His Lyre Is Now Attuned Only to Woe (Woodhouselee)
Those eyes, sweet subject of my rapturous strain!The arms, the hands, the feet, that lovely face,By which I from myself divided was,And parted from the vulgar and the vain;Those crisped locks, pure gold unknown to stain!Of that angelic smile the lightening grace,Which wont to make this earth a heavenly place!Dissolved to senseless ashes now remain!And yet I live, to endless grief a prey,'Reft of that star, my loved, my certain guide,Disarm'd my bark, while tempests round me blow!Stop, then, my verse--dry is the fountain's tide.That fed my genius! Cease, my amorous lay!Changed is my lyre, attuned to endless woe!
About this text
His Lyre Is Now Attuned Only to Woe (Woodhouselee) 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, His Lyre Is Now Attuned Only to Woe (Woodhouselee), in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/his-lyre-is-now-attuned-only-to-woe-woodhouselee.html, id L14879.
Form and metre
His Lyre Is Now Attuned Only to Woe (Woodhouselee) 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 strainA · faceB · wasB · vainA · stainA · graceB · placeB · remainA · preyC · guideD · blowC · tideD · layC · 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Those eyes, sweet subject of my rapturous strain! | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The arms, the hands, the feet, that lovely face, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| By which I from myself divided was, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| And parted from the vulgar and the vain; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Those crisped locks, pure gold unknown to stain! | 10 | ··˘···˘/·· |
| Of that angelic smile the lightening grace, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Which wont to make this earth a heavenly place! | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Dissolved to senseless ashes now remain! | 10 | ˘/·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And yet I live, to endless grief a prey, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| 'Reft of that star, my loved, my certain guide, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Disarm'd my bark, while tempests round me blow! | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| Stop, then, my verse--dry is the fountain's tide. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| That fed my genius! Cease, my amorous lay! | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Changed is my lyre, attuned to endless 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.