The Flesh and the Spirit

The poem is written in rhyming tetrameter couplets. A tetrameter is a four-beat line, or a line with four poetic feet. Each foot is made up of an iamb, or an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable: “One flesh was called, who had her eye / On worldly wealth and vanity” (Lines 5-6), and “Eternal substance I do see, / With which enrichéd I would be” (Lines 75-76). The meter is consistent, although there are also substitutions that vary the rhythm. The first foot is sometimes a trochee, which is the reverse of an iamb, consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. Examples include “Things that” (Line 4), “Sister” (Line 9), “Nothing” (Line 10), and “Earth hath” (Line 31, 34). Occasionally, the poet uses a spondee, or a poetic foot in which both syllables are emphasized, as in “Come, come” (Line 21), and “Lamb’s Throne” (Line 94).

The rhymes are mostly perfect rhymes, in which end vowels and consonants are identical: “rear” and “sphere” (Lines 7 and 8); “head” and “led” (Lines 64 and 65); and “gold” and “hold” (Lines 79 and 80). There are also some near rhymes or off rhymes, in which the words are similar but do not