Sonnet
Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,Ye restless thoughts and busy purposesOf the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?O thou quick heart, which pantest to possessAll that pale Expectation feigneth fair!Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guessWhence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,And all that never yet was known would know--Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press,With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path,Seeking, alike from happiness and woe,A refuge in the cavern of gray death?O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do youHope to inherit in the grave below?
Words in this poem
- curious a.
- Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact. [OF. curios, curius, F. curieux, L. curiosus careful, inquisitive, fr. cura care. See Cure.]
- didst
- , the 2d pers. sing. imp. of Do.
- whither adv.
- To what place; -- used interrogatively; as, whither goest thou [OE. whider. AS. hwider; akin to E. where, who; cf. Goth. hvadre whither. See Who, and cf. Hither, Thither.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #4798; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Sonnet, in Ode to the West Wind, and Other Poems (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/sonnet-2.html, id L16420.
Form and metre
Sonnet is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 96% 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. 29% 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 A-ABABCCB-C--C thereA · purposes · wearA · possessB · fairA · guessB · goC · knowC · pressB · path · woeC · death · you · belowC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear? | 11 | ··/˘····/˘· |
| O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| All that pale Expectation feigneth fair! | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
| Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And all that never yet was known would know-- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Seeking, alike from happiness and woe, | 10 | /˘˘/·/˘˘·· |
| A refuge in the cavern of gray death? | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you | 10 | ·········· |
| Hope to inherit in the grave below? | 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.