Analysis of Sonnet XVII: Stay, Speedy Time
Michael Drayton 1563 (Hartshill) – 1631 (London)
Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou pass,
From age to age what thou hast sought to see,
One in whom all the excellencies be,
In whom Heav'n looks itself as in a glass.
Time, look thyself in this tralucent glass,
And thy youth past in this pure mirror see,
As the world's beauty in his infancy,
What is was then, and thou before it was.
Pass on, and to posterity tell this,
Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been;
Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen
In perfect human shape all heav'nly bliss,
And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,
That she is gone, her like again to see.
Scheme | ABBAABBCDEFDBB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101010111 1111111111 101101101 0111011001 1110111 0111011101 1011001100 1111010111 1101010011 1111110111 11101011111 001101111 0111110111 1111010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 611 |
Words | 119 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 457 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 115 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 112 Views
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"Sonnet XVII: Stay, Speedy Time" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/28150/sonnet-xvii%3A-stay%2C-speedy-time>.
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