He Owes His Own Salvation to the Virtuous Conduct of Laura
O sweet severity, repulses mild,With chasten'd love, and tender pity fraught;Graceful rebukes, that to mad passion taughtBecoming mastery o'er its wishes wild;Speech dignified, in which, united, smiledAll courtesy, with purity of thought;Virtue and beauty, that uprooted aughtOf baser temper had my heart defiled:Eyes, in whose glance man is beatified--Awful, in pride of virtue, to restrainAspiring hopes that justly are denied,Then prompt the drooping spirit to sustain!These, beautiful in every change, suppliedHealth to my soul, that else were sought in vain.
Words in this poem
- fraught n.
- A freight; a cargo. [OE.fraight, fraght; akin to Dan. fragt, Sw. frakt, D. vracht, G. fracht, cf. OHG. fr merit, reward; perh. from corresponding to E. for + The root of E. own. Cf.]
- aught n.
- Property; possession. [AS. , fr. agan to own, p. p. ahte.]
- aspiring a.
- That aspires; as, an Aspiring mind.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He Owes His Own Salvation to the Virtuous Conduct of Laura 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 Owes His Own Salvation to the Virtuous Conduct of Laura, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/he-owes-his-own-salvation-to-the-virtuous-conduct-of-laura.html, id L14992.
Form and metre
He Owes His Own Salvation to the Virtuous Conduct of Laura 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%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 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 mildA · fraughtB · taughtB · wildA · smiledA · thoughtB · aughtB · defiledA · beatifiedC · restrainD · deniedC · sustainD · suppliedC · vainD
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 sweet severity, repulses mild, | 10 | ··˘/˘˘˘/˘· |
| With chasten'd love, and tender pity fraught; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Graceful rebukes, that to mad passion taught | 10 | /˘˘/···/˘· |
| Becoming mastery o'er its wishes wild; | 10 | ˘/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Speech dignified, in which, united, smiled | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| All courtesy, with purity of thought; | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘˘·· |
| Virtue and beauty, that uprooted aught | 10 | /˘·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Of baser temper had my heart defiled: | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Eyes, in whose glance man is beatified-- | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Awful, in pride of virtue, to restrain | 10 | /˘···/˘·˘/ |
| Aspiring hopes that justly are denied, | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Then prompt the drooping spirit to sustain! | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| These, beautiful in every change, supplied | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘·˘/ |
| Health to my soul, that else were sought in vain. | 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.