A Love Journey—Danger in the Path—He Turns Back
Bright in whose face Love's conquering ensign stream'd,A foreign fair so won me, young and vain,That of her sex all others worthless seem'd:Her as I follow'd o'er the verdant plain,I heard a loud voice speaking from afar,"How lost in these lone woods his footsteps are!"Then paused I, and, beneath the tall beech shade,All wrapt in thought, around me well survey'd,Till, seeing how much danger block'd my way,Homeward I turn'd me though at noon of day.
Words in this poem
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- homeward a.
- Being in the direction of home; as, the homeward way.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Love Journey—Danger in the Path—He Turns Back is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, the various hands 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: Petrarch, A Love Journey—Danger in the Path—He Turns Back, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/a-love-journey-danger-in-the-path-he-turns-back.html, id L14545.
Form and metre
A Love Journey—Danger in the Path—He Turns Back is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABABCCDDEE stream'dA · vainB · seem'dA · plainB · afarC · areC · shadeD · survey'dD · wayE · dayE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bright in whose face Love's conquering ensign stream'd, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| A foreign fair so won me, young and vain, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| That of her sex all others worthless seem'd: | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Her as I follow'd o'er the verdant plain, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| I heard a loud voice speaking from afar, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| "How lost in these lone woods his footsteps are!" | 10 | ·······/·· |
| Then paused I, and, beneath the tall beech shade, | 10 | ·········· |
| All wrapt in thought, around me well survey'd, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Till, seeing how much danger block'd my way, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Homeward I turn'd me though at noon of day. | 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.