Of Late Two Dainties Were Before Me Plac’d
Of Late Two Dainties Were Before Me Plac’d - form Summary
A Playful Sonnet Game
This poem is cast as a sonnet but treats the form playfully rather than solemnly. Keats alternates repeated exclamations and mirrored lines—addressing a bagpipe and a "stranger"—so that the poem reads as a comic tug-of-war across the sonnet’s fourteen lines. The tight octave-sestet span is used to oscillate emotion and create a deliberately unresolved, rueful finale rather than a conventional volta-driven resolution.
Read Complete AnalysesOf late two dainties were before me plac’d Sweet, holy, pure, sacred and innocent, From the ninth sphere to me benignly sent That Gods might know my own particular taste. First the soft Bag-pipe mourn’d with zealous haste, The Stranger next with head on bosom bent Sigh’d; rueful again the piteous Bag-pipe went, Again the Stranger sighings fresh did waste. O Bag-pipe thou didst steal my heart away– O stranger thou my nerves from Pipe didst charm– O Bag-pipe thou didst re-assert thy sway– Again thou Stranger gav’st me fresh alarm– Alas! I could not choose. Ah! my poor heart, Mum chance art thou with both oblig’d to part.
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