A Sonnet on Caucasus
I fear that by my death the human raceWould gain no vantage. Thus I do not die.So wide is this vast cage of miseryThat flight and change lead to no happier place.Shifting our pains, we risk a sorrier case:All worlds, like ours, are sunk in agony:Go where we will, we feel; and this my cryI may forget like many an old disgrace.Who knows what doom is mine? The OmnipotentKeeps silence; nay, I know not whether strifeOr peace was with me in some earlier life.Philip in a worse prison me hath pentThese three days past--but not without God's will.Stay we as God decrees: God doth no ill.
Words in this poem
- vantage v. t.
- To profit; to aid.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- pent p. p.
- Penned or shut up; confined; -- often with up. [From Pen, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Sonnet on Caucasus is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommaso Campanella, Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, the John Addington Symonds translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Tommaso Campanella, A Sonnet on Caucasus, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campanella-sonnets/a-sonnet-on-caucasus.html, id L27860.
Form and metre
A Sonnet on Caucasus is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See 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 AB-AA-BACDDCEE raceA · dieB · misery · placeA · caseA · agony · cryB · disgraceA · omnipotentC · strifeD · lifeD · pentC · willE · illE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I fear that by my death the human race | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Would gain no vantage. Thus I do not die. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| So wide is this vast cage of misery | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| That flight and change lead to no happier place. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Shifting our pains, we risk a sorrier case: | 10 | /˘/······· |
| All worlds, like ours, are sunk in agony: | 11 | ···/˘···/˘˘ |
| Go where we will, we feel; and this my cry | 10 | ·········· |
| I may forget like many an old disgrace. | 10 | ··˘/·/··˘/ |
| Who knows what doom is mine? The Omnipotent | 11 | ·······˘/˘˘ |
| Keeps silence; nay, I know not whether strife | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Or peace was with me in some earlier life. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Philip in a worse prison me hath pent | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| These three days past--but not without God's will. | 10 | ·········· |
| Stay we as God decrees: God doth no ill. | 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.