Can someone please help me with the following poem:
Sign no more, ladies (by William Shakspeare)
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no moe
Of dumps so dull and heavy,
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny.
I can't figure out what kind of metrical pattern is using in this poem:
1) is this Iamb/Trochaic/Dactylic/Anapest or other?
2) it seems the syllabels are varied in different lines too...is this dimeter/trimeter/tetrameter/pentameter or other?
Thanks for any advise.![]()
This looks to me like a homework assignment. Please don't ask us to do or correct your homework; this is a place to discuss language.
Context is always important; labelling is rarely important.
[QUOTE=evaho88;839984]
NOT A TEACHER
(1) I cannot help you, for I know no thing about poetry and never read it.
(2) Nevertheless, I once found something that I am delighted to share with you.
(3) Mr. Theodore M. Bernstein wrote Dos, Don'ts & Maybes of English Usage.
(4) He realized how difficult it was for ordinary people such as I to understand
poetic meter.
(a) He writes: " [I] composed a stanza that is easy to memorize and illustrates how
each of the feet is accented."
Iambus, King of all the North,
Sucking trochees, ventured forth,
Galloping dactyls emerged from their nest,
But he struggled and conquered this anapest.
Spondee!