Ladies In Arms

Sir William Davenant 1606 (Oxford) – 1668 (London)



LET us live, live! for, being dead,
The pretty spots,
Ribbons and knots,
And the fine French dress for the head,
No lady wears upon her
In the cold, cold bed of honour.
Beat down our grottos, and hew down our bowers,
Dig up our arbours, and root up our flowers;
Our gardens are bulwarks and bastions become;
Then hang up our lute, we must sing to the drum.
 
Our patches and our curls,
So exact in each station,
Our powders and our purls,
Are now out of fashion.
Hence with our needles, and give us your spades;
We, that were ladies, grow coarse as our maids.
Our coaches have driven us to balls at the court,
We now must drive barrows to earth up the fort.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
56

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBACCDDEE XFBFGGHH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 664
Words 129
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 10, 8

Sir William Davenant

Sir William Davenant, also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. more…

All Sir William Davenant poems | Sir William Davenant Books

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