Since Her Death, Nothing Is Left to Him but Grief
She stood within my heart, warm, young, alone,As in a humble home a lady bright;By her last flight not merely am I grownMortal, but dead, and she an angel quite.A soul whence every bliss and hope is flown,Love shorn and naked of its own glad light,Might melt with pity e'en a heart of stone:But none there is to tell their grief or write;These plead within, where deaf is every earExcept mine own, whose power its griefs so marThat nought is left me save to suffer here.Verily we but dust and shadows are!Verily blind and evil is our will!Verily human hopes deceive us still!
Words in this poem
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Since Her Death, Nothing Is Left to Him but Grief 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, Since Her Death, Nothing Is Left to Him but Grief, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/since-her-death-nothing-is-left-to-him-but-grief.html, id L14882.
Form and metre
Since Her Death, Nothing Is Left to Him but Grief 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%). 88% 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 aloneA · brightB · grownB · quiteA · flownA · lightB · stoneB · writeA · earC · marD · hereC · areD · willC · stillD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| She stood within my heart, warm, young, alone, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| As in a humble home a lady bright; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| By her last flight not merely am I grown | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Mortal, but dead, and she an angel quite. | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| A soul whence every bliss and hope is flown, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Love shorn and naked of its own glad light, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Might melt with pity e'en a heart of stone: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But none there is to tell their grief or write; | 10 | ·········· |
| These plead within, where deaf is every ear | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Except mine own, whose power its griefs so mar | 10 | ·····/···· |
| That nought is left me save to suffer here. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Verily we but dust and shadows are! | 10 | /˘˘····/·· |
| Verily blind and evil is our will! | 10 | /˘˘··/·/˘· |
| Verily human hopes deceive us still! | 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.