Dacre
Sweet bird, that singest on thy airy way,Or else bewailest pleasures that are past;What time the night draws nigh, and wintry blast;Leaving behind each merry month, and day;Oh, couldst thou, as thine own, my state survey,With the same gloom of misery o'ercast;Unto my bosom thou mightst surely hasteAnd, by partaking, my sad griefs allay.Yet would thy share of woe not equal mine,Since the loved mate thou weep'st doth haply live,While death, and heaven, me of my fair deprive:But hours less gay, the season's drear decline;With thoughts on many a sad, and pleasant year,Tempt me to ask thy piteous presence here.
Words in this poem
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- haply adv.
- By hap, chance, luck, or accident; perhaps; it may be.
- drear n.
- Sadness; dismalness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Dacre 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, Dacre, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/dacre-13.html, id L14997.
Form and metre
Dacre 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%). 91% 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 wayA · pastB · blastB · dayA · surveyA · o'ercastB · hasteB · allayA · mineC · liveD · depriveC · declineD · yearC · hereD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet bird, that singest on thy airy way, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Or else bewailest pleasures that are past; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| What time the night draws nigh, and wintry blast; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Leaving behind each merry month, and day; | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Oh, couldst thou, as thine own, my state survey, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| With the same gloom of misery o'ercast; | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| Unto my bosom thou mightst surely haste | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And, by partaking, my sad griefs allay. | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| Yet would thy share of woe not equal mine, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Since the loved mate thou weep'st doth haply live, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| While death, and heaven, me of my fair deprive: | 10 | ···/····˘/ |
| But hours less gay, the season's drear decline; | 10 | ·/···/˘·˘/ |
| With thoughts on many a sad, and pleasant year, | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| Tempt me to ask thy piteous presence here. | 11 | ·····/˘˘/˘· |
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.