Hope Alone Supports Him in His Misery
Hard heart and cold, a stern will past belief,In angel form of gentle sweet allure;If thus her practised rigour long endure,O'er me her triumph will be poor and brief.For when or spring, or die, flower, herb, and leaf.When day is brightest, night when most obscure,Alway I weep. Great cause from Fortune sure,From Love and Laura have I for my grief.I live in hope alone, remembering stillHow by long fall of small drops I have seenMarble and solid stone that worn have been.No heart there is so hard, so cold no will,By true tears, fervent prayers, and faithful loveThat will not deign at length to melt and move.
Words in this poem
- rigour n.
- Rigidity; stiffness. [L. See Rigor., below.]
- laura n.
- A number of hermitages or cells in the same neighborhood occupied by anchorites who were under the same superior. C. Kingsley.
- fervent a.
- Hot; glowing; boiling; burning; as, a fervent summer. [F. fervent, L. fervens, -entis. p.pr. of fervere o the boiling hot, to boil, glow.]
- deign v. t.
- To esteem worthy; to consider worth notice; -- opposed to disdain. [OE. deinen, deignen, OF. degner, deigner, daigner, F. daigner, fr. L. dignari to deem worthy, deign, fr. dignus worthy; akin to decere to be fitting. See Decent]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hope Alone Supports Him in His Misery 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, Hope Alone Supports Him in His Misery, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/hope-alone-supports-him-in-his-misery.html, id L14836.
Form and metre
Hope Alone Supports Him in His Misery 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 91%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 21% 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 beliefA · allureB · endureB · briefA · leafA · obscureB · sureB · griefA · stillC · seenD · beenC · willD · loveC · moveD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hard heart and cold, a stern will past belief, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| In angel form of gentle sweet allure; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| If thus her practised rigour long endure, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| O'er me her triumph will be poor and brief. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| For when or spring, or die, flower, herb, and leaf. | 10 | ······/··· |
| When day is brightest, night when most obscure, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Alway I weep. Great cause from Fortune sure, | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| From Love and Laura have I for my grief. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| I live in hope alone, remembering still | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
| How by long fall of small drops I have seen | 10 | ·········· |
| Marble and solid stone that worn have been. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| No heart there is so hard, so cold no will, | 10 | ·········· |
| By true tears, fervent prayers, and faithful love | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| That will not deign at length to melt and move. | 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.