To the Swiss
Ye Alpine rocks! If less your peaks elateTo heaven exalt you than that gift divine,Freedom; why do your children still combineTo keep the despots in their stolen state?Lo, for a piece of bread from windows wideYou fling your blood, taking no thought what cause,Righteous or wrong, your strength to battle draws;So is your valour spurned and vilified.All things belong to free men; but the slaveClothes and feeds poorly. Even so from youBroad lands and Malta's knighthood men withhold.Up, free yourselves, and act as heroes do!Go, take your own from tyrants, which you gaveSo recklessly, and they so dear have sold!
Words in this poem
- elate a.
- Lifted up; raised; elevated. [L. elatus elevated, fig., elated, proud (the figure, perh., being borrowed from a prancing horse); e out + latus (used as p. p. of ferre to bear), for tlatus, a]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To the Swiss 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, To the Swiss, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campanella-sonnets/to-the-swiss.html, id L27833.
Form and metre
To the Swiss is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBACDDCEFGFEG. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ABBACDDCEFGFEG elateA · divineB · combineB · stateA · wideC · causeD · drawsD · vilifiedC · slaveE · youF · withholdG · doF · gaveE · soldG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ye Alpine rocks! If less your peaks elate | 10 | ·/······˘/ |
| To heaven exalt you than that gift divine, | 10 | ·/˘/····˘/ |
| Freedom; why do your children still combine | 10 | /˘···/˘·/˘ |
| To keep the despots in their stolen state? | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Lo, for a piece of bread from windows wide | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| You fling your blood, taking no thought what cause, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| Righteous or wrong, your strength to battle draws; | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| So is your valour spurned and vilified. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| All things belong to free men; but the slave | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Clothes and feeds poorly. Even so from you | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Broad lands and Malta's knighthood men withhold. | 10 | ···/˘/··˘/ |
| Up, free yourselves, and act as heroes do! | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Go, take your own from tyrants, which you gave | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| So recklessly, and they so dear have sold! | 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.