Sorrow and Joy
And what is sorrow? 'Tis a boundless sea.And what is joy?—A little pearl in that deep ocean's bed;I sought it—found it—held it o'er my head,And, to my soul's annoy,It fell into the ocean's depth again,And now I look and long for it in vain.
About this text
Sorrow and Joy is in the public domain. This text is taken from Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet, by Sir John Bowring (London: Trübner & Co., 1866), Internet Archive, the John Bowring 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: Sándor Petőfi, Sorrow and Joy, in Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet (1866), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petofi-poems-bowring/sorrow-and-joy.html, id L29811.
Form and metre
Sorrow and Joy is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
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 -ABBACC sea · joyA · bedB · headB · annoyA · againC · vainC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And what is sorrow? 'Tis a boundless sea. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And what is joy?— | 4 | ···· |
| A little pearl in that deep ocean's bed; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| I sought it—found it—held it o'er my head, | 10 | ·········· |
| And, to my soul's annoy, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| It fell into the ocean's depth again, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| And now I look and long for it in vain. | 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.