From the Italian of Giovanni Strozzi
Night, whom in shape so sweet thou here may'st seeSleeping, was by an Angel sculptured thusIn marble, and since she sleeps hath life like us:Thou doubt'st? Awake her: she will speak to thee.
About this text
From the Italian of Giovanni Strozzi is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Ballads (Third Series) Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne—Vol. III, Project Gutenberg ebook #18726; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Algernon Charles Swinburne, From the Italian of Giovanni Strozzi, in Poems and Ballads (1866), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swinburne-poems-ballads/from-the-italian-of-giovanni-strozzi.html, id L07089.
Form and metre
From the Italian of Giovanni Strozzi is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 10.2 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 ABBA seeA · thusB · usB · theeA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Night, whom in shape so sweet thou here may'st see | 10 | ·········· |
| Sleeping, was by an Angel sculptured thus | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| In marble, and since she sleeps hath life like us: | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Thou doubt'st? Awake her: she will speak to thee. | 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.