When with Burning Heat

When with burning heat and stark light I rise,
To worry my weary days away with fret;
Sharp salt'd sweat shall sting my eyes,
& I wait with humid breath for sun to set.

Now I find peace in th' river's current
Of her arms, cool balm for my burnt breast
That comforts me in her soothing torrent.
Her buoyance carries my sore weight.

I will rest up on her cool surface
And let the Nile's current of her pulse
Slacken my forced and fitful pace.
Submerged I am, forgetting all else.

Let her coolness carry me far from my labor,
Remembering only the comfort of her favor.

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When with Burning Heat - Documentation

(Editor's notes following) Alejandro has provided a sonnet in the English style; that is, his poem is a 14-line poem in iambic pentameter with an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme, with three quatrains and a final couplet (the preferred style of Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare, among numerous others). This scheme differs from the Italian (sometimes called Petrarchan, after the sonnets of Francesco Petrarca) sonnet style, which uses an ABBAABBACDECDE (or CDDCDD) with an initial octet and a final sestet.

In the English style, each quatrain contains a particular thought or image upon which the narrator focuses himself, and which carries him (in this case, in the metaphorical form of a river) towards the couplet's resolution of his dilemma.

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About the Author

William Chisenhall is a anesthesia technician specializing in cardiac research at Duke University Medical Center.

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Last modified September 29, 2005. Content suggestions to Lord Olivier de Bayonne