Thinking Always of Laura, It Pains Him to Remember Where She Is Left
Still have I sought a life of solitude;The streams, the fields, the forests know my mind;That I might 'scape the sordid and the blind,Who paths forsake trod by the wise and good:Fain would I leave, were mine own will pursued,These Tuscan haunts, and these soft skies behind,Sorga's thick-wooded hills again to find;And sing and weep in concert with its flood.But Fortune, ever my sore enemy,Compels my steps, where I with sorrow seeCast my fair treasure in a worthless soil:Yet less a foe she justly deigns to prove,For once, to me, to Laura, and to love;Favouring my song, my passion, with her smile.
Words in this poem
- sordid a.
- Filthy; foul; dirty. [L. sordidus, fr. sordere to be filthy or dirty; probably akin to E. swart: cf. F. sordide. See Swart, a.]
- fain v. t.
- To be glad ; to wish or desire.
- laura n.
- A number of hermitages or cells in the same neighborhood occupied by anchorites who were under the same superior. C. Kingsley.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Thinking Always of Laura, It Pains Him to Remember Where She Is Left 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, Thinking Always of Laura, It Pains Him to Remember Where She Is Left, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/thinking-always-of-laura-it-pains-him-to-remember-where-she-.html, id L14828.
Form and metre
Thinking Always of Laura, It Pains Him to Remember Where She Is Left 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 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 7% 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 solitudeA · mindB · blindB · goodA · pursuedA · behindB · findB · floodA · enemyC · seeD · soilC · proveD · loveC · smileD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Still have I sought a life of solitude; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The streams, the fields, the forests know my mind; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| That I might 'scape the sordid and the blind, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Who paths forsake trod by the wise and good: | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Fain would I leave, were mine own will pursued, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| These Tuscan haunts, and these soft skies behind, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Sorga's thick-wooded hills again to find; | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| And sing and weep in concert with its flood. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But Fortune, ever my sore enemy, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| Compels my steps, where I with sorrow see | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| Cast my fair treasure in a worthless soil: | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Yet less a foe she justly deigns to prove, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| For once, to me, to Laura, and to love; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Favouring my song, my passion, with her smile. | 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.