The Sweets and Bitters of Love
Marking of those bright eyes the sun sereneWhere reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves,My hopeless heart the weary spirit leavesOnce more to gain its paradise terrene;Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene,And in the world how vast the web it weaves.A secret sigh for baffled love it heaves,Whose spurs so sharp, whose curb so hard have been.By these two contrary and mix'd extremes,With frozen or with fiery wishes fraught,To stand 'tween misery and bliss she seems:Seldom in glad and oft in gloomy thought,But mostly contrite for its bold emprize,For of like seed like fruit must ever rise!
Words in this poem
- terrene n.
- A tureen. Walpole.
- heaves n.
- A disease of horses, characterized by difficult breathing, with heaving of the flank, wheezing, flatulency, and a peculiar cough; broken wind.
- fraught n.
- A freight; a cargo. [OE.fraight, fraght; akin to Dan. fragt, Sw. frakt, D. vracht, G. fracht, cf. OHG. fr merit, reward; perh. from corresponding to E. for + The root of E. own. Cf.]
- contrite a.
- Thoroughly bruised or broken. [L. contritus bruised, p. p. of contrere to grind, bruise; con- + terere to rub, grind: cf. F. contrit See Trite.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Sweets and Bitters of 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 Sweets and Bitters of Love, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/the-sweets-and-bitters-of-love.html, id L14708.
Form and metre
The Sweets and Bitters of 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 89%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 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 sereneA · grievesB · leavesB · terreneA · sceneA · weavesB · heavesB · beenA · extremesC · fraughtD · seemsC · thoughtD · emprizeC · riseD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Marking of those bright eyes the sun serene | 10 | /˘······˘/ |
| Where reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| My hopeless heart the weary spirit leaves | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Once more to gain its paradise terrene; | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And in the world how vast the web it weaves. | 10 | ·········· |
| A secret sigh for baffled love it heaves, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Whose spurs so sharp, whose curb so hard have been. | 10 | ·········· |
| By these two contrary and mix'd extremes, | 10 | ···/˘˘··˘/ |
| With frozen or with fiery wishes fraught, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| To stand 'tween misery and bliss she seems: | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Seldom in glad and oft in gloomy thought, | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| But mostly contrite for its bold emprize, | 10 | ·/˘˘/····· |
| For of like seed like fruit must ever rise! | 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.