Heretics All
Heretics all, whoever you be,In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,You never shall have good words from me.Caritas non conturbat me.
But Catholic men that live upon wineAre deep in the water, and frank, and fine;Wherever I travel I find it so,Benedicamus Domino.
On childing women that are forlorn,And men that sweat in nothing but scorn:That is on all that ever were born,Miserere Domine.
To my poor self on my deathbed,And all my dear companions dead,Because of the love that I bore them,Dona Eis Requiem.
Words in this poem
- whoever pron.
- Whatever person; any person who; be or she who; any one who; as, he shall be punished, whoever he may be.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- wherever adv.
- At or in whatever place; wheresoever.
- domino n.
- A kind of hood worn by the canons of a cathedral church; a sort of amice. Kersey. [F. domino, or It. dominò, or Sp. dominó, fr. L. dominus master. The domino was orig. a hood worn by the canons of a cathedral. See Don, Dame.]
- childing a.
- Bearing Children; (Fig.) productive; fruitful. [See Child, v. i.]
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- miserere n.
- The psalm usually appointed for penitential acts, being the 50th psalm in the Latin version. It commences with the word miserere. [L., have mercy, fr. misereri to have mercy, fr. miser. See Miser.]
- domine n.
- A name given to a pastor of the Reformed Church. The word is also applied locally in the United States, in colloquial speech, to any clergyman. [See Dominie.]
- deathbed n.
- The bed in which a person dies; hence, the closing hours of life of one who dies by sickness or the like; the last sickness.
- requiem n.
- A mass said or sung for the repose of a departed soul. [Acc. of L. requies rest, the first words of the Mass being "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine," give eternal rest to them, O lord; pref. re- re + quies quiet. S]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Heretics All is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, Heretics All, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/heretics-all.html, id L21689.
Form and metre
Heretics All is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 AAAA beA · seaA · meA · meA
- 2 AABB wineA · fineA · soB · dominoB
- 3 AAA- forlornA · scornA · bornA · domine
- 4 AABB deathbedA · deadA · themB · requiemB
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. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Heretics all, whoever you be, | 8 | /˘·˘/˘·· |
| In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea, | 8 | ········ |
| You never shall have good words from me. | 8 | ·/······ |
| Caritas non conturbat me. | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| But Catholic men that live upon wine | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine; | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| Wherever I travel I find it so, | 10 | ˘/˘·/˘···· |
| Benedicamus Domino. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| On childing women that are forlorn, | 9 | ·/˘/˘··˘/ |
| And men that sweat in nothing but scorn: | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| That is on all that ever were born, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Miserere Domine. | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| To my poor self on my deathbed, | 8 | ······/· |
| And all my dear companions dead, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Because of the love that I bore them, | 9 | ········· |
| Dona Eis Requiem. | 6 | /˘·/˘˘ |
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.