The Plaintive Song of a Bird Recalls to Him His Own Keener Sorrow
Poor solitary bird, that pour'st thy lay;Or haply mournest the sweet season gone:As chilly night and winter hurry on,And day-light fades and summer flies away;If as the cares that swell thy little throatThou knew'st alike the woes that wound my rest.Ah, thou wouldst house thee in this kindred breast,And mix with mine thy melancholy note.Yet little know I ours are kindred ills:She still may live the object of thy song:Not so for me stern death or Heaven wills!But the sad season, and less grateful hour,And of past joy and sorrow thoughts that throngPrompt my full heart this idle lay to pour.
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
The Plaintive Song of a Bird Recalls to Him His Own Keener Sorrow 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 Plaintive Song of a Bird Recalls to Him His Own Keener Sorrow, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/the-plaintive-song-of-a-bird-recalls-to-him-his-own-keener-s.html, id L14996.
Form and metre
The Plaintive Song of a Bird Recalls to Him His Own Keener Sorrow 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 92%). 100% 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 layA · goneB · onB · awayA · throatA · restB · breastB · noteA · illsC · songD · willsC · hourD · throngC · pourD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Poor solitary bird, that pour'st thy lay; | 10 | ·/˘·˘····· |
| Or haply mournest the sweet season gone: | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| As chilly night and winter hurry on, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| And day-light fades and summer flies away; | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| If as the cares that swell thy little throat | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Thou knew'st alike the woes that wound my rest. | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Ah, thou wouldst house thee in this kindred breast, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And mix with mine thy melancholy note. | 10 | ·····/˘·˘· |
| Yet little know I ours are kindred ills: | 10 | ·/˘··/·/˘· |
| She still may live the object of thy song: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Not so for me stern death or Heaven wills! | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| But the sad season, and less grateful hour, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And of past joy and sorrow thoughts that throng | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Prompt my full heart this idle lay to pour. | 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.