Charlotte Smith
Moved by the summer wind when all is still,The light leaves quiver on the yielding spray;Sighs from its flowery bank the lucid rill,While the birds answer in their sweetest lay.Vain to this sickening heart these scenes appear:No form but hers can meet my tearful eyes;In every passing gale her voice I hear;It seems to tell me, "I have heard thy sighs.But why," she cries, "in manhood's towering prime,In grief's dark mist thy days, inglorious, hide?Ah! dost thou murmur, that my span of timeHas join'd eternity's unchanging tide?Yes, though I seem'd to shut mine eyes in night,They only closed to wake in everlasting light!"
Words in this poem
- rill n.
- A very small brook; a streamlet. [Cf. LG. rille a small channel or brook, a furrow, a chamfer, OE. rigol a small brook, F. rigole a trench or furrow for water, W. rhill a row, rhigol a little di]
- sickening a.
- Causing sickness; specif., causing surfeit or disgust; nauseating.
- tearful a.
- Abounding with tears; weeping; shedding tears; as, tearful eyes.
- towering a.
- Very high; elevated; rising aloft; as, a towering height.
- inglorious a.
- Not glorious; not bringing honor or glory; not accompanied with fame, honor, or celebrity; obscure; humble; as, an inglorious life of ease. [L. inglorious; pref. in- not + gloria glory, fame: cf. F. inglorieux. See Glory.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Charlotte Smith 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, Charlotte Smith, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/charlotte-smith.html, id L14856.
Form and metre
Charlotte Smith 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%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 7% 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 stillA · sprayB · rillB · layA · appearA · eyesB · hearB · sighsA · primeC · hideD · timeC · tideD · nightC · lightD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Moved by the summer wind when all is still, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The light leaves quiver on the yielding spray; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Sighs from its flowery bank the lucid rill, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| While the birds answer in their sweetest lay. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Vain to this sickening heart these scenes appear: | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| No form but hers can meet my tearful eyes; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| In every passing gale her voice I hear; | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| It seems to tell me, "I have heard thy sighs. | 10 | ·········· |
| But why," she cries, "in manhood's towering prime, | 10 | ·····/·/˘· |
| In grief's dark mist thy days, inglorious, hide? | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Ah! dost thou murmur, that my span of time | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Has join'd eternity's unchanging tide? | 10 | ··˘/˘˘˘/˘· |
| Yes, though I seem'd to shut mine eyes in night, | 10 | ·········· |
| They only closed to wake in everlasting light!" | 12 | ·/˘·····˘/˘· |
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.