Analysis of Sonnet XIX: You Cannot Love
Michael Drayton 1563 (Hartshill) – 1631 (London)
You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why?
There was a time you told me that you would;
But now again you will the same deny,
If it might please you, would to God you could.
What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not, neither.
Nor love nor hate, how then? What will you do?
What, will you keep a mean then betwixt either,
Or will you love me and yet hate me, too?
Yet serves this not. What next? What other shift?
You will, and will not; what a coil is here.
I see your craft, now I perceive your drift,
And all this while I was mistaken there;
Your love and hate is this, I now do prove you:
You love in hate, by hate to make me love you.
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEGDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101110101 1101111111 1101110101 1111111111 11111111110 1111111111 11110110110 1111101111 1111111101 1101110111 1111110111 0111110101 11011111111 11011111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 656 |
Words | 137 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 476 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 133 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 41 sec read
- 120 Views
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"Sonnet XIX: You Cannot Love" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/28137/sonnet-xix%3A-you-cannot-love>.
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