"Nay, Bid Me Not My Cares to Leave"
Nay, bid me not my cares to leave,Who cannot from their shadow flee.I do but win a short reprieve,'Scaping to pleasure and to thee.
I may, at best, a moment's grace,And grant of liberty, obtain;Respited for a little space,To go back into bonds again.
Words in this poem
- reprieve v. t.
- To delay the punishment of; to suspend the execution of sentence on; to give a respite to; to respite; as, to reprieve a criminal for thirty days. [OE. repreven to reject, disallow, OF. reprover to blame, reproach, condemn (pres. il reprueve), F. réprouver to disapprove, fr. L. reprobare to reject, condemn;]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"Nay, Bid Me Not My Cares to Leave" is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of William Watson, Project Gutenberg ebook #13179; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Watson, "Nay, Bid Me Not My Cares to Leave", in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/nay-bid-me-not-my-cares-to-leave.html, id L11252.
Form and metre
"Nay, Bid Me Not My Cares to Leave" is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
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 leaveA · fleeB · reprieveA · theeB
- 2 ABAB graceA · obtainB · spaceA · againB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Nay, bid me not my cares to leave, | 8 | ········ |
| Who cannot from their shadow flee. | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| I do but win a short reprieve, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| 'Scaping to pleasure and to thee. | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| I may, at best, a moment's grace, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And grant of liberty, obtain; | 8 | ···/˘˘˘/ |
| Respited for a little space, | 8 | /˘˘··/˘· |
| To go back into bonds again. | 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.