To Chloris
Chloris! since first our calm of peaceWas frighted hence, this good we find,Your favours with your fears increase,And growing mischiefs make you kind.
So the fair tree, which still preservesHer fruit and state while no wind blows,In storms from that uprightness swerves,And the glad earth about her strowsWith treasure, from her yielding boughs.
About this text
To Chloris 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, To Chloris, in Poetical Works (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/to-chloris.html, id L09097.
Form and metre
To Chloris is 9 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 33% 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 ABAB peaceA · findB · increaseA · kindB
- 2 ABAB- preservesA · blowsB · swervesA · strowsB · boughs
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Chloris! since first our calm of peace | 9 | /˘··/˘··· |
| Was frighted hence, this good we find, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Your favours with your fears increase, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And growing mischiefs make you kind. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| So the fair tree, which still preserves | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Her fruit and state while no wind blows, | 8 | ········ |
| In storms from that uprightness swerves, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And the glad earth about her strows | 8 | ········ |
| With treasure, from her yielding boughs. | 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.