Dacre
Where the green leaves exclude the summer beam,And softly bend as balmy breezes blow,And where with liquid lapse the lucid streamAcross the fretted rock is heard to flow,Pensive I lay: when she whom earth concealsAs if still living to my eye appears;And pitying Heaven her angel form revealsTo say, "Unhappy Petrarch, dry your tears.Ah! why, sad lover, thus before your timeIn grief and sadness should your life decay,And, like a blighted flower, your manly primeIn vain and hopeless sorrow fade away?Ah! yield not thus to culpable despair;But raise thine eyes to heaven and think I wait thee there!"
Words in this poem
- balmy a.
- Having the qualities of balm; odoriferous; aromatic; assuaging; soothing; refreshing; mild.
- pitying a.
- Expressing pity; as, a pitying eye, glance, or word.
- sadness n.
- Heaviness; firmness.
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-7.html, id L14855.
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 91%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 36% 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 beamA · blowB · streamB · flowA · concealsA · appearsB · revealsB · tearsA · timeC · decayD · primeC · awayD · despairC · thereD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Where the green leaves exclude the summer beam, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| And softly bend as balmy breezes blow, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| And where with liquid lapse the lucid stream | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Across the fretted rock is heard to flow, | 10 | ˘/·/˘····· |
| Pensive I lay: when she whom earth conceals | 10 | /˘······˘/ |
| As if still living to my eye appears; | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And pitying Heaven her angel form reveals | 10 | ·/˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| To say, "Unhappy Petrarch, dry your tears. | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Ah! why, sad lover, thus before your time | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| In grief and sadness should your life decay, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And, like a blighted flower, your manly prime | 10 | ···/˘/·/˘· |
| In vain and hopeless sorrow fade away? | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Ah! yield not thus to culpable despair; | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| But raise thine eyes to heaven and think I wait thee there!" | 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.