Sonnet
Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak,Lives not within the humor of the eye;--Not being but an outward phantasy,That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,--Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,As if the rose made summer,--and so lieAmongst the perishable things that die,Unlike the love which I would give and seek:Whose health is of no hue--to feel decayWith cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime.Love is its own great loveliness alway,And takes new lustre from the touch of time;Its bough owns no December and no May,But bears its blossom into Winter's clime.
Words in this poem
- amongst prep.
- Mixed or mingled; surrounded by. [OE. amongist, amonges, amonge, among, AS. onmang, ongemang, gemang, in a crowd or mixture. For the ending -st see Amidst. See Mingle.]
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
- clime n.
- A climate; a tract or region of the earth. See Climate. [L. clima. See Climate.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, Project Gutenberg ebook #15652; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hood, Sonnet, in The Song of the Shirt, and Other Poems (1826–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15652, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poetical-works/sonnet-2.html, id L20087.
Form and metre
Sonnet is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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-AABBACD-DCD speakA · eyeB · phantasy · cheekA · weakA · lieB · dieB · seekA · decayC · primeD · alway · timeD · mayC · climeD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Lives not within the humor of the eye;-- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Not being but an outward phantasy, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,-- | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| As if the rose made summer,--and so lie | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Amongst the perishable things that die, | 10 | ···/˘˘˘··· |
| Unlike the love which I would give and seek: | 10 | ˘/········ |
| Whose health is of no hue--to feel decay | 10 | ········˘/ |
| With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime. | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Love is its own great loveliness alway, | 10 | ·····/˘˘/˘ |
| And takes new lustre from the touch of time; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Its bough owns no December and no May, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| But bears its blossom into Winter's clime. | 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.