Analysis of Elegy IX: The Autumnal
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.
If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;
Affection here takes reverence's name.
Were her first years the golden age? That's true,
But now she's gold oft tried and ever new.
That was her torrid and inflaming time,
This is her tolerable tropic clime.
Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence,
He in a fever wishes pestilence.
Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were,
They were Love's graves, for else he is no where.
Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit
Vow'd to this trench, like an anachorit;
And here till hers, which must be his death, come,
He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb.
Here dwells he; though he sojourn ev'rywhere
In progress, yet his standing house is here:
Here where still evening is, not noon nor night,
Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight.
In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
You may at revels, you at council, sit.
This is Love's timber, youth his underwood;
There he, as wine in June, enrages blood,
Which then comes seasonabliest when our taste
And appetite to other things is past.
Xerxes' strange Lydian love, the platan tree,
Was lov'd for age, none being so large as she,
Or else because, being young, nature did bless
Her youth with age's glory, barrenness.
If we love things long sought, age is a thing
Which we are fifty years in compassing;
If transitory things, which soon decay,
Age must be loveliest at the latest day.
But name not winter faces, whose skin's slack,
Lank as an unthrift's purse, but a soul's sack;
Whose eyes seek light within, for all here's shade;
Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out than made;
Whose every tooth to a several place is gone,
To vex their souls at resurrection:
Name not these living death's-heads unto me,
For these, not ancient, but antique be.
I hate extremes, yet I had rather stay
With tombs than cradles, to wear out a day.
Since such love's natural lation is, may still
My love descend, and journey down the hill,
Not panting after growing beauties. So,
I shall ebb on with them who homeward go.
Scheme | AABBCCDDECFGHIJJKLDMNNJJOPQRSSTAUUVVWWXXYZSSVV1 1 2 2 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1111010111 1111010101 11011010101 1111011101 1101111111 0101111 0011010111 1111110101 1101000101 1101000101 1111111111 1001010100 1111011110 1011111111 1111111111 1111111 0110111111 1111011101 11111101 011110111 1111011111 1111101 0101101101 1111011101 111101110 1111010101 11111101 010110111 10111011 11111101111 11011011011 01110101 1111111101 11110101 110011101 111110101 1111010111 111111011 1111011111 1111101111 110011010111 11111010 1111011101 111101011 1101111101 1111011101 1111001111 1101010101 1101010101 1111111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,262 |
Words | 402 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 50 |
Lines Amount | 50 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,701 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 400 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 29, 2023
- 2:05 min read
- 131 Views
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"Elegy IX: The Autumnal" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22479/elegy-ix%3A-the-autumnal>.
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