Poems
Busy, curious, thirsty fly!Drink with me and drink as I:Freely welcome to my cup,Couldst thou sip and sip it up:Make the most of life you may,Life is short and wears away.
Both alike are mine and thineHastening quick to their decline:Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more,Though repeated to threescore.Threescore summers, when they’re gone,Will appear as short as one!
Words in this poem
- curious a.
- Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact. [OF. curios, curius, F. curieux, L. curiosus careful, inquisitive, fr. cura care. See Cure.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poems 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 Oldys, Poems, (1687–1761), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-william-oldys/on-a-fly-drinking-out-of-his-cup.html, id L16150.
Form and metre
On a Fly drinking out of his Cup is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% 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 flyA · iA · cupB · upB · mayC · awayC
- 2 AABB-- thineA · declineA · moreB · threescoreB · gone · one
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Busy, curious, thirsty fly! | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| Drink with me and drink as I: | 7 | ······· |
| Freely welcome to my cup, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Couldst thou sip and sip it up: | 7 | ······· |
| Make the most of life you may, | 7 | ······· |
| Life is short and wears away. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Both alike are mine and thine | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Hastening quick to their decline: | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Though repeated to threescore. | 7 | ·˘/˘·/˘ |
| Threescore summers, when they’re gone, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Will appear as short as one! | 7 | ·˘/···· |
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.