Analysis of Love's Exchange
John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)
LOVE, any devil else but you
Would for a given soul give something too.
At court your fellows every day
Give th' art of rhyming, huntsmanship, or play,
For them which were their own before ;
Only I have nothing, which gave more,
But am, alas ! by being lowly, lower.
I ask no dispensation now,
To falsify a tear, or sigh, or vow ;
I do not sue from thee to draw
A non obstante on nature's law ;
These are prerogatives, they inhere
In thee and thine ; none should forswear
Except that he Love's minion were.
Give me thy weakness, make me blind,
Both ways, as thou and thine, in eyes and mind ;
Love, let me never know that this
Is love, or, that love childish is ;
Let me not know that others know
That she knows my paines, lest that so
A tender shame make me mine own new woe.
If thou give nothing, yet thou 'rt just,
Because I would not thy first motions trust ;
Small towns which stand stiff, till great shot
Enforce them, by war's law condition not ;
Such in Love's warfare is my case ;
I may not article for grace,
Having put Love at last to show this face.
This face, by which he could command
And change th' idolatry of any land,
This face, which, wheresoe'er it comes,
Can call vow'd men from cloisters, dead from tombs,
And melt both poles at once, and store
Deserts with cities, and make more
Mines in the earth, than quarries were before.
For this Love is enraged with me,
Yet kills not ; if I must example be
To future rebels, if th' unborn
Must learn by my being cut up and torn,
Kill, and dissect me, Love ; for this
Torture against thine own end is ;
Rack'd carcasses make ill anatomies.
Scheme | AABBCCD EEFFCXD GGHIJJJ KKLLMMM NNXXCCC OOPPHIH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111 1101011101 111101001 1111110111 11101101 101110111 11011101010 1110101 110011111 11111111 0111101 11010011 01011101 01111100 11110111 1111010101 11110111 11111101 11111101 11111111 0101111111 111101111 0111111101 11111111 0111110101 1011111 11110011 1011111111 11111101 011101001101 111111 1111110111 01111101 10110011 1001110001 11110111 1111110101 1101011111 1111101101 10011111 10011111 1100111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,593 |
Words | 303 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 203 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 52 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 1:33 min read
- 278 Views
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"Love's Exchange" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22551/love%27s-exchange>.
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