1050. Smart
Stripes, justly given, yerk us with their fall;But causeless whipping smarts the most of all.
Words in this poem
- yerk v. t.
- To throw or thrust with a sudden, smart movement; to kick or strike suddenly; to jerk. [See Yerk.]
- causeless a.
- 1. Self-originating; uncreated.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
1050. Smart 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, 1050. Smart, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/1050-smart.html, id L05950.
Form and metre
1050. Smart is 2 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
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 fallA · allA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Stripes, justly given, yerk us with their fall; | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| But causeless whipping smarts the most of all. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
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.