Under a Lady's Picture
Such Helen was! and who can blame the boyThat in so bright a flame consumed his Troy?But had like virtue shined in that fair Greek,The am'rous shepherd had not dared to seekOr hope for pity; but with silent moan,And better fate, had perished alone.
About this text
Under a Lady's Picture 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, Under a Lady's Picture, in Cooper's Hill, and Other Poems (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/under-a-lady-s-picture.html, id L09117.
Form and metre
Under a Lady's Picture is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCC boyA · troyA · greekB · seekB · moanC · aloneC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Such Helen was! and who can blame the boy | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| That in so bright a flame consumed his Troy? | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| But had like virtue shined in that fair Greek, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The am'rous shepherd had not dared to seek | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Or hope for pity; but with silent moan, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And better fate, had perished alone. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘˘/ |
Notes from the edition 1
George Gilfillan's notes to the Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857; Project Gutenberg #12322).
- Line 1 Paris.
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.