Long and Short Life
Circles are praised, not that aboundIn largeness, but th'exactly round:So life we praise that does excelNot in much time, but acting well.
About this text
Long and Short Life 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, Long and Short Life, in Cooper's Hill, and Other Poems (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/long-and-short-life.html, id L09124.
Form and metre
Long and Short Life is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 8.2 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 aboundA · roundA · excelB · wellB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Circles are praised, not that abound | 9 | /˘··˘··˘/ |
| In largeness, but th'exactly round: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| So life we praise that does excel | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Not in much time, but acting well. | 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.