MATRIC POEMS
- To me, fair friend, you can never be old
- The sun rising
- The discardment
- Namaqualand after rain
- Touch
- For oom piet
- The tenant
- Cockroaches
- Strangers forever
- Ozymandias of Egypt
- Moving through the silent crowd
- Mirror
- Go, lovely Rose
- Will it be so again?
- Remember
- Nobody loses all the time
Figures of speech/sound devices highlighted in blue
, To me, fair friend, you can never be old
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred —
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
Rhyme scheme
1st quatrain - abab
2nd quatrain - cdcd
3rd quatrain - efef
4th quatrain - gg (rhyming couplet, provides a solution, hopeful tone, telling
…………………………………….future generations we will never see beauty like this again)
Theme
- Despite ravages of time, time cannot erase the beauty of the speakers
friend
- The speaker uses seasons to indicate how time affects all nature and
so his friend should also be affected
- He has however not noticed any change in his friends appearance
although nature has been through this cycle 3 times since they first met
,1st quatrain (lines 1-4)
- The speaker addresses the fair youth directly
- Despite the passing of time, he looks no older
- He has known him for 3 years
2nd quatrain (lines 5 - 8)
- Despite the change in seasons, 3 years down the line, the youths
beauty has not changed
- “Green” shows innocence, youth, vitality and growth
First 2 quatrains
- Tone of appreciation, admiration and awe
3rd quatrain (lines 8-12)
- “Ah” shows shift in tone and content
- Tone of regret
- Simile (“yet doth beauty like a dial-hand” explains the way an hour
hand moves around the face of a clock is compared to the way time
affects the face of his friend)
- “Steal” (robbing or taking unrightfully)
- “Hue” (complexion)
, The Sun Rising
Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both the' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."
She's all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
- To me, fair friend, you can never be old
- The sun rising
- The discardment
- Namaqualand after rain
- Touch
- For oom piet
- The tenant
- Cockroaches
- Strangers forever
- Ozymandias of Egypt
- Moving through the silent crowd
- Mirror
- Go, lovely Rose
- Will it be so again?
- Remember
- Nobody loses all the time
Figures of speech/sound devices highlighted in blue
, To me, fair friend, you can never be old
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred —
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
Rhyme scheme
1st quatrain - abab
2nd quatrain - cdcd
3rd quatrain - efef
4th quatrain - gg (rhyming couplet, provides a solution, hopeful tone, telling
…………………………………….future generations we will never see beauty like this again)
Theme
- Despite ravages of time, time cannot erase the beauty of the speakers
friend
- The speaker uses seasons to indicate how time affects all nature and
so his friend should also be affected
- He has however not noticed any change in his friends appearance
although nature has been through this cycle 3 times since they first met
,1st quatrain (lines 1-4)
- The speaker addresses the fair youth directly
- Despite the passing of time, he looks no older
- He has known him for 3 years
2nd quatrain (lines 5 - 8)
- Despite the change in seasons, 3 years down the line, the youths
beauty has not changed
- “Green” shows innocence, youth, vitality and growth
First 2 quatrains
- Tone of appreciation, admiration and awe
3rd quatrain (lines 8-12)
- “Ah” shows shift in tone and content
- Tone of regret
- Simile (“yet doth beauty like a dial-hand” explains the way an hour
hand moves around the face of a clock is compared to the way time
affects the face of his friend)
- “Steal” (robbing or taking unrightfully)
- “Hue” (complexion)
, The Sun Rising
Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both the' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."
She's all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
