Bruce
In my grammar classes, I’ve frequently used poems as objects of analysis. One of my favorites, and one of the most challenging, is Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet “With how sad steps.”
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! May it be that even in heav’nly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 5
Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case.
I read it in thy looks, thy languisht grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, ev’n of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem’d there but want of wit? 10
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be lov’d, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
Sidney is, of course, mid-sixteenth c., which means Early Modern English, and that makes his language a bit of a challenge for students. As an exercise, try grammatically analyzing the four sentences found in the last six lines.
On an old chestnut of a topic, the poem also illustrates some interesting historical phenomena in the uses of “that.”
Line 3: “that” is a subordinating conjunction
Line 5: “that” is an EME use of that to mark “if” as a subordinating construction.
Line 8: “that” introduces a nonrestrictive relative clause, something grammars generally tell us is wrong.
Line 13: “that” functions as in line 5, supporting “whom” as a subordinator.
But that’s another topic.
Herb