Nott
O rapid flood! which from thy mountain bedGnawest thy shores, whence (in my tongue) thy name;Thou art my partner, night and day the same,Where I by love, thou art by nature led:Precede me now; no weariness doth shedIts spell o'er thee, no sleep thy course can tame;Yet ere the ocean waves thy tribute claim,Pause, where the herb and air seem brighter fed.There beams our sun of life, whose genial rayWith brighter verdure thy left shore adorns;Perchance (vain hope!) e'en now my stay she mourns.Kiss then her foot, her lovely hand, and mayThy kiss to her in place of language speak,The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Words in this poem
- genial a.
- Contributing to, or concerned in, propagation or production; generative; procreative; productive. [L. genialis: cf. OF. genial. See Genius.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Nott 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, Nott, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/nott-23.html, id L14758.
Form and metre
Nott 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%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 29% 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 bedA · nameB · sameB · ledA · shedA · tameB · claimB · fedA · rayC · adornsD · mournsC · mayD · speakC · weakD
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 rapid flood! which from thy mountain bed | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Gnawest thy shores, whence (in my tongue) thy name; | 10 | /˘········ |
| Thou art my partner, night and day the same, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Where I by love, thou art by nature led: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Precede me now; no weariness doth shed | 10 | ˘/···/˘˘·· |
| Its spell o'er thee, no sleep thy course can tame; | 10 | ·········· |
| Yet ere the ocean waves thy tribute claim, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Pause, where the herb and air seem brighter fed. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| There beams our sun of life, whose genial ray | 10 | ··/····/˘· |
| With brighter verdure thy left shore adorns; | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Perchance (vain hope!) e'en now my stay she mourns. | 10 | ˘/········ |
| Kiss then her foot, her lovely hand, and may | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Thy kiss to her in place of language speak, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. | 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.