The Song of the Nightingale Reminds Him of His Unhappy Lot
Yon nightingale, whose bursts of thrilling tone,Pour'd in soft sorrow from her tuneful throat,Haply her mate or infant brood bemoan,Filling the fields and skies with pity's note;Here lingering till the long long night is gone,Awakes the memory of my cruel lot--But I my wretched self must wail alone:Fool, who secure from death an angel thought!O easy duped, who thus on hope relies!Who would have deem'd the darkness, which appears,From orbs more brilliant than the sun should rise?Now know I, made by sad experience wise,That Fate would teach me by a life of tears,On wings how fleeting fast all earthly rapture flies!
Words in this poem
- thrilling a.
- Causing a thrill; causing tremulous excitement; deeply moving; as, a thrilling romance.
- tuneful a.
- Harmonious; melodious; musical; as, tuneful notes.
- haply adv.
- By hap, chance, luck, or accident; perhaps; it may be.
- bemoan v. t.
- To express deep grief for by moaning; to express sorrow for; to lament; to bewail; to pity or sympathize with. [OE. bimenen, AS. bem; pref. be- + m to moan. See Moan.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Song of the Nightingale Reminds Him of His Unhappy Lot 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 Song of the Nightingale Reminds Him of His Unhappy Lot, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/the-song-of-the-nightingale-reminds-him-of-his-unhappy-lot.html, id L14912.
Form and metre
The Song of the Nightingale Reminds Him of His Unhappy Lot 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 89%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 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 toneA · throatB · bemoanB · noteA · goneA · lotB · aloneB · thoughtA · reliesC · appearsD · riseC · wiseD · tearsC · fliesD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Yon nightingale, whose bursts of thrilling tone, | 10 | ·/˘˘···/˘· |
| Pour'd in soft sorrow from her tuneful throat, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Haply her mate or infant brood bemoan, | 10 | /˘···/˘·˘/ |
| Filling the fields and skies with pity's note; | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Here lingering till the long long night is gone, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Awakes the memory of my cruel lot-- | 10 | ˘/·/˘˘··/· |
| But I my wretched self must wail alone: | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Fool, who secure from death an angel thought! | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| O easy duped, who thus on hope relies! | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Who would have deem'd the darkness, which appears, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| From orbs more brilliant than the sun should rise? | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Now know I, made by sad experience wise, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| That Fate would teach me by a life of tears, | 10 | ·········· |
| On wings how fleeting fast all earthly rapture flies! | 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.