourish but his time: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Survey our progress from our birth-- | 8 | /·/˘/·/· |
| We are set, we grow, we turn to earth. | 9 | ········· |
| Courts adieu, and all delights, | 7 | ·˘/··˘/ |
| All bewitching appetites! | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘· |
| Sweetest breath and clearest eye | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Like perfumes go out and die; | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| And consequently this is done | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| As shadows wait upon the sun. | 8 | ·/······ |
| Vain the ambition of kings | 7 | ··˘/˘·· |
| Who seek by trophies and dead things | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To leave a living name behind, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And weave but nets to catch the wind. | 8 | ········ |
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.