Sonnet: From the Portuguese of Semedo
It is a fearful night; a feeble glareStreams from the sick moon in the o'erclouded sky;The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry,Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare;No bark the madness of the waves will dare;The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high;Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die,Who gazes on thy smiles while I despair?As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried,I turned, and saw my Laura, kind and bright,A messenger of gladness, at my side:To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light,And as we furrowed Tago's heaving tide,I never saw so beautiful a night.
Words in this poem
- glare v. i.
- To shine with a bright, dazzling light. [OE. glaren, gloren; cf. AS. glær amber, LG. glaren to glow or burn like coals, D. gloren to glimmer; prob. akin to E. glass.]
- ridgy a.
- Having a ridge or ridges; rising in a ridge.
- laura n.
- A number of hermitages or cells in the same neighborhood occupied by anchorites who were under the same superior. C. Kingsley.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet: From the Portuguese of Semedo is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by William Cullen Bryant, Project Gutenberg ebook #16341; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Cullen Bryant, Sonnet: From the Portuguese of Semedo, in Poems (1821–1876), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16341, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bryant-poems/sonnet-from-the-portuguese-of-semedo.html, id L07335.
Form and metre
Sonnet: From the Portuguese of Semedo is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDCDCD, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other Italian sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAABBACDCDCD glareA · skyB · cryB · bareA · dareA · highB · dieB · despairA · criedC · brightD · sideC · lightD · tideC · nightD
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| It is a fearful night; a feeble glare | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Streams from the sick moon in the o'erclouded sky; | 11 | ··········· |
| The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare; | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| No bark the madness of the waves will dare; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Who gazes on thy smiles while I despair? | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried, | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| I turned, and saw my Laura, kind and bright, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| A messenger of gladness, at my side: | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘··· |
| To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light, | 10 | ·······/·· |
| And as we furrowed Tago's heaving tide, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| I never saw so beautiful a night. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.