Macgregor
Alas! I know death makes us all his prey,Nor aught of mercy shows to destined man;How swift the world completes its circling span,And faithless Time soon speeds him on his way.My heart repeats the blast of earth's last day,Yet for its grief no recompense can scan,Love holds me still beneath its cruel ban,And still my eyes their usual tribute pay.My watchful senses mark how on their wingThe circling years transport their fleeter kin,And still I bow enslaved as by a spell:For fourteen years did reason proudly flingDefiance at my tameless will, to winA triumph blest, if Man can good foretell.
Words in this poem
- aught n.
- Property; possession. [AS. , fr. agan to own, p. p. ahte.]
- scan v. t.
- To mount by steps; to go through with step by step. [L. scandere, scansum, to climb, to scan, akin to Skr. skand to spring, leap: cf. F. scander. Cf. Ascend, Descend, Scale a ladder.]
- tameless a.
- Incapable of being tamed; wild; untamed; untamable. Bp. Hall.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Macgregor 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, Macgregor, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/macgregor-12.html, id L14609.
Form and metre
Macgregor 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%). 99% 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 preyA · manB · spanB · wayA · dayA · scanB · banB · payA · wingC · kinD · spellC · flingD · winC · foretellD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Alas! I know death makes us all his prey, | 10 | ˘/········ |
| Nor aught of mercy shows to destined man; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| How swift the world completes its circling span, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| And faithless Time soon speeds him on his way. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| My heart repeats the blast of earth's last day, | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Yet for its grief no recompense can scan, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Love holds me still beneath its cruel ban, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And still my eyes their usual tribute pay. | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| My watchful senses mark how on their wing | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| The circling years transport their fleeter kin, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| And still I bow enslaved as by a spell: | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| For fourteen years did reason proudly fling | 10 | ·//··/˘/˘· |
| Defiance at my tameless will, to win | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| A triumph blest, if Man can good foretell. | 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.