Sonnet 97
Ah bed the feeld where joyes peace some do see:The feeld where al my thoughts to war be traind,How is thy grace by my strange fortune staind?How thy low shrowdes by my sighs stormed be?With sweet soft shades thou oft invitest meeTo steale some rest, but wretch I am constrained.Spurd with Loves spurr, this held and shortly rainedWith Cares hard hand, to runne and tosse in thee,While the black horrors of the silent night,Paint Woes black face so lively in my sight,That tedious leasure markes eache wrinckled line:But when Aurora leades out Phœbus daunceMine eyes then only winke for spite perchaunce,That wormes shou’d have their Sunne and I want mine.
Words in this poem
- spurr n.
- An implement secured to the heel, or above the heel, of a horseman, to urge the horse by its pressure. Modern spurs have a small wheel, or rowel, with short points. Spurs were the badge of knighthood. [OE. spure, AS. spura, spora; akin to D. spoor, G. sporn, OHG. sporo, Icel. spori, Dan. spore, Sw. sporre, and to AS. spor a trace, footstep, spyrian to trace, t]
- shortly adv.
- In a short or brief time or manner; soon; quickly. [AS. sceortlice.]
- aurora n.
- The rising light of the morning; the dawn of day; the redness of the sky just before the sun rises. [L. aurora, for ausosa, akin to Gr. ushas, and E. east.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet 97 is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sir P.S.: His Astrophel and Stella Wherein the excellence of sweete poesie is concluded, Project Gutenberg ebook #56375; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Philip Sidney, Sonnet 97, in Astrophel and Stella (1591), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56375, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sidney-astrophel/sonnet-97.html, id L04853.
Form and metre
Sonnet 97 is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAACCADDEFFE seeA · traindB · staindB · beA · meeA · constrainedC · rainedC · theeA · nightD · sightD · lineE · daunceF · perchaunceF · mineE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ah bed the feeld where joyes peace some do see: | 10 | ·········· |
| The feeld where al my thoughts to war be traind, | 10 | ·········· |
| How is thy grace by my strange fortune staind? | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| How thy low shrowdes by my sighs stormed be? | 10 | ········˘· |
| With sweet soft shades thou oft invitest mee | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| To steale some rest, but wretch I am constrained. | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| Spurd with Loves spurr, this held and shortly rained | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| With Cares hard hand, to runne and tosse in thee, | 10 | ·········· |
| While the black horrors of the silent night, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Paint Woes black face so lively in my sight, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| That tedious leasure markes eache wrinckled line: | 10 | ·/˘˘/˘···· |
| But when Aurora leades out Phœbus daunce | 10 | ·········· |
| Mine eyes then only winke for spite perchaunce, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| That wormes shou’d have their Sunne and I want mine. | 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.