The Sick Lover
My sickly breathWastes in a double flame,Whilst Love and DeathTo my poor life lay claim;The fever in whose heat I meltBy her that causeth it[61:1] not felt.
Thou who aloneCanst, yet wilt grant no ease,Why slight'st thou one,To feed a new disease?Unequal Fair! the heart is thine:Ah, why then should the pain be mine?
About this text
The Sick Lover 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 Sick Lover, in Original Lyrics (1651), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32986, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stanley-lyrics/the-sick-lover.html, id L08992.
Form and metre
The Sick Lover is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.1 syllables. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABABCC breathA · flameB · deathA · claimB · meltC · feltC
- 2 -A-ABB alone · easeA · one · diseaseA · thineB · mineB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My sickly breath | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Wastes in a double flame, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Whilst Love and Death | 4 | ···· |
| To my poor life lay claim; | 6 | ······ |
| The fever in whose heat I melt | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| By her that causeth it[61:1] not felt. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Thou who alone | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Canst, yet wilt grant no ease, | 6 | ······ |
| Why slight'st thou one, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| To feed a new disease? | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Unequal Fair! the heart is thine: | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| Ah, why then should the pain be mine? | 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.