Love and Death
Whene'er the idol of these eyes appearsUnto my musing heart so weak and strong,Death comes between her and my soul ere longChasing her thence with troops of gathering fears.Nathless this violence my spirit cheersWith better hope than if she had no wrong;While Love invincible arrays the throngOf dauntless thoughts, and thus harangues his peers:But once, he argues, can a mortal die;But once be born: and he who dies afire,What shall he gain if erst he dwelt with me?That burning love whereby the soul flies free,Doth lure each fervent spirit to aspireLike gold refined in flame to God on high.
Words in this poem
- idol n.
- An image or representation of anything. [OE. idole, F. idole, L. idolum, fr. Gr. Wit, and cf. Eidolon.]
- nathless adv.
- Nevertheless. Chaucer. Milton. E. Arnold. [OE. natheles, na the les, not the less, AS. na never. See Na, The, conj., and cf. Nevertheless.]
- dauntless a.
- Incapable of being daunted; undaunted; bold; fearless; intrepid.
- 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,]
- fervent a.
- Hot; glowing; boiling; burning; as, a fervent summer. [F. fervent, L. fervens, -entis. p.pr. of fervere o the boiling hot, to boil, glow.]
- aspire v. t.
- To aspire to; to long for; to try to reach; to mount to.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love and Death 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, Love and Death, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/love-and-death.html, id L15200.
Form and metre
Love and Death is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDEEDC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 36% 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 ABBAABBACDEEDC appearsA · strongB · longB · fearsA · cheersA · wrongB · throngB · peersA · dieC · afireD · meE · freeE · aspireD · highC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Whene'er the idol of these eyes appears | 11 | ····/˘···˘/ |
| Unto my musing heart so weak and strong, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Death comes between her and my soul ere long | 10 | ·········· |
| Chasing her thence with troops of gathering fears. | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Nathless this violence my spirit cheers | 10 | /˘·/˘˘·/˘· |
| With better hope than if she had no wrong; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| While Love invincible arrays the throng | 10 | ··˘/˘˘˘/·· |
| Of dauntless thoughts, and thus harangues his peers: | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| But once, he argues, can a mortal die; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| But once be born: and he who dies afire, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| What shall he gain if erst he dwelt with me? | 10 | ·········· |
| That burning love whereby the soul flies free, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Doth lure each fervent spirit to aspire | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Like gold refined in flame to God on high. | 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.