The Chase
With a whip of lilies, LoveSwiftly me before him drove:On we cours'd it through deep floods,Hollow valleys, and rough woods,Till a snake that lurking layChanc'd to sting me by the way.
Now my soul was nigh to death,Ebbing, flowing, with my breath,When Love, fanning with his wings,Back my fleeting spirit brings:'Learn,' saith he, 'another day,Love without constraint t'obey!'
Words in this poem
- drove n.
- A collection of cattle driven, or cattle collected for driving; a number of animals, as oxen, sheep, or swine, driven in a body. [AS. draf, fr. drifan to drive. See Drive.]
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Chase 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, The Chase, in Original Lyrics (1651), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32986, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stanley-lyrics/the-chase.html, id L09002.
Form and metre
The Chase is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 96% 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. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 ----AA love · drove · floods · woods · layA · wayA
- 2 AABB-- deathA · breathA · wingsB · bringsB · day · t'obey
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 |
|---|---|---|
| With a whip of lilies, Love | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Swiftly me before him drove: | 7 | /˘····· |
| On we cours'd it through deep floods, | 7 | ······· |
| Hollow valleys, and rough woods, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Till a snake that lurking lay | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Chanc'd to sting me by the way. | 7 | ······· |
| Now my soul was nigh to death, | 7 | ······· |
| Ebbing, flowing, with my breath, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| When Love, fanning with his wings, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Back my fleeting spirit brings: | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| 'Learn,' saith he, 'another day, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Love without constraint t'obey!' | 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.