To the Lady D[Ormer]
Madam! the blushes I betray,When at your feet I humbly layThese papers, beg you would excuseTh' obedience of a bashful Muse,Who, bowing to your strict command,Trusts her own errors to your hand,Hasty abortives, which, laid by,She meant, ere they were born, should die:But since the soft power of your breathHath call'd them back again from death,To your sharp judgement now made known,She dares for hers no longer own;The worst she must not: these resign'dShe hath to th' fire; and where you findThose your kind charity admir'd,She writ but what your eyes inspir'd.
Words in this poem
- humbly adv.
- With humility; lowly.
- bashful a.
- Abashed; daunted; dismayed. [See Bash.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To the Lady D[Ormer] 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 the Lady D[Ormer], in Original Lyrics (1651), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32986, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stanley-lyrics/to-the-lady-d-ormer.html, id L26167.
Form and metre
To the Lady D[Ormer] is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH betrayA · layA · excuseB · museB · commandC · handC · byD · dieD · breathE · deathE · knownF · ownF · resign'dG · findG · admir'dH · inspir'dH
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Madam! the blushes I betray, | 8 | /˘·/˘·˘/ |
| When at your feet I humbly lay | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| These papers, beg you would excuse | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Th' obedience of a bashful Muse, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Who, bowing to your strict command, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Trusts her own errors to your hand, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Hasty abortives, which, laid by, | 8 | /˘˘/˘··· |
| She meant, ere they were born, should die: | 8 | ········ |
| But since the soft power of your breath | 8 | ····/··· |
| Hath call'd them back again from death, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| To your sharp judgement now made known, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| She dares for hers no longer own; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The worst she must not: these resign'd | 8 | ······˘/ |
| She hath to th' fire; and where you find | 8 | ···/···· |
| Those your kind charity admir'd, | 9 | ···/˘˘˘/˘ |
| She writ but what your eyes inspir'd. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
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.