Analysis of Against The Love Of Great Ones.



Vnhappy youth, betrayd by Fate
To such a love hath sainted hate,
And damned those celestiall bands
Are onely knit with equal hands;
The love of great ones is a love,
Gods are incapable to prove:
For where there is a joy uneven,
There never, never can be Heav'n:
'Tis such a love as is not sent
To fiends as yet for punishment;
IXION willingly doth feele
The gyre of his eternal wheele,
Nor would he now exchange his paine
For cloudes and goddesses againe.

Wouldst thou with tempests lye?  Then bow
To th' rougher furrows of her brow,
Or make a thunder-bolt thy choyce?
Then catch at her more fatal voyce;
Or 'gender with the lightning? trye
The subtler flashes of her eye:
Poore SEMELE wel knew the same,
Who both imbrac't her God and flame;
And not alone in soule did burne,
But in this love did ashes turne.

How il doth majesty injoy
The bow and gaity oth' boy,
As if the purple-roabe should sit,
And sentence give ith' chayr of wit.

Say, ever-dying wretch, to whom
Each answer is a certaine doom,
What is it that you would possesse,
The Countes, or the naked Besse?
Would you her gowne or title do?
Her box or gem, the thing or show?
If you meane HER, the very HER,
Abstracted from her caracter,
Unhappy boy! you may as soone
With fawning wanton with the Moone,
Or with an amorous complaint
Get prostitute your very saint;
Not that we are not mortal, or
Fly VENUS altars, and abhor
The selfesame knack, for which you pine;
But we (defend us!) are divine,
[Not] female, but madam born, and come
From a right-honourable wombe.
Shal we then mingle with the base,
And bring a silver-tinsell race?
Whilst th' issue noble wil not passe
The gold alloyd (almost halfe brasse),
And th' blood in each veine doth appeare,
Part thick Booreinn, part Lady Cleare;
Like to the sordid insects sprung
From Father Sun and Mother Dung:
Yet lose we not the hold we have,
But faster graspe the trembling slave;
Play at baloon with's heart, and winde
The strings like scaines, steale into his minde
Ten thousand false and feigned joyes
Far worse then they; whilst, like whipt boys,
After this scourge hee's hush with toys.

This heard, Sir, play stil in her eyes,
And be a dying, live like flyes
Caught by their angle-legs, and whom
The torch laughs peece-meale to consume.


Scheme AABBXXCCXXDDXC EEXBFFGGXC XXHH IIBXXXJJCXKKLLMMXGNNXBJJOOXXAABPP XBII
Poetic Form
Metre 11111 11011101 01111 1111101 01111101 11010011 111101010 11010111 11011111 11111100 01010011 01110101 11110111 1101001 1111111 111101101 11010111 11101101 11010101 010010101 1101101 1110101 01010111 10111101 1111001 010111 11010111 01011111 11010111 1101011 1111111 0110101 11011101 01110111 11100100 10101 01011111 11010101 11110001 1101101 11111101 11010001 0111111 11011101 11110101 10111 11110101 0101011 1111010111 011111 011101111 1111101 1101011 11010101 11110111 110101001 1111101 011110111 1101011 11111111 10111111 11111001 01010111 11110101 01111101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,205
Words 414
Sentences 16
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 14, 10, 4, 33, 4
Lines Amount 65
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 350
Words per stanza (avg) 82
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:05 min read
116

Richard Lovelace

Richard Lovelace was an English poet more…

All Richard Lovelace poems | Richard Lovelace Books

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