Analysis of Phyllis's Age
Matthew Prior 1664 – 1721
How old may Phyllis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task;
For she has really two ages.
Stiff in brocard, and pinch'd in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on;
All day let envy view her face;
And Phyllis is but twenty-one.
Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night astronomers agree,
The evening has the day belied;
And Phyllis is some forty-three.
| Scheme | AXAX XXXX BCBC |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | Quatrain (33%) |
| Metre | 11110111 110111010 11011101 11110110 1010101 01010101 11110101 01011101 11010101 11010001 01010101 01011101 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 400 |
| Words | 72 |
| Sentences | 5 |
| Stanzas | 3 |
| Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4 |
| Lines Amount | 12 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
| Words per line (avg) | 6 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 101 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 21 sec read
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"Phyllis's Age" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/27393/phyllis%27s-age>.
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