The thoughts are broken in my memory
The thoughts are broken in my memory,Thou lovely Joy, whene’er I see thy face;When thou art near me, Love fills up the space,Often repeating, “If death irk thee, fly.”My face shows my heart’s colour, verily,Which, fainting, seeks for any leaning-place;Till, in the drunken terror of disgrace,The very stones seem to be shrieking, “Die!”It were a grievous sin, if one should notStrive then to comfort my bewildered mind(Though merely with a simple pitying)For the great anguish which thy scorn has wroughtIn the dead sight o’ the eyes grown nearly blind,Which look for death as for a blessed thing.
Words in this poem
- pitying a.
- Expressing pity; as, a pitying eye, glance, or word.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The thoughts are broken in my memory 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, The thoughts are broken in my memory, in The New Life (1861), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #41085, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dante-vita-nuova/the-thoughts-are-broken-in-my-memory.html, id L27042.
Form and metre
The thoughts are broken in my memory is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 -AAB-AAB-CD-CD memory · faceA · spaceA · flyB · verily · placeA · disgraceA · dieB · not · mindC · pityingD · wrought · blindC · thingD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The thoughts are broken in my memory, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| Thou lovely Joy, whene’er I see thy face; | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| When thou art near me, Love fills up the space, | 10 | ·········· |
| Often repeating, “If death irk thee, fly.” | 10 | /˘˘/˘····· |
| My face shows my heart’s colour, verily, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Which, fainting, seeks for any leaning-place; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Till, in the drunken terror of disgrace, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| The very stones seem to be shrieking, “Die!” | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| It were a grievous sin, if one should not | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Strive then to comfort my bewildered mind | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| (Though merely with a simple pitying) | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| For the great anguish which thy scorn has wrought | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| In the dead sight o’ the eyes grown nearly blind, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Which look for death as for a blessed thing. | 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.