Joy May Kill
Too much good luck no less than miseryMay kill a man condemned to mortal pain,If, lost to hope and chilled in every vein,A sudden pardon comes to set him free.Thus thy unwonted kindness shown to meAmid the gloom where only sad thoughts reign,With too much rapture bringing light again,Threatens my life more than that agony.Good news and bad may bear the self-same knife;And death may follow both upon their flight;For hearts that shrink or swell, alike will break.Let then thy beauty, to preserve my life,Temper the source of this supreme delight,Lest joy so poignant slay a soul so weak.
Words in this poem
- chilled a.
- Hardened on the surface or edge by chilling; as, chilled iron; a chilled wheel.
- unwonted a.
- Not wonted; unaccustomed; unused; not made familiar by practice; as, a child unwonted to strangers.
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- poignant a.
- Pricking; piercing; sharp; pungent. [F., p. pr. of poindre to sting, fr. L. pungere to prick, sting. See Pungent.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Joy May Kill is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, the John Addington Symonds 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: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Joy May Kill, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/joy-may-kill.html, id L15168.
Form and metre
Joy May Kill is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -AABBAA-CD-CD- misery · painA · veinA · freeB · meB · reignA · againA · agony · knifeC · flightD · break · lifeC · delightD · weak
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Too much good luck no less than misery | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| May kill a man condemned to mortal pain, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| If, lost to hope and chilled in every vein, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| A sudden pardon comes to set him free. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Thus thy unwonted kindness shown to me | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Amid the gloom where only sad thoughts reign, | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| With too much rapture bringing light again, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Threatens my life more than that agony. | 10 | /˘·····/˘˘ |
| Good news and bad may bear the self-same knife; | 10 | ·········· |
| And death may follow both upon their flight; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| For hearts that shrink or swell, alike will break. | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Let then thy beauty, to preserve my life, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Temper the source of this supreme delight, | 10 | /˘····˘/˘/ |
| Lest joy so poignant slay a soul so weak. | 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.