Analysis of Sonnet 38: This Night While Sleep Begins
Sir Philip Sidney 1554 (Penshurst, Kent) – 1586 (Zutphen)
This night while sleep begins with heavy wings
To hatch mine eyes, and that unbitted thought
Doth fall to stray, and my chief powers are brought
To leave the scepter of all subject things,
The first that straight my fancy's error brings
Unto my mind, is Stella's image, wrought
By Love's own self, but with so curious draught,
That she, methinks, not only shines but sings.
I start, look, hark, but what in clos'd-up sense
Was held, in open'd sense it flies away,
Leaving me nought but wailing eloquence:
I, seeing betters sights in sight's decay,
Call'd it anew, and wooed sleep again:
But him her host that unkind guest had slain.
Scheme | ABBA ABXA XCX CXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111011101 11110111 11110111011 110111011 011111101 1011110101 11111111001 111110111 1111110111 1101011101 1011110100 1101010101 110101101 1101101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 640 |
Words | 114 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 123 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 57 Views
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"Sonnet 38: This Night While Sleep Begins" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35280/sonnet-38%3A-this-night-while-sleep-begins>.
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