Behold the Brand of Beauty Toss'd!
Behold the brand of beauty toss'd!See how the motion does dilate the flame!Delighted Love his spoils does boast,And triumph in this game.Fire, to no place confined,Is both our wonder and our fear;Moving the mind,As lightning hurlèd through the air.
High heaven the glory does increaseOf all her shining lamps, this artful way;The sun in figures, such as these,Joys with the moon to play;To the sweet strains they advance,Which do result from their own spheres,As this nymph's danceMoves with the numbers which she hears.
Words in this poem
- delighted a.
- Endowed with delight.
- artful a.
- Performed with, or characterized by, art or skill. [From Art.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Behold the Brand of Beauty Toss'd! is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham, Project Gutenberg ebook #12322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Waller, Behold the Brand of Beauty Toss'd!, in Cooper's Hill, and Other Poems (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/behold-the-brand-of-beauty-toss-d.html, id L09109.
Form and metre
Behold the Brand of Beauty Toss'd! is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 -A-ABCBC toss'd · flameA · boast · gameA · confinedB · fearC · mindB · airC
- 2 -A-ABCBC increase · wayA · these · playA · advanceB · spheresC · danceB · hearsC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Behold the brand of beauty toss'd! | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| See how the motion does dilate the flame! | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Delighted Love his spoils does boast, | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| And triumph in this game. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Fire, to no place confined, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Is both our wonder and our fear; | 10 | ··/˘/˘·/˘· |
| Moving the mind, | 4 | /˘·· |
| As lightning hurlèd through the air. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| High heaven the glory does increase | 9 | ·/˘·/˘·˘/ |
| Of all her shining lamps, this artful way; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The sun in figures, such as these, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Joys with the moon to play; | 6 | ······ |
| To the sweet strains they advance, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Which do result from their own spheres, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| As this nymph's dance | 4 | ···· |
| Moves with the numbers which she hears. | 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.