A Song: My dear Mistress has a Heart
My dear Mistress has a HeartSoft as those kind Looks she gave me,When with Love's resistless Art,And her Eyes, she did enslave me.But her Constancy's so weak,She's so wild, and apt to wander;That my jealous Heart wou'd break,Should we live one Day asunder.
Melting Joys about her move,Killing Pleasures, wounding Blisses;She can dress her Eyes in Love,And her Lips can arm with Kisses.Angels listen when she speaks,She's my Delight, all Mankind wonder:But my jealous Heart would break,Should we live one Day asunder.
Words in this poem
- resistless a.
- Having no power to resist; making no opposition.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Song: My dear Mistress has a Heart is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of the Right Honourable John, Earl of Rochester Consisting of Satires, Songs, Translations, and other Occasional Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #44891; 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 Wilmot Rochester, A Song: My dear Mistress has a Heart, in The Works of the Earl of Rochester (1680), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #44891, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rochester-works/a-song-my-dear-mistress-has-a-heart.html, id L20455.
Form and metre
A Song: My dear Mistress has a Heart is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ABAB---- heartA · meB · artA · meB · weak · wander · break · asunder
- 2 ABAB-C-C moveA · blissesB · loveA · kissesB · speaks · wonderC · break · asunderC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My dear Mistress has a Heart | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Soft as those kind Looks she gave me, | 8 | ········ |
| When with Love's resistless Art, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| And her Eyes, she did enslave me. | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| But her Constancy's so weak, | 7 | ··/˘˘·· |
| She's so wild, and apt to wander; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| That my jealous Heart wou'd break, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Should we live one Day asunder. | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Melting Joys about her move, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Killing Pleasures, wounding Blisses; | 8 | /˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| She can dress her Eyes in Love, | 7 | ······· |
| And her Lips can arm with Kisses. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Angels listen when she speaks, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| She's my Delight, all Mankind wonder: | 9 | ··˘/·///˘ |
| But my jealous Heart would break, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Should we live one Day asunder. | 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.