All Nature Would Be in Darkness Were She, Its Sun, to Perish (Wrangham)
Whene'er amidst the damsels, blooming bright,She shows herself, whose like was never made,At her approach all other beauties fade,As at morn's orient glow the gems of night.Love seems to whisper,--"While to mortal sightHer graces shall on earth be yet display'd,Life shall be blest; 'till soon with her decay'd,The virtues, and my reign shall sink outright."Of moon and sun, should nature rob the sky,The air of winds, the earth of herbs and leaves,Mankind of speech and intellectual eye,The ocean's bed of fish, and dancing waves;Even so shall all things dark and lonely lye,When of her beauty Death the world bereaves!
Words in this poem
- amidst prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- 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,]
- outright adv.
- Immediately; without delay; at once; as, he was killed outright.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
All Nature Would Be in Darkness Were She, Its Sun, to Perish (Wrangham) 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, All Nature Would Be in Darkness Were She, Its Sun, to Perish (Wrangham), in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/all-nature-would-be-in-darkness-were-she-its-sun-to-perish-wrangham.html, id L14773.
Form and metre
All Nature Would Be in Darkness Were She, Its Sun, to Perish (Wrangham) is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDCDCD, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other Italian 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 ABBAABBACDCDCD brightA · madeB · fadeB · nightA · sightA · display'dB · decay'dB · outrightA · skyC · leavesD · eyeC · wavesD · lyeC · bereavesD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Whene'er amidst the damsels, blooming bright, | 11 | ···˘/·/˘/˘· |
| She shows herself, whose like was never made, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| At her approach all other beauties fade, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘/˘· |
| As at morn's orient glow the gems of night. | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| Love seems to whisper,--"While to mortal sight | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Her graces shall on earth be yet display'd, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Life shall be blest; 'till soon with her decay'd, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| The virtues, and my reign shall sink outright." | 10 | ·/˘·····// |
| Of moon and sun, should nature rob the sky, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The air of winds, the earth of herbs and leaves, | 10 | ·········· |
| Mankind of speech and intellectual eye, | 10 | //····˘/˘· |
| The ocean's bed of fish, and dancing waves; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Even so shall all things dark and lonely lye, | 10 | /······/˘· |
| When of her beauty Death the world bereaves! | 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.