She Announces to Him, in a Vision, That He Will Never See Her More
To soothe me distant far, in days gone by,With dreams of one whose glance all heaven combined,Was mine; now fears and sorrow haunt my mind,Nor can I from that grief, those terrors fly:For oft in sleep I mark within her eyeDeep pity with o'erwhelming sadness join'd;And oft I seem to hear on every windAccents, which from my breast chase peace and joy."That last dark eve," she cries, "remember'st thou,When to those doting eyes I bade farewell,Forced by the time's relentless tyranny?I had not then the power, nor heart to tell,What thou shalt find, alas! too surely true--Hope not again on earth thy Laura's face to see."
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.]
- sadness n.
- Heaviness; firmness.
- doting a.
- That dotes; silly; excessively fond.
- bade
- A form of the pat tense of Bid.
- relentless a.
- Unmoved by appeals for sympathy or forgiveness; insensible to the distresses of others; destitute of tenderness; unrelenting; unyielding; unpitying; as, a prey to relentless despotism.
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
She Announces to Him, in a Vision, That He Will Never See Her More 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, She Announces to Him, in a Vision, That He Will Never See Her More, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/she-announces-to-him-in-a-vision-that-he-will-never-see-her-.html, id L14817.
Form and metre
She Announces to Him, in a Vision, That He Will Never See Her More 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 90%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 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 byA · combinedB · mindB · flyA · eyeA · join'dB · windB · joyA · thouC · farewellD · tyrannyC · tellD · trueC · seeD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To soothe me distant far, in days gone by, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| With dreams of one whose glance all heaven combined, | 10 | ·······/˘/ |
| Was mine; now fears and sorrow haunt my mind, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Nor can I from that grief, those terrors fly: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| For oft in sleep I mark within her eye | 10 | ·········· |
| Deep pity with o'erwhelming sadness join'd; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And oft I seem to hear on every wind | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Accents, which from my breast chase peace and joy. | 10 | /˘········ |
| "That last dark eve," she cries, "remember'st thou, | 10 | ·········· |
| When to those doting eyes I bade farewell, | 10 | ···/˘····/ |
| Forced by the time's relentless tyranny? | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘˘ |
| I had not then the power, nor heart to tell, | 10 | ·····/···· |
| What thou shalt find, alas! too surely true-- | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| Hope not again on earth thy Laura's face to see." | 12 | ··˘/···/˘··· |
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.