Dacre
The eyes, the arms, the hands, the feet, the face,Which made my thoughts and words so warm and wild,That I was almost from myself exiled,And render'd strange to all the human race;The lucid locks that curl'd in golden grace,The lightening beam that, when my angel smiled,Diffused o'er earth an Eden heavenly mild;What are they now? Dust, lifeless dust, alas!And I live on, a melancholy slave,Toss'd by the tempest in a shatter'd bark,Reft of the lovely light that cheer'd the wave.The flame of genius, too, extinct and dark,Here let my lays of love conclusion have;Mute be the lyre: tears best my sorrows mark.
Words in this poem
- eden n.
- The garden where Adam and Eve first dwelt; hence, a delightful region or residence. [Heb. eden delight, pleasure; also, a place of pleasure, Eden.]
- reft n.
- A chink; a rift. See Rift. Rom. of R.
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-8.html, id L14877.
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 89%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
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 faceA · wildB · exiledB · raceA · graceA · smiledB · mildB · alasA · slaveC · barkD · waveC · darkD · haveC · markD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The eyes, the arms, the hands, the feet, the face, | 10 | ·········· |
| Which made my thoughts and words so warm and wild, | 10 | ·········· |
| That I was almost from myself exiled, | 10 | ···/···//· |
| And render'd strange to all the human race; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| The lucid locks that curl'd in golden grace, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| The lightening beam that, when my angel smiled, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Diffused o'er earth an Eden heavenly mild; | 10 | ˘/···/˘/˘· |
| What are they now? Dust, lifeless dust, alas! | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| And I live on, a melancholy slave, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘· |
| Toss'd by the tempest in a shatter'd bark, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Reft of the lovely light that cheer'd the wave. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The flame of genius, too, extinct and dark, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Here let my lays of love conclusion have; | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Mute be the lyre: tears best my sorrows mark. | 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.