Macgregor
O Time! O circling heavens! in your flightUs mortals ye deceive--so poor and blind;O days! more fleeting than the shaft or wind,Experience brings your treachery to my sight!But mine the error--ye yourselves are right;Your flight fulfils but that your wings design'd:My eyes were Nature's gift, yet ne'er could findBut one blest light--and hence their present blight.It now is time (perchance the hour is pass'd)That they a safer dwelling should select,And thus repose might soothe my grief acute:Love's yoke the spirit may not from it cast,(With oh what pain!) it may its ill eject;But virtue is attain'd but by pursuit!
Words in this poem
- soothe v. t.
- To assent to as true. Testament of Love. [Originally, to assent to as true; OE. so to verify, AS. ges to prove the truth of, to bear witness. See Sooth, a.]
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-39.html, id L14958.
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 89%). 100% 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 flightA · blindB · windB · sightA · rightA · design'dB · findB · blightA · pass'dC · selectD · acuteC · castD · ejectC · pursuitD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O Time! O circling heavens! in your flight | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Us mortals ye deceive--so poor and blind; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| O days! more fleeting than the shaft or wind, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Experience brings your treachery to my sight! | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| But mine the error--ye yourselves are right; | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Your flight fulfils but that your wings design'd: | 10 | ········˘/ |
| My eyes were Nature's gift, yet ne'er could find | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But one blest light--and hence their present blight. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| It now is time (perchance the hour is pass'd) | 10 | ····˘/·/·· |
| That they a safer dwelling should select, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And thus repose might soothe my grief acute: | 10 | ··˘/····˘/ |
| Love's yoke the spirit may not from it cast, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| (With oh what pain!) it may its ill eject; | 10 | ········˘/ |
| But virtue is attain'd but by pursuit! | 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.