1123. The Mount of the Muses
After thy labour take thine ease,Here with the sweet Pierides.But if so be that men will notGive thee the laurel crown for lot;Be yet assur'd, thou shall have oneNot subject to corruption.
Words in this poem
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
1123. The Mount of the Muses 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, 1123. The Mount of the Muses, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/1123-the-mount-of-the-muses.html, id L06004.
Form and metre
1123. The Mount of the Muses is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 ease · pierides · notA · lotA · oneB · corruptionB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| After thy labour take thine ease, | 8 | ···/···· |
| Here with the sweet Pierides. | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| But if so be that men will not | 8 | ········ |
| Give thee the laurel crown for lot; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Be yet assur'd, thou shall have one | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Not subject to corruption. | 7 | ·/˘·˘/˘ |
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.