Analysis of Love and Age
Thomas Love Peacock 1785 (Weymouth, Dorset) – 1866
I play'd with you 'mid cowslips blowing,
When I was six and you were four;
When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,
Were pleasures soon to please no more.
Through groves and meads, o'er grass and heather,
With little playmates, to and fro,
We wander'd hand in hand together;
But that was sixty years ago.
You grew a lovely roseate maiden,
And still our early love was strong;
Still with no care our days were laden,
They glided joyously along;
And I did love you very dearly,
How dearly words want power to show;
I thought your heart was touch'd as nearly;
But that was fifty years ago.
Then other lovers came around you,
Your beauty grew from year to year,
And many a splendid circle found you
The centre of its glimmering sphere.
I saw you then, first vows forsaking,
On rank and wealth your hand bestow;
O, then I thought my heart was breaking!--
But that was forty years ago.
And I lived on, to wed another:
No cause she gave me to repine;
And when I heard you were a mother,
I did not wish the children mine.
My own young flock, in fair progression,
Made up a pleasant Christmas row:
My joy in them was past expression;
But that was thirty years ago.
You grew a matron plump and comely,
You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze;
My earthly lot was far more homely;
But I too had my festal days.
No merrier eyes have ever glisten'd
Around the hearth-stone's wintry glow,
Than when my youngest child was christen'd;
But that was twenty years ago.
Time pass'd. My eldest girl was married,
And I am now a grandsire gray;
One pet of four years old I've carried
Among the wild-flower'd meads to play.
In our old fields of childish pleasure,
Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her basket's ample measure;
And that is not ten years ago.
But though first love's impassion'd blindness
Has pass'd away in colder light,
I still have thought of you with kindness,
And shall do, till our last good-night.
The ever-rolling silent hours
Will bring a time we shall not know,
When our young days of gathering flowers
Will be an hundred years ago.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFGDGD HIHIADAD CECXEDED GJGJKDKD LMLMCDCD NONOPDPD |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111110 11110101 111010110 01011111 1101101010 1101101 110101010 11110101 1101010010 011010111 1111101010 110101 011111010 110111011 111111110 11110101 110101011 11011111 0100101011 010111001 111111010 11011101 111111110 11110101 011111010 1111111 011110010 11110101 111101010 11010101 110111010 11110101 110101010 11010101 110111110 1111111 1100111010 01011101 111101110 11110101 111101110 0111011 111111110 010110111 0101111010 1111011 11011010 01111101 111101010 11010101 111111110 011110111 010101010 11011111 11011110010 11110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,003 |
Words | 376 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 228 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:57 min read
- 119 Views
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"Love and Age" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36750/love-and-age>.
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