A Lady Weeping
As when some brook flies from itself away,The murmuring crystal loosely runs astray,And, as about the verdant plain it winds,The meadows with a silver ribbon binds,Printing a kiss on every flower she meets,Losing herself to fill them with new sweets,To scatter frost upon the lily's head.And scarlet on the gilliflower to spread,--So melting sorrow, in the fair disguiseOf humid stars,[63:1] flow'd from bright Chloris' eyes,Which, watering every flower her cheek discloses,Melts into jasmines here, there into roses.
About this text
A Lady Weeping is in the public domain. This text is taken from Thomas Stanley: His Original Lyrics, Complete, In Their Collated Readings of 1647, 1651, 1657. With an Introduction, Textual Notes, a List of Editions, an Appendix of Translations, and a Portrait., Project Gutenberg ebook #32986; 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 Stanley, A Lady Weeping, in Original Lyrics (1651), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32986, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stanley-lyrics/a-lady-weeping.html, id L08997.
Form and metre
A Lady Weeping is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCDDEEFF awayA · astrayA · windsB · bindsB · meetsC · sweetsC · headD · spreadD · disguiseE · eyesE · disclosesF · rosesF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| As when some brook flies from itself away, | 10 | ······˘/˘/ |
| The murmuring crystal loosely runs astray, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And, as about the verdant plain it winds, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The meadows with a silver ribbon binds, | 10 | ·/···/˘/˘· |
| Printing a kiss on every flower she meets, | 10 | /˘···/˘/·· |
| Losing herself to fill them with new sweets, | 10 | /˘˘/······ |
| To scatter frost upon the lily's head. | 10 | ·/˘····/·· |
| And scarlet on the gilliflower to spread,-- | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| So melting sorrow, in the fair disguise | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Of humid stars,[63:1] flow'd from bright Chloris' eyes, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Which, watering every flower her cheek discloses, | 11 | ·/˘/˘/··˘/˘ |
| Melts into jasmines here, there into roses. | 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.