He Endeavours to Find Peace in the Thought That She Is in Heaven (Wollaston)
O my sad eyes! our sun is overcast,--Nay, rather borne to heaven, and there is shining,Waiting our coming, and perchance repiningAt our delay; there shall we meet at last:And there, mine ears, her angel words float past,Those who best understand their sweet divining;Howe'er, my feet, unto the search inclining,Ye cannot reach her in those regions vast.Why, then, do ye torment me thus, for, oh!It is no fault of mine, that ye no moreBehold, and hear, and welcome her below;Blame Death,--or rather praise Him and adore,Who binds and frees, restrains and letteth go,And to the weeping one can joy restore.
Words in this poem
- overcast v. t.
- To cast or cover over; hence, to cloud; to darken.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- adore v. t.
- To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. [OE. aouren, anouren, adoren, OF. aorer, adorer, F. adorer, fr. L. adorare; ad + orare to speak, pray, os, oris, mouth. In OE. confused with honor, the French pr]
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 (Wollaston) 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 (Wollaston), 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-heaven-wollaston.html, id L14850.
Form and metre
He Endeavours to Find Peace in the Thought That She Is in Heaven (Wollaston) 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 87%).
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 overcastA · shiningB · repiningB · lastA · pastA · diviningB · incliningB · vastA · ohC · moreD · belowC · adoreD · goC · restoreD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O my sad eyes! our sun is overcast,-- | 10 | ····/··/˘· |
| Nay, rather borne to heaven, and there is shining, | 11 | ·/˘··/···/˘ |
| Waiting our coming, and perchance repining | 11 | /˘//˘·˘/··· |
| At our delay; there shall we meet at last: | 10 | ·/˘/······ |
| And there, mine ears, her angel words float past, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Those who best understand their sweet divining; | 11 | ····˘/··˘/˘ |
| Howe'er, my feet, unto the search inclining, | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| Ye cannot reach her in those regions vast. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Why, then, do ye torment me thus, for, oh! | 10 | ····/····· |
| It is no fault of mine, that ye no more | 10 | ·········· |
| Behold, and hear, and welcome her below; | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| Blame Death,--or rather praise Him and adore, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Who binds and frees, restrains and letteth go, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| And to the weeping one can joy restore. | 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.