All my thoughts always speak to me of Love
All my thoughts always speak to me of Love,Yet have between themselves such differenceThat while one bids me bow with mind and sense,A second saith, “Go to: look thou above;”The third one, hoping, yields me joy enough;And with the last come tears, I scarce know whence:All of them craving pity in sore suspense,Trembling with fears that the heart knoweth of.And thus, being all unsure which path to take,Wishing to speak I know not what to say,And lose myself in amorous wanderings:Until, (my peace with all of them to make,)Unto mine enemy I needs must pray,My Lady Pity, for the help she brings.
Words in this poem
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
All my thoughts always speak to me of Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from The New Life, Project Gutenberg ebook #41085, the Dante Gabriel Rossetti 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: Dante Alighieri, All my thoughts always speak to me of Love, in The New Life (1861), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #41085, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dante-vita-nuova/all-my-thoughts-always-speak-to-me-of-love.html, id L27040.
Form and metre
All my thoughts always speak to me of Love is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
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 ABBA-BBACDECDE loveA · differenceB · senseB · aboveA · enough · whenceB · suspenseB · ofA · takeC · sayD · wanderingsE · makeC · prayD · bringsE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| All my thoughts always speak to me of Love, | 10 | ···/······ |
| Yet have between themselves such difference | 10 | ····˘/·/˘˘ |
| That while one bids me bow with mind and sense, | 10 | ·········· |
| A second saith, “Go to: look thou above;” | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The third one, hoping, yields me joy enough; | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And with the last come tears, I scarce know whence: | 10 | ·········· |
| All of them craving pity in sore suspense, | 11 | ···/˘/˘··˘/ |
| Trembling with fears that the heart knoweth of. | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| And thus, being all unsure which path to take, | 10 | ··/·˘/···· |
| Wishing to speak I know not what to say, | 10 | /˘········ |
| And lose myself in amorous wanderings: | 11 | ···/·/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Until, (my peace with all of them to make,) | 10 | ·········· |
| Unto mine enemy I needs must pray, | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| My Lady Pity, for the help she brings. | 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.