Analysis of Love
Love!--what is love? a mere machine, a spring
For freaks fantastic, a convenient thing,
A point to which each scribbling wight most steer,
Or vainly hope for food or favour here;
A summer's sigh; a winter's wistful tale:
A sound at which th' untutor'd maid turns pale;
Her soft eyes languish, and her bosom heaves,
And Hope delights as Fancy's dream deceives.
Thus speaks the heart which cold disgust invades,
When time instructs, and Hope's enchantment fades;
Through life's wide stage, from sages down to kings,
The puppets move, as art directs the strings:
Imperious beauty bows to sordid gold,
Her smiles, whence heaven flows emanent, are sold;
And affectation swells th' entrancing tones,
Which nature subjugates, and truth disowns.
I love th' ingenuous maiden, practised not
To pierce the heart with ambush'd glances, shot
From eyelashes, whose shadowy length she knows
To a hair's point, their high arch when to close
Half o'er the swimming orb, and when to raise,
Disclosing all the artificial blaze
Of unfelt passion, which alone can move
Him whom the genuine eloquence of love
Affected never, won with wanton wiles,
With soulless sighs, and meretricious smiles;
By nature unimpress'd, uncharm'd by thee,
Sweet goddess of my heart, Simplicity!
Scheme | AAXXBBCC DDEEFFXC GGXXHHXXIIJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111010101 1101000101 01111100111 110111111 0101010101 0111111111 0111000101 01011111 1101110101 1101010101 1111110111 0101110101 01001011101 011101111 001011111 1101011 111101001011 110111101 1101100111 1011111111 11001010111 010100101 111010111 11010010011 0101011101 1101011 11001111 1101110100 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,333 |
Words | 205 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 12 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 330 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 68 |
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"Love" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/54354/love>.
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