1109. Excess
Excess is sluttish: keep the mean; for why?Virtue's clean conclave is sobriety.
Words in this poem
- conclave n.
- The set of apartments within which the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church are continuously secluded while engaged in choosing a pope. [F., fr. L. conclave a room that may locked up; con- + clavis key. See Clavicle.]
- sobriety n.
- Habitual soberness or temperance as to the use of spirituous liquors; as, a man of sobriety. [L. sobrietas: cf. F. sobriété. See Sober.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
1109. Excess 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, 1109. Excess, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/1109-excess.html, id L05997.
Form and metre
1109. Excess is 2 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Excess is sluttish: keep the mean; for why? | 10 | ˘/·/˘····· |
| Virtue's clean conclave is sobriety. | 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.