Sonnet XX
When in the widening circle of rebirthTo a new flesh my travelled soul shall come,And try again the unremembered earthWith the old sadness for the immortal home,Shall I revisit these same differing fieldsAnd cull the old new flowers with the same sense,That some small breath of foiled remembrance yields,Of more age than my days in this pretence?Shall I again regret strange faces lostOf which the present memory is forgotAnd but in unseen bulks of vagueness tossedOut of the closed sea and black night of Thought?Were thy face one, what sweetness will’t not be,Though by blind feeling, to remember thee!
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- sadness n.
- Heaviness; firmness.
- revisit v. t.
- To visit again.
- cull v. t.
- To separate, select, or pick out; to choose and gather or collect; as, to cuil flowers. [OE., OF. cuillir, coillir, F.cueillir, to gather, pluck, pick, fr. L. colligere. See Coil, v. t., and cf. Collect.]
- pretence n.
- The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. [LL. praetensus, for L. praetentus, p. p. of praetendere. See Pretend, and cf. Tension.]
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- vagueness n.
- The quality or state of being vague.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet XX is in the public domain. This text is taken from 35 Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #19978; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Fernando Pessoa, Sonnet XX, in 35 Sonnets (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #19978, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pessoa-35-sonnets/sonnet-xx.html, id L23649.
Form and metre
Sonnet XX is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See other English sonnets, 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 ABABCDCDEFEFGG rebirthA · comeB · earthA · homeB · fieldsC · senseD · yieldsC · pretenceD · lostE · forgotF · tossedE · thoughtF · beG · theeG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When in the widening circle of rebirth | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| To a new flesh my travelled soul shall come, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And try again the unremembered earth | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| With the old sadness for the immortal home, | 11 | ···/˘··˘/˘· |
| Shall I revisit these same differing fields | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| And cull the old new flowers with the same sense, | 10 | ·····/···· |
| That some small breath of foiled remembrance yields, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Of more age than my days in this pretence? | 10 | ·········· |
| Shall I again regret strange faces lost | 10 | ··˘/˘/·/˘· |
| Of which the present memory is forgot | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And but in unseen bulks of vagueness tossed | 10 | ···˘/··/˘· |
| Out of the closed sea and black night of Thought? | 10 | ·········· |
| Were thy face one, what sweetness will’t not be, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Though by blind feeling, to remember 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.