To, Honora Sneyd,, Whose Health Was Always Best in Winter
And now the youthful, gay, capricious Spring,Piercing her showery clouds with crystal light,And with their hues reflected streaking brightHer radiant bow, bids all her Warblers sing;The Lark, shrill caroling on soaring wing;The lonely Thrush, in brake, with blossoms white,That tunes his pipe so loud; while, from the sightCoy bending their dropt heads, young Cowslips flingRich perfume o'er the fields.--It is the primeOf Hours that Beauty robes:--yet all they gild,Cheer, and delight in this their fragrant time,For thy dear sake, to me less pleasure yieldThan, veil'd in sleet, and rain, and hoary rime,Dim Winter's naked hedge and plashy field.
Words in this poem
- showery a.
- Raining in showers; abounding with frequent showers of rain.
- caroling n.
- A song of joy or devotion; a singing, as of carols. Coleridge.
- sleet n.
- The part of a mortar extending from the chamber to the trunnions.
- hoary a.
- White or whitish."The hoary willows."
- rime n.
- A rent or long aperture; a chink; a fissure; a crack. Sir T. [L. rima.]
- plashy a.
- Watery; abounding with puddles; splashy. [From 1st Plash.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To, Honora Sneyd,, Whose Health Was Always Best in Winter 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, To, Honora Sneyd,, Whose Health Was Always Best in Winter, in Original Sonnets on Various Subjects (1799), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #27663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/seward-sonnets/to-honora-sneyd-whose-health-was-always-best-in-winter.html, id L09773.
Form and metre
To, Honora Sneyd,, Whose Health Was Always Best in Winter 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 89%). 96% 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 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 springA · lightB · brightA · singB · wingC · whiteD · sightC · flingD · primeE · gildF · timeE · yieldF · rimeG · fieldG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And now the youthful, gay, capricious Spring, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| Piercing her showery clouds with crystal light, | 11 | /˘·/˘˘··/˘· |
| And with their hues reflected streaking bright | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
| Her radiant bow, bids all her Warblers sing; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| The Lark, shrill caroling on soaring wing; | 10 | ···/˘˘·/˘· |
| The lonely Thrush, in brake, with blossoms white, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| That tunes his pipe so loud; while, from the sight | 10 | ·········· |
| Coy bending their dropt heads, young Cowslips fling | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Rich perfume o'er the fields.--It is the prime | 10 | ·˘/······· |
| Of Hours that Beauty robes:--yet all they gild, | 10 | ·/·/˘····· |
| Cheer, and delight in this their fragrant time, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| For thy dear sake, to me less pleasure yield | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Than, veil'd in sleet, and rain, and hoary rime, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Dim Winter's naked hedge and plashy field. | 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.