He Vents His Sorrow to All Who Witnessed His Former Felicity (Anon., Ox., 1795)
On these green banks in happier days I stray'dWith Love, who whisper'd many a tender tale;And the glad waters, winding through the dale,Heard the sweet eloquence fond Love display'd.You, purpled plain, cool grot, and arching glade;Ye hills, ye streams, where plays the silken gale;Ye pathless wilds, you rock-encircled valeWhich oft have beard the tender plaints I made;Ye blue-hair'd nymphs, who ceaseless revel keep,In the cool bosom of the crystal deep;Ye woodland maids who climb the mountain's brow;Ye mark'd how joy once wing'd each hour so gay;Ah, mark how sad each hour now wears away!So fate with human bliss blends human woe!
Words in this poem
- glade n.
- An open passage through a wood; a grassy open or cleared space in a forest. [Prob. of Scand. origin, and akin to glad, a.; cf. also W. golead, goleuad, a lighting, illumination, fr. goleu light, clear, bright, goleu fwlch glade, lit., a ]
- pathless a.
- Having no beaten path or way; untrodden; impenetrable; as, pathless woods.
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- ceaseless a.
- Without pause or end; incessant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He Vents His Sorrow to All Who Witnessed His Former Felicity (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 Vents His Sorrow to All Who Witnessed His Former Felicity (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-vents-his-sorrow-to-all-who-witnessed-his-former-felicity-anon-ox-1795.html, id L14900.
Form and metre
He Vents His Sorrow to All Who Witnessed His Former Felicity (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 93%).
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 stray'dA · taleB · daleB · display'dA · gladeA · galeB · valeB · madeA · keepC · deepD · browC · gayD · awayC · woeD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| On these green banks in happier days I stray'd | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| With Love, who whisper'd many a tender tale; | 10 | ···/˘/·/˘· |
| And the glad waters, winding through the dale, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Heard the sweet eloquence fond Love display'd. | 10 | ···/˘˘··˘/ |
| You, purpled plain, cool grot, and arching glade; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Ye hills, ye streams, where plays the silken gale; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Ye pathless wilds, you rock-encircled vale | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Which oft have beard the tender plaints I made; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Ye blue-hair'd nymphs, who ceaseless revel keep, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| In the cool bosom of the crystal deep; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Ye woodland maids who climb the mountain's brow; | 10 | ·/·····/˘· |
| Ye mark'd how joy once wing'd each hour so gay; | 10 | ·······/·· |
| Ah, mark how sad each hour now wears away! | 10 | ·····/··˘/ |
| So fate with human bliss blends human woe! | 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.