The Misery of His Love
If faith most true, a heart that cannot feign,If Love's sweet languishment and chasten'd thought,And wishes pure by nobler feelings taught,If in a labyrinth wanderings long and vain,If on the brow each pang pourtray'd to bear,Or from the heart low broken sounds to draw,Withheld by shame, or check'd by pious awe,If on the faded cheek Love's hue to wear,If than myself to hold one far more dear,If sighs that cease not, tears that ever flow,Wrung from the heart by all Love's various woe,In absence if consumed, and chill'd when near,--If these be ills in which I waste my prime,Though I the sufferer be, yours, lady, is the crime.
Words in this poem
- languishment n.
- The state of languishing.
- sufferer n.
- One who suffers; one who endures or undergoes suffering; one who sustains inconvenience or loss; as, sufferers by poverty or sickness; men are sufferers by fire or by losses at sea.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Misery of His Love 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, The Misery of His Love, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/the-misery-of-his-love.html, id L14782.
Form and metre
The Misery of His Love 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%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables.
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 feignA · thoughtB · taughtB · vainA · bearA · drawB · aweB · wearA · dearC · flowD · woeC · nearD · primeC · crimeD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If faith most true, a heart that cannot feign, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| If Love's sweet languishment and chasten'd thought, | 10 | ···/˘˘·/˘· |
| And wishes pure by nobler feelings taught, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| If in a labyrinth wanderings long and vain, | 11 | ···/˘·/˘··· |
| If on the brow each pang pourtray'd to bear, | 10 | ·········· |
| Or from the heart low broken sounds to draw, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Withheld by shame, or check'd by pious awe, | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| If on the faded cheek Love's hue to wear, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| If than myself to hold one far more dear, | 10 | ···/······ |
| If sighs that cease not, tears that ever flow, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Wrung from the heart by all Love's various woe, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| In absence if consumed, and chill'd when near,-- | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| If these be ills in which I waste my prime, | 10 | ·········· |
| Though I the sufferer be, yours, lady, is the crime. | 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.