1036. His Desire
Give me a man that is not dullWhen all the world with rifts is full;But unamaz'd dares clearly sing,Whenas the roof's a-tottering:And, though it falls, continues stillTickling the cittern with his quill.
About this text
1036. His Desire is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #22421; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Herrick, 1036. His Desire, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/1036-his-desire.html, id L05936.
Form and metre
1036. His Desire is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 --AABB dull · full · singA · totteringA · stillB · quillB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Give me a man that is not dull | 8 | ········ |
| When all the world with rifts is full; | 8 | ········ |
| But unamaz'd dares clearly sing, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Whenas the roof's a-tottering: | 8 | /˘···/˘˘ |
| And, though it falls, continues still | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Tickling the cittern with his quill. | 9 | /˘˘·/˘··· |
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.