Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet!
Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet!Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!There, wrapt in cloud of sorrow, pity move,And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,Then burst with sighing in her sight, and ne’er return again!
All that I sung still to her praise did tend;Still she was first, still she my songs did end;Yet she my love and music both doth fly,The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy:Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight!It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight.
Words in this poem
- ravisher n.
- One who ravishes (in any sense).
- 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,]
- suffice v. i.
- To be enough, or sufficient; to meet the need (of anything); to be equal to the end proposed; to be adequate. [OE. suffisen, OF. soufire, F. suffire (cf. suffisant, p.pr.), L. sufficere to put under, to substitute, to avail for, to suffice; sub under + facere to make. Se]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet! 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: Thomas Campion, Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet!, in Poems (1567–1619), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-thomas-campion/ii.html, id L15993.
Form and metre
Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet! is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. 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 11.3 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See 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 AABBCC sweetA · feetA · moveB · loveB · painC · againC
- 2 AA--BB tendA · endA · fly · sympathy · flightB · delightB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet! | 10 | /˘··/˘·/˘· |
| Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet! | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| There, wrapt in cloud of sorrow, pity move, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love: | 15 | ···/˘˘····/˘··· |
| But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Then burst with sighing in her sight, and ne’er return again! | 14 | ···/˘·····˘/˘/ |
| All that I sung still to her praise did tend; | 10 | ·········· |
| Still she was first, still she my songs did end; | 10 | ·········· |
| Yet she my love and music both doth fly, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy: | 13 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight! | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight. | 14 | ··˘/········˘/ |
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.