Love's Excuse
From happy tears to woeful smiles, from peaceEternal to a brief and hollow truce,How have I fallen!--when 'tis truth we lose,Sense triumphs o'er all adverse impulses.I know not if my heart bred this disease,That still more pleasing grows with growing use;Or else thy face, thine eyes, which stole the huesAnd fires of Paradise--less fair than these.Thy beauty is no mortal thing; 'twas sentFrom heaven on high to make our earth divine:Wherefore, though wasting, burning, I'm content;For in thy sight what could I do but pine?If God himself thus rules my destiny,Who, when I die, can lay the blame on thee?
Words in this poem
- stole n.
- A long, loose garment reaching to the feet. [AS. stole, L. stola, Gr. stall. See Stall.]
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love's Excuse 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's Excuse, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/love-s-excuse.html, id L15191.
Form and metre
Love's Excuse is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 94% 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. 21% 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 -ABBCABCDEDE-- peace · truceA · loseB · impulsesB · diseaseC · useA · huesB · theseC · sentD · divineE · contentD · pineE · destiny · thee
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 |
|---|---|---|
| From happy tears to woeful smiles, from peace | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Eternal to a brief and hollow truce, | 10 | ˘/˘····/˘· |
| How have I fallen!--when 'tis truth we lose, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Sense triumphs o'er all adverse impulses. | 10 | ·/˘··/·/˘˘ |
| I know not if my heart bred this disease, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| That still more pleasing grows with growing use; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Or else thy face, thine eyes, which stole the hues | 10 | ·········· |
| And fires of Paradise--less fair than these. | 10 | ·/·/˘····· |
| Thy beauty is no mortal thing; 'twas sent | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| From heaven on high to make our earth divine: | 10 | ·/····/·˘/ |
| Wherefore, though wasting, burning, I'm content; | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| For in thy sight what could I do but pine? | 10 | ·········· |
| If God himself thus rules my destiny, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘˘ |
| Who, when I die, can lay the blame on thee? | 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.