Sonnet VIII
Oft as by chance, a little while apartThe pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn,Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart,Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn:Not though high heaven should rend would deeper aweFill me than penetrates my spirit thus,Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet sawSeem a new heaven and earth so marvelous;But, clad thenceforth in iridescent dyes,The fair world glistens, and in after daysThe memory of kind lips and laughing eyesLives in my step and lightens all my face, --So they who found the Earthly ParadiseStill breathed, returned, of that sweet, joyful place.
Words in this poem
- loveless a.
- Void of love; void of tenderness or kindness. Milton. Shelton.
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- thenceforth adv.
- From that time; thereafter.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet VIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #617; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alan Seeger, Sonnet VIII, in Poems (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #617, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/seeger-poems/sonnet-viii.html, id L12941.
Form and metre
Sonnet VIII is 14 lines in a single stanza. 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. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 43% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABABCDCDE-EF-F apartA · withdrawnB · heartA · dawnB · aweC · thusD · sawC · marvelousD · dyesE · days · eyesE · faceF · paradise · placeF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oft as by chance, a little while apart | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘/ |
| Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, | 11 | ·/˘/˘··˘/˘· |
| Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Seem a new heaven and earth so marvelous; | 11 | ···/˘···/˘˘ |
| But, clad thenceforth in iridescent dyes, | 10 | ···/··˘/˘· |
| The fair world glistens, and in after days | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The memory of kind lips and laughing eyes | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Lives in my step and lightens all my face, -- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| So they who found the Earthly Paradise | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Still breathed, returned, of that sweet, joyful place. | 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.