(?) Wyatt
May fire from heaven rain down upon thy head,Thou most accurst; who simple fare casts by,Made rich and great by others' poverty;How dost thou glory in thy vile misdeed!Nest of all treachery, in which is bredWhate'er of sin now through the world doth fly;Of wine the slave, of sloth, of gluttony;With sensuality's excesses fed!Old men and harlots through thy chambers dance;Then in the midst see Belzebub advanceWith mirrors and provocatives obscene.Erewhile thou wert not shelter'd, nursed on down;But naked, barefoot on the straw wert thrown:Now rank to heaven ascends thy life unclean.
Words in this poem
- accurst p. p.
- Doomed to destruction or misery; cursed; hence, bad enough to be under the curse; execrable; detestable; exceedingly hateful; -- as, an accursed deed.
- misdeed n.
- An evil deed; a wicked action. [AS. misd. See Deed, n.]
- gluttony n.
- Excess in eating; extravagant indulgence of the appetite for food; voracity. [OE. glotonie, OF. glotonie, gloutonnie.]
- erewhile adv.
- Some time ago; a little while before; heretofore.
- barefoot a.
- With the feet bare; without shoes or stockings.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
(?) Wyatt 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, (?) Wyatt, in The Sonnets, Triumphs and Other Poems (1859), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petrarch-sonnets/wyatt-4.html, id L14656.
Form and metre
(?) Wyatt 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 85%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 2 lines end 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 headA · byB · povertyB · misdeedA · bredA · flyB · gluttonyB · fedA · danceC · advanceD · obsceneC · downD · thrownC · uncleanD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| May fire from heaven rain down upon thy head, | 10 | ·/·/······ |
| Thou most accurst; who simple fare casts by, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Made rich and great by others' poverty; | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| How dost thou glory in thy vile misdeed! | 10 | ···/˘···// |
| Nest of all treachery, in which is bred | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Whate'er of sin now through the world doth fly; | 11 | ˘˘/········ |
| Of wine the slave, of sloth, of gluttony; | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| With sensuality's excesses fed! | 10 | ··˘/˘˘˘/˘· |
| Old men and harlots through thy chambers dance; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Then in the midst see Belzebub advance | 10 | ········˘/ |
| With mirrors and provocatives obscene. | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘˘/ |
| Erewhile thou wert not shelter'd, nursed on down; | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
| But naked, barefoot on the straw wert thrown: | 10 | ·/˘/······ |
| Now rank to heaven ascends thy life unclean. | 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.