Time's A-Flying
Laurel-crowned Horatius,True, how true thy saying!Swift as wind flies over usTime, devouring, slaying.Where are, oh! those goblets fullOf wine honey-laden,Strifes and loves and bountifulLips of ruddy maiden?
Grows the young grape tenderly,And the maid is growing;But the thirsty poet, see,Years on him are snowing!What's the use on hoary curlsOf the bays undying.If we may not kiss the girls,Drink while time's a-flying?
Words in this poem
- bountiful a.
- Free in giving; liberal in bestowing gifts and favors.
- tenderly adv.
- In a tender manner; with tenderness; mildly; gently; softly; in a manner not to injure or give pain; with pity or affection; kindly.
- hoary a.
- White or whitish."The hoary willows."
- undying a.
- Not dying; imperishable; unending; immortal; as, the undying souls of men.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Time's A-Flying 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, Time's A-Flying, in Wine, Women and Song (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18044, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/symonds-wine-women/time-s-a-flying.html, id L11857.
Form and metre
Time's A-Flying is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.4 syllables. 11 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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 ABABCDCD horatiusA · sayingB · usA · slayingB · fullC · ladenD · bountifulC · maidenD
- 2 -A-ABCBC tenderly · growingA · see · snowingA · curlsB · undyingC · girlsB · flyingC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Laurel-crowned Horatius, | 6 | /˘·˘/˘ |
| True, how true thy saying! | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Swift as wind flies over us | 6 | ······ |
| Time, devouring, slaying. | 7 | ·˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Where are, oh! those goblets full | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Of wine honey-laden, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Strifes and loves and bountiful | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Lips of ruddy maiden? | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Grows the young grape tenderly, | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| And the maid is growing; | 6 | ····/˘ |
| But the thirsty poet, see, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Years on him are snowing! | 6 | ····/˘ |
| What's the use on hoary curls | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Of the bays undying. | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| If we may not kiss the girls, | 7 | ······· |
| Drink while time's a-flying? | 6 | ····/˘ |
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.