He Prays That He May Die Before Laura
The balmy gale, that, with its tender sigh,Moves the green laurel and the golden hair,Makes with its graceful visitings and rareThe gazer's spirit from his body fly.A sweet and snow-white rose in hard thorns set!Where in the world her fellow shall we find?The glory of our age! Creator kind!Grant that ere hers my death shall first be met.So the great public loss I may not see,The world without its sun, in darkness left,And from my desolate eyes their sole light reft,My mind with which no other thoughts agree,Mine ears which by no other sound are stirr'dExcept her ever pure and gentle word.
Words in this poem
- balmy a.
- Having the qualities of balm; odoriferous; aromatic; assuaging; soothing; refreshing; mild.
- 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,]
- reft n.
- A chink; a rift. See Rift. Rom. of R.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He Prays That He May Die Before 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 Prays That He May Die Before Laura, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/he-prays-that-he-may-die-before-laura.html, id L14811.
Form and metre
He Prays That He May Die Before 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 89%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 14% 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 sighA · hairB · rareB · flyA · setA · findB · kindB · metA · seeC · leftD · reftC · agreeD · stirr'dC · wordD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The balmy gale, that, with its tender sigh, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Moves the green laurel and the golden hair, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Makes with its graceful visitings and rare | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
| The gazer's spirit from his body fly. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| A sweet and snow-white rose in hard thorns set! | 10 | ·········· |
| Where in the world her fellow shall we find? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The glory of our age! Creator kind! | 10 | ·/˘·/·˘/˘· |
| Grant that ere hers my death shall first be met. | 10 | ·········· |
| So the great public loss I may not see, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The world without its sun, in darkness left, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And from my desolate eyes their sole light reft, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| My mind with which no other thoughts agree, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Mine ears which by no other sound are stirr'd | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Except her ever pure and gentle word. | 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.