Love's Lordship
Why should I seek to ease intense desireWith still more tears and windy words of grief,When heaven, or late or soon, sends no reliefTo souls whom love hath robed around with fire?Why need my aching heart to death aspire,When all must die? Nay, death beyond beliefUnto these eyes would be both sweet and brief,Since in my sum of woes all joys expire!Therefore because I cannot shun the blowI rather seek, say who must rule my breast,Gliding between her gladness and her woe?If only chains and bands can make me blest,No marvel if alone and bare I goAn arméd Knight's captive and slave confessed.
Words in this poem
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
- 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's Lordship 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 Lordship, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/love-s-lordship.html, id L15173.
Form and metre
Love's Lordship is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBACBBCDEDEDE. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 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 ABBACBBCDEDEDE desireA · griefB · reliefB · fireA · aspireC · beliefB · briefB · expireC · blowD · breastE · woeD · blestE · goD · confessedE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Why should I seek to ease intense desire | 11 | ······˘/˘/˘ |
| With still more tears and windy words of grief, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief | 10 | ·/······˘/ |
| To souls whom love hath robed around with fire? | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Why need my aching heart to death aspire, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| When all must die? Nay, death beyond belief | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief, | 10 | ·········· |
| Since in my sum of woes all joys expire! | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Therefore because I cannot shun the blow | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I rather seek, say who must rule my breast, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Gliding between her gladness and her woe? | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| If only chains and bands can make me blest, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| No marvel if alone and bare I go | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| An arméd Knight's captive and slave confessed. | 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.