To Chloe
There are two births; the one when lightFirst strikes the new awaken’d sense;The other when two souls unite,And we must count our life from thence:When you loved me and I loved youThen both of us were born anew.
Love then to us new souls did giveAnd in those souls did plant new powers;Since when another life we live,The breath we breathe is his, not ours:Love makes those young whom age doth chill,And whom he finds young keeps young still.
About this text
To Chloe 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: William Cartwright, To Chloe, in Poems (1611–1643), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-william-cartwright/to-chloe.html, id L16091.
Form and metre
To Chloe is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCC. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABABCC lightA · senseB · uniteA · thenceB · youC · anewC
- 2 ABABCC giveA · powersB · liveA · oursB · chillC · stillC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There are two births; the one when light | 8 | ········ |
| First strikes the new awaken’d sense; | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| The other when two souls unite, | 8 | ·/˘···/· |
| And we must count our life from thence: | 8 | ····/··· |
| When you loved me and I loved you | 8 | ········ |
| Then both of us were born anew. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Love then to us new souls did give | 8 | ········ |
| And in those souls did plant new powers; | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Since when another life we live, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| The breath we breathe is his, not ours: | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Love makes those young whom age doth chill, | 8 | ········ |
| And whom he finds young keeps young still. | 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.