Sonnet to My Mother
And canst thou, Mother, for a moment thinkThat we, thy children, when old age shall shedIts blanching honours on thy weary head,Could from our best of duties ever shrink?Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sinkThan we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,To pine in solitude thy life away,Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.Banish the thought!--where'er our steps may roam,O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home;While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- ungrateful a.
- Not grateful; not thankful for favors; making no returns, or making ill return for kindness, attention, etc.; ingrateful. South.
- brink n.
- The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. [Dan. brink edge, verge; akin to Sw. brink declivity, hill, Icel. brekka; cf. LG. brink a grassy hill, W. bryn hill, bryncyn hillock.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet to My Mother is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Henry Kirk White : With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas, Project Gutenberg ebook #7149; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Kirke White, Sonnet to My Mother, in The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White (1803–1806), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7149, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kirke-white-poems/sonnet-to-my-mother.html, id L10132.
Form and metre
Sonnet to My Mother is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAACCADEEDFF thinkA · shedB · headB · shrinkA · sinkA · dayC · awayC · brinkA · roamD · treeE · theeE · homeD · assuageF · ageF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And canst thou, Mother, for a moment think | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| That we, thy children, when old age shall shed | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Its blanching honours on thy weary head, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Could from our best of duties ever shrink? | 10 | ··/··/˘/˘· |
| Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink | 10 | /˘········ |
| Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| To pine in solitude thy life away, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Banish the thought!--where'er our steps may roam, | 11 | /˘··˘˘//··· |
| O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee, | 10 | ···/˘·/··· |
| And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age. | 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.