Change should breed Change
New doth the sun appear,The mountains’ snows decay,Crown’d with frail flowers forth comes the baby year.My soul, time posts away;And thou yet in that frostWhich flower and fruit hath lost,As if all here immortal were, dost stay.For shame! thy powers awake,Look to that Heaven which never night makes black,And there at that immortal sun’s bright rays,Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days!
About this text
Change should breed Change 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 Drummond, of Hawthornden, Change should breed Change, in Poems (1585–1649), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-william-drummond-of-hawthornden/change-should-breed-change.html, id L16043.
Form and metre
Change should breed Change is 11 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 9% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABABCCB--DD appearA · decayB · yearA · awayB · frostC · lostC · stayB · awake · black · raysD · daysD
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| New doth the sun appear, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| The mountains’ snows decay, | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Crown’d with frail flowers forth comes the baby year. | 11 | ···/˘···/˘· |
| My soul, time posts away; | 6 | ····˘/ |
| And thou yet in that frost | 6 | ······ |
| Which flower and fruit hath lost, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| As if all here immortal were, dost stay. | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| For shame! thy powers awake, | 7 | ···/˘˘/ |
| Look to that Heaven which never night makes black, | 11 | ···/˘·/˘··· |
| And there at that immortal sun’s bright rays, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days! | 11 | ···/˘······ |
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.