The Recommendation
These Houres, and that which houers o're my end,Into Thy hands and hart, Lord, I commend.
Take both to Thine account, that I and mineIn that hour, and in these, may be all Thine.
That as I dedicate my deuoutest breathTo make a kind of life for my Lord's death,
So from His liuing and life-giuing death,My dying life may draw a new and neuer fleeting breath.
About this text
The Recommendation is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume I, Project Gutenberg ebook #38549; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Richard Crashaw, The Recommendation, in Steps to the Temple and Other Poems (1646–1652), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38549, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/crashaw-poems/the-recommendation.html, id L12047.
Form and metre
The Recommendation is 8 lines in 4 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AA endA · commendA
- 2 AA mineA · thineA
- 3 AA breathA · deathA
- 4 AA deathA · breathA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| These Houres, and that which houers o're my end, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Into Thy hands and hart, Lord, I commend. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Take both to Thine account, that I and mine | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| In that hour, and in these, may be all Thine. | 10 | ··/······· |
| That as I dedicate my deuoutest breath | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| To make a kind of life for my Lord's death, | 10 | ·········· |
| So from His liuing and life-giuing death, | 8 | ········ |
| My dying life may draw a new and neuer fleeting breath. | 14 | ·/˘······/˘/˘· |
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.