Supposed to Have Been Addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady
Lady, thou weepest for the Maniac's woe,And thou art fair, and thou, like me, art young;Oh! may thy bosom never, never knowThe pangs with which my wretched heart is wrung.I had a mother once--a brother too--(Beneath yon yew my father rests his head:)I had a lover once, and kind and true,But mother, brother, lover, all are fled!Yet, whence the tear which dims thy lovely eye?Oh! gentle lady--not for me thus weep,The green sod soon upon my breast will lie,And soft and sound will be my peaceful sleep.Go thou, and pluck the roses while they bloom--My hopes lie buried in the silent tomb.
About this text
Supposed to Have Been Addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady 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, Supposed to Have Been Addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady, in The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White (1803–1806), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7149, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kirke-white-poems/supposed-to-have-been-addressed-by-a-female-lunatic-to-a-lad.html, id L10118.
Form and metre
Supposed to Have Been Addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other English sonnets, 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 ABABCDCDEFEFGG woeA · youngB · knowA · wrungB · tooC · headD · trueC · fledD · eyeE · weepF · lieE · sleepF · bloomG · tombG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lady, thou weepest for the Maniac's woe, | 11 | /˘·/˘··/˘·· |
| And thou art fair, and thou, like me, art young; | 10 | ·········· |
| Oh! may thy bosom never, never know | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| The pangs with which my wretched heart is wrung. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I had a mother once--a brother too-- | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| (Beneath yon yew my father rests his head:) | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I had a lover once, and kind and true, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But mother, brother, lover, all are fled! | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Yet, whence the tear which dims thy lovely eye? | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Oh! gentle lady--not for me thus weep, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| The green sod soon upon my breast will lie, | 10 | ·········· |
| And soft and sound will be my peaceful sleep. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Go thou, and pluck the roses while they bloom-- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| My hopes lie buried in the silent tomb. | 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.