He Paints the Beauties of Laura, Protesting His Unalterable Love (Anon., Ox., 1795)
Her golden tresses on the wind she threw,Which twisted them in many a beauteous braid;In her fine eyes the burning glances play'd,With lovely light, which now they seldom show:Ah! then it seem'd her face wore pity's hue,Yet haply fancy my fond sense betray'd;Nor strange that I, in whose warm heart was laidLove's fuel, suddenly enkindled grew!Not like a mortal's did her step appear,Angelic was her form; her voice, methought,Pour'd more than human accents on the ear.A living sun was what my vision caught,A spirit pure; and though not such still found,Unbending of the bow ne'er heals the wound.
Words in this poem
- beauteous a.
- Full of beauty; beautiful; very handsome. [Mostly poetic] -- Beau"te*ous*ly, adv. --
- haply adv.
- By hap, chance, luck, or accident; perhaps; it may be.
- unbending a.
- Not bending; not suffering flexure; not yielding to pressure; stiff; -- applied to material things. [In senses 1, 2, and 3, pref. un- not + bending; in sense 4, properly p. pr. unbend.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He Paints the Beauties of Laura, Protesting His Unalterable Love (Anon., Ox., 1795) 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 Paints the Beauties of Laura, Protesting His Unalterable Love (Anon., Ox., 1795), in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/he-paints-the-beauties-of-laura-protesting-his-unalterable-love-anon-ox-1795.html, id L14591.
Form and metre
He Paints the Beauties of Laura, Protesting His Unalterable Love (Anon., Ox., 1795) 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%).
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 threwA · braidB · play'dB · showA · hueA · betray'dB · laidB · grewA · appearC · methoughtD · earC · caughtD · foundC · woundD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Her golden tresses on the wind she threw, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Which twisted them in many a beauteous braid; | 11 | ·/˘··/·/˘˘· |
| In her fine eyes the burning glances play'd, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| With lovely light, which now they seldom show: | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Ah! then it seem'd her face wore pity's hue, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Yet haply fancy my fond sense betray'd; | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Nor strange that I, in whose warm heart was laid | 10 | ·········· |
| Love's fuel, suddenly enkindled grew! | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘··˘· |
| Not like a mortal's did her step appear, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Angelic was her form; her voice, methought, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Pour'd more than human accents on the ear. | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| A living sun was what my vision caught, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| A spirit pure; and though not such still found, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Unbending of the bow ne'er heals the wound. | 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.