He Blesses All the Circumstances of His Passion
Blest be the day, and blest the month, the year,The spring, the hour, the very moment blest,The lovely scene, the spot, where first oppress'dI sunk, of two bright eyes the prisoner:And blest the first soft pang, to me most dear,Which thrill'd my heart, when Love became its guest;And blest the bow, the shafts which pierced my breast,And even the wounds, which bosom'd thence I bear.Blest too the strains which, pour'd through glade and grove,Have made the woodlands echo with her name;The sighs, the tears, the languishment, the love:And blest those sonnets, sources of my fame;And blest that thought--Oh! never to remove!Which turns to her alone, from her alone which came.
Words in this poem
- glade n.
- An open passage through a wood; a grassy open or cleared space in a forest. [Prob. of Scand. origin, and akin to glad, a.; cf. also W. golead, goleuad, a lighting, illumination, fr. goleu light, clear, bright, goleu fwlch glade, lit., a ]
- languishment n.
- The state of languishing.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He Blesses All the Circumstances of His Passion 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, He Blesses All the Circumstances of His Passion, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/he-blesses-all-the-circumstances-of-his-passion.html, id L14555.
Form and metre
He Blesses All the Circumstances of His Passion 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 93%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 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 yearA · blestB · oppress'dB · prisonerA · dearA · guestB · breastB · bearA · groveC · nameD · loveC · fameD · removeC · cameD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Blest be the day, and blest the month, the year, | 10 | ·········· |
| The spring, the hour, the very moment blest, | 10 | ···/·/˘/˘· |
| The lovely scene, the spot, where first oppress'd | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| I sunk, of two bright eyes the prisoner: | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| And blest the first soft pang, to me most dear, | 10 | ·········· |
| Which thrill'd my heart, when Love became its guest; | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| And blest the bow, the shafts which pierced my breast, | 10 | ·········· |
| And even the wounds, which bosom'd thence I bear. | 10 | ·/········ |
| Blest too the strains which, pour'd through glade and grove, | 10 | ·········· |
| Have made the woodlands echo with her name; | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| The sighs, the tears, the languishment, the love: | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| And blest those sonnets, sources of my fame; | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And blest that thought--Oh! never to remove! | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Which turns to her alone, from her alone which came. | 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.