To One Who Spoke to Him of Laura
Whene'er you speak of her in that soft toneWhich Love himself his votaries surely taught,My ardent passion to such fire is wrought,That e'en the dead reviving warmth might own:Where'er to me she, dear or kind, was knownThere the bright lady is to mind now brought,In the same bearing which, to waken thought,Needed no sound but of my sighs alone.Half-turn'd I see her looking, on the breezeHer light hair flung; so true her memories rollOn my fond heart of which she keeps the keys;But the surpassing bliss which floods my soulSo checks my tongue, to tell how, queen-like, there,She sits as on her throne, I never dare.
Words in this poem
- waken v. i.
- To wake; to cease to sleep; to be awakened. [OE. waknen, AS. wæcnan; akin to Goth. gawaknan. See Wake, v. i.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To One Who Spoke to Him of Laura 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, To One Who Spoke to Him of Laura, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/to-one-who-spoke-to-him-of-laura.html, id L14666.
Form and metre
To One Who Spoke to Him of Laura 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 88%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 36% 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 toneA · taughtB · wroughtB · ownA · knownA · broughtB · thoughtB · aloneA · breezeC · rollD · keysC · soulD · thereC · dareD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Whene'er you speak of her in that soft tone | 11 | ··········· |
| Which Love himself his votaries surely taught, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| My ardent passion to such fire is wrought, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/·· |
| That e'en the dead reviving warmth might own: | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Where'er to me she, dear or kind, was known | 11 | ˘˘/········ |
| There the bright lady is to mind now brought, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| In the same bearing which, to waken thought, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Needed no sound but of my sighs alone. | 10 | /˘······˘/ |
| Half-turn'd I see her looking, on the breeze | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Her light hair flung; so true her memories roll | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| On my fond heart of which she keeps the keys; | 10 | ·········· |
| But the surpassing bliss which floods my soul | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| So checks my tongue, to tell how, queen-like, there, | 10 | ·········· |
| She sits as on her throne, I never dare. | 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.