Sonnet LXV
O Time! O heavens! whose flying changes frameErrors and snares for mortals poor and blind;O days more swift than arrows or the wind,Experienced now, I know your treacherous aim.You I excuse, myself alone I blame,For Nature for your flight who wings design'dTo me gave eyes which still I have inclinedTo mine own ill, whence follow grief and shame.An hour will come, haply e'en now is pass'd,Their sight to turn on my diviner partAnd so this infinite anguish end at last.Rejects not your long yoke, O Love, my heart,But its own ill by study, sufferings vast:Virtue is not of chance, but painful art.
Words in this poem
- haply adv.
- By hap, chance, luck, or accident; perhaps; it may be.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet LXV 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, Sonnet LXV, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/sonnet-lxv.html, id L14957.
Form and metre
Sonnet LXV 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 84%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 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 frameA · blindB · windB · aimA · blameA · design'dB · inclinedB · shameA · pass'dC · partD · lastC · heartD · vastC · artD
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 heavens! whose flying changes frame | 11 | ···/˘·/˘/˘· |
| Errors and snares for mortals poor and blind; | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| O days more swift than arrows or the wind, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Experienced now, I know your treacherous aim. | 10 | ˘/˘····/˘· |
| You I excuse, myself alone I blame, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘/·· |
| For Nature for your flight who wings design'd | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| To me gave eyes which still I have inclined | 10 | ········˘/ |
| To mine own ill, whence follow grief and shame. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| An hour will come, haply e'en now is pass'd, | 10 | ·/··/˘···· |
| Their sight to turn on my diviner part | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| And so this infinite anguish end at last. | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Rejects not your long yoke, O Love, my heart, | 10 | ˘/········ |
| But its own ill by study, sufferings vast: | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Virtue is not of chance, but painful art. | 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.