To Poland
High o'er those realms that make blind chance the heirOf empire, Poland, dost thou lift thy head:For while thou mournest for thy monarch dead,Thou wilt not let his son the sceptre bear,Lest he prove weak perchance to do or dare.Yet art thou even more by luck misled,Choosing a prince of fortune, courtly-bred,Uncertain whether he will spend or spare.Oh, quit this pride! In hut or shepherd's penSeek Cato, Minos, Numa! For of suchGod still makes kings in plenty: and these menWill squander little substance and gain much,Knowing that virtue and not blood shall beTheir titles to true immortality.
Words in this poem
- sceptre n.
- A staff or baton borne by a sovereign, as a ceremonial badge or emblem of authority; a royal mace. [F. sceptre, L. sceptrum, from Gr. shaft. See Shaft, and cf. Scape a stem, shaft.]
- minos n.
- A king and lawgiver of Crete, fabled to be the son of Jupiter and Europa. After death he was made a judge in the Lower Regions.
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Poland 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, To Poland, in Sonnets (1878), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10314, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/michelangelo-sonnets/to-poland.html, id L15249.
Form and metre
To Poland is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends 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 ABBAABBACDCD-- heirA · headB · deadB · bearA · dareA · misledB · bredB · spareA · penC · suchD · menC · muchD · be · immortality
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 |
|---|---|---|
| High o'er those realms that make blind chance the heir | 10 | ·········· |
| Of empire, Poland, dost thou lift thy head: | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| For while thou mournest for thy monarch dead, | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| Thou wilt not let his son the sceptre bear, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Lest he prove weak perchance to do or dare. | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Yet art thou even more by luck misled, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Choosing a prince of fortune, courtly-bred, | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| Uncertain whether he will spend or spare. | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| Oh, quit this pride! In hut or shepherd's pen | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Seek Cato, Minos, Numa! For of such | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| God still makes kings in plenty: and these men | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Will squander little substance and gain much, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Knowing that virtue and not blood shall be | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Their titles to true immortality. | 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.