He Endeavours to Find Peace in the Thought That She Is in Heaven
Mine eyes! our glorious sun is veil'd in night,Or set to us, to rise 'mid realms of love;There we may hail it still, and haply proveIt mourn'd that we delay'd our heavenward flight.Mine ears! the music of her tones delightThose, who its harmony can best approve;My feet! who in her track so joy'd to move.Ye cannot penetrate her regions bright!But wherefore should your wrath on me descend?No spell of mine hath hush'd for ye the joyOf seeing, hearing, feeling, she was near:Go, war with Death--yet, rather let us bendTo Him who can create--who can destroy--And bids the ready smile succeed the tear.
Words in this poem
- glorious a.
- Exhibiting attributes, qualities, or acts that are worthy of or receive glory; noble; praiseworthy; excellent; splendid; illustrious; inspiring admiration; as, glorious deeds. [OF. glorios, glorious, F. glorieux, fr. L. gloriosus. See Glory, n.]
- haply adv.
- By hap, chance, luck, or accident; perhaps; it may be.
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He Endeavours to Find Peace in the Thought That She Is in Heaven 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 Endeavours to Find Peace in the Thought That She Is in Heaven, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/he-endeavours-to-find-peace-in-the-thought-that-she-is-in-he.html, id L14849.
Form and metre
He Endeavours to Find Peace in the Thought That She Is in Heaven 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 90%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 29% 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 nightA · loveB · proveB · flightA · delightA · approveB · moveB · brightA · descendC · joyD · nearC · bendD · destroyC · tearD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mine eyes! our glorious sun is veil'd in night, | 10 | ··//˘····· |
| Or set to us, to rise 'mid realms of love; | 10 | ·········· |
| There we may hail it still, and haply prove | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| It mourn'd that we delay'd our heavenward flight. | 11 | ····˘///˘˘· |
| Mine ears! the music of her tones delight | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Those, who its harmony can best approve; | 10 | ···/˘˘··˘/ |
| My feet! who in her track so joy'd to move. | 10 | ·········· |
| Ye cannot penetrate her regions bright! | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| But wherefore should your wrath on me descend? | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| No spell of mine hath hush'd for ye the joy | 10 | ·········· |
| Of seeing, hearing, feeling, she was near: | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Go, war with Death--yet, rather let us bend | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| To Him who can create--who can destroy-- | 10 | ····˘/··˘/ |
| And bids the ready smile succeed the tear. | 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.