To Love
Thou whose sole name all passions doth comprise:Youngest and eldest of the Deities,Born without parents, whose unbounded reignMoves the firm earth, fixeth the floating main,Inverts the course of heaven, and from the deepAwakes those souls that in dark Lethe sleep,By thy mysterious chains seeking t'unite,Once more, the long-since-torn hermaphrodite!He who thy willing prisoner long was vow'd,And uncompell'd beneath thy sceptre bow'd,Returns at last in thy soft fetters bound,With victory, though not with freedom, crown'd:And, (of his dangers past a grateful sign,)Suspends this tablet at thy numerous shrine.
Words in this poem
- comprise v. t.
- To comprehend; to include. [From F. compris, comprise, p. p. of comprendre, L. comprehendere. See Comprehend.]
- lethe n.
- A river of Hades whose waters when drunk caused forgetfulness of the past.
- sceptre n.
- A staff or baton borne by a sovereign, as a ceremonial badge or emblem of authority; a royal mace. [F. sceptre, L. sceptrum, from Gr. shaft. See Shaft, and cf. Scape a stem, shaft.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Love 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, To Love, in Original Lyrics (1651), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32986, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stanley-lyrics/to-love.html, id L08939.
Form and metre
To Love is 14 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%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 14% 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGG compriseA · deitiesA · reignB · mainB · deepC · sleepC · t'uniteD · hermaphroditeD · vow'dE · bow'dE · boundF · crown'dF · signG · shrineG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou whose sole name all passions doth comprise: | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Youngest and eldest of the Deities, | 9 | /˘·/˘··/˘ |
| Born without parents, whose unbounded reign | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| Moves the firm earth, fixeth the floating main, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Inverts the course of heaven, and from the deep | 10 | ˘/···/···· |
| Awakes those souls that in dark Lethe sleep, | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| By thy mysterious chains seeking t'unite, | 10 | ··˘/˘·/˘·· |
| Once more, the long-since-torn hermaphrodite! | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| He who thy willing prisoner long was vow'd, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And uncompell'd beneath thy sceptre bow'd, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Returns at last in thy soft fetters bound, | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| With victory, though not with freedom, crown'd: | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| And, (of his dangers past a grateful sign,) | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Suspends this tablet at thy numerous shrine. | 10 | ˘/·/˘··/˘· |
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.