Time and Love
Time flies. The swift hours hurry byAnd speed us on to untried ways;New seasons ripen, perish, die,And yet love stays.The old, old love--like sweet, at first,At last like bitter wine--I know not if it blest or curstThy life and mine.
Time flies. In vain our prayers, our tears!We cannot tempt him to delays;Down to the past he bears the years,And yet love stays.Through changing task and varying dreamWe hear the same refrain,As one can hear a plaintive themeRun through each strain.
Time flies. He steals our pulsing youth;He robs us of our care-free days;He takes away our trust and truth:And yet love stays.O Time! take love! When love is vain,When all its best joys die--When only its regrets remain--Let love, too, fly.
Words in this poem
- curst a.
- Froward; malignant; mischievous; malicious; snarling. [SeeCurse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Time and Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Passion, Project Gutenberg ebook #16776; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Time and Love, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/time-and-love.html, id L22158.
Form and metre
Time and Love is 24 lines in 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCDCD. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 ABABCDCD byA · waysB · dieA · staysB · firstC · wineD · curstC · mineD
- 2 ABABCDCD tearsA · delaysB · yearsA · staysB · dreamC · refrainD · themeC · strainD
- 3 ABABCDCD youthA · daysB · truthA · staysB · vainC · dieD · remainC · flyD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Time flies. The swift hours hurry by | 9 | ····/˘/˘· |
| And speed us on to untried ways; | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| New seasons ripen, perish, die, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| And yet love stays. | 4 | ···· |
| The old, old love--like sweet, at first, | 8 | ········ |
| At last like bitter wine-- | 6 | ···/˘· |
| I know not if it blest or curst | 8 | ········ |
| Thy life and mine. | 4 | ···· |
| Time flies. In vain our prayers, our tears! | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| We cannot tempt him to delays; | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Down to the past he bears the years, | 8 | ········ |
| And yet love stays. | 4 | ···· |
| Through changing task and varying dream | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘· |
| We hear the same refrain, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| As one can hear a plaintive theme | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Run through each strain. | 4 | ···· |
| Time flies. He steals our pulsing youth; | 9 | ····/˘/˘· |
| He robs us of our care-free days; | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| He takes away our trust and truth: | 9 | ··˘//˘··· |
| And yet love stays. | 4 | ···· |
| O Time! take love! When love is vain, | 8 | ········ |
| When all its best joys die-- | 6 | ······ |
| When only its regrets remain-- | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘/ |
| Let love, too, fly. | 4 | ···· |
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.