The Invitation to Youth
Take your pleasure, dance and play,Each with other while ye may:Youth is nimble, full of grace;Age is lame, of tardy pace.
We the wars of love should wage,Who are yet of tender age;'Neath the tents of Venus dwellAll the joys that youth loves well.
Young men kindle heart's desire;You may liken them to fire:Old men frighten love awayWith cold frost and dry decay.
Words in this poem
- wage v. i.
- To bind one's self; to engage.
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
- liken v. t.
- To allege, or think, to be like; to represent as like; to compare; as, to liken life to a pilgrimage. [OE. liknen. See Like, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Invitation to Youth is in the public domain. This text is taken from Wine, Women, and Song Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #18044; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Addington Symonds, The Invitation to Youth, in Wine, Women and Song (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18044, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/symonds-wine-women/the-invitation-to-youth.html, id L11814.
Form and metre
The Invitation to Youth is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 AABB playA · mayA · graceB · paceB
- 2 AABB wageA · ageA · dwellB · wellB
- 3 AABB desireA · fireA · awayB · decayB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Take your pleasure, dance and play, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Each with other while ye may: | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Youth is nimble, full of grace; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Age is lame, of tardy pace. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| We the wars of love should wage, | 7 | ······· |
| Who are yet of tender age; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| 'Neath the tents of Venus dwell | 7 | ····/˘· |
| All the joys that youth loves well. | 7 | ······· |
| Young men kindle heart's desire; | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| You may liken them to fire: | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Old men frighten love away | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| With cold frost and dry decay. | 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.