Charlemont
My lethe-freighted bark with reckless proreCleaves the rough sea 'neath wintry midnight skies,My old foe at the helm our compass eyes,With Scylla and Charybdis on each shore,A prompt and daring thought at every oar,Which equally the storm and death defies,While a perpetual humid wind of sighs,Of hopes, and of desires, its light sail tore.Bathe and relax its worn and weary shrouds(Which ignorance with error intertwines),Torrents of tears, of scorn and anger clouds;Hidden the twin dear lights which were my signs;Reason and Art amid the waves lie dead,And hope of gaining port is almost fled.
Words in this poem
- lethe n.
- A river of Hades whose waters when drunk caused forgetfulness of the past.
- prore n.
- The prow or fore part of a ship. [L. prora, Gr. prora. See Prow, n.]
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- charybdis n.
- A dangerous whirlpool on the coast of Sicily opposite Scylla on the Italian coast. It is personified as a female monster. See Scylla.
- tore n.
- The dead grass that remains on mowing land in winter and spring. Mortimer. [Probably from the root of tear; cf. W. tór a break, cut, tóri to break, cut.]
- amid 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]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Charlemont 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, Charlemont, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/charlemont-5.html, id L14732.
Form and metre
Charlemont 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 88%). 87% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 proreA · skiesB · eyesB · shoreA · oarA · defiesB · sighsB · toreA · shroudsC · intertwinesD · cloudsC · signsD · deadC · fledD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My lethe-freighted bark with reckless prore | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Cleaves the rough sea 'neath wintry midnight skies, | 10 | ·····/˘/·· |
| My old foe at the helm our compass eyes, | 10 | ······//˘· |
| With Scylla and Charybdis on each shore, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| A prompt and daring thought at every oar, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Which equally the storm and death defies, | 10 | ·/˘˘····˘/ |
| While a perpetual humid wind of sighs, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Of hopes, and of desires, its light sail tore. | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Bathe and relax its worn and weary shrouds | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| (Which ignorance with error intertwines), | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘˘˘/ |
| Torrents of tears, of scorn and anger clouds; | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Hidden the twin dear lights which were my signs; | 10 | /˘········ |
| Reason and Art amid the waves lie dead, | 10 | /˘··˘/···· |
| And hope of gaining port is almost fled. | 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.