Sonnet XIII
Proud of our lyric Galaxy, I hearOf faded Genius with supreme disdain;As when we see the Miser bend insaneO'er his full coffers, and in accents drearDeplore imagin'd want;--and thus appearTo me those moody Censors, who complain,As Shaftsbury plain'd in a now boasted reign,That “POESY had left our darken'd sphere.”Whence may the present stupid dream be tracedThat now she shines not as in days foregone?Perchance neglected, often shine in wasteHer LIGHTS, from number into confluence run,More than when thinly in th' horizon placedEach Orb shone separate, and appear'd a Sun.
Words in this poem
- drear n.
- Sadness; dismalness.
- deplore v. t.
- To feel or to express deep and poignant grief for; to bewail; to lament; to mourn; to sorrow over. [L. deplorare; de- + plorare to cry out, wail, lament; prob. akin to pluere to rain, and to E. flow: cf. F. déplorer. Cf. Flow.]
- poesy n.
- The art of composing poems; poetical skill or faculty; as, the heavenly gift of poesy. [F. poésie (cf. It. poesia), L. poesis, from Gr. Posy.]
- confluence n.
- The act of flowing together; the meeting or junction of two or more streams; the place of meeting.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet XIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace, Project Gutenberg ebook #27663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Anna Seward, Sonnet XIII, in Original Sonnets on Various Subjects (1799), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #27663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/seward-sonnets/sonnet-xiii.html, id L20467.
Form and metre
Sonnet XIII is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other English 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 ABABCDCDEFEFGG hearA · disdainB · insaneA · drearB · appearC · complainD · reignC · sphereD · tracedE · foregoneF · wasteE · runF · placedG · sunG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Proud of our lyric Galaxy, I hear | 10 | ··//˘/˘˘·· |
| Of faded Genius with supreme disdain; | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘/ |
| As when we see the Miser bend insane | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| O'er his full coffers, and in accents drear | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Deplore imagin'd want;--and thus appear | 10 | ˘/˘/˘···˘/ |
| To me those moody Censors, who complain, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| As Shaftsbury plain'd in a now boasted reign, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| That “POESY had left our darken'd sphere.” | 10 | ·/˘˘··//˘· |
| Whence may the present stupid dream be traced | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| That now she shines not as in days foregone? | 10 | ········// |
| Perchance neglected, often shine in waste | 10 | ˘/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Her LIGHTS, from number into confluence run, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| More than when thinly in th' horizon placed | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| Each Orb shone separate, and appear'd a Sun. | 11 | ···/˘˘·˘/·· |
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.