1124. On Himself
I'll write no more of love; but now repentOf all those times that I in it have spent.I'll write no more of life; but wish 'twas ended,And that my dust was to the earth commended.
Words in this poem
- repent a.
- Prostrate and rooting; -- said of stems. Gray. [L. repens, -entis, creeping, p. pr. of repere to creep.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
1124. On Himself 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, 1124. On Himself, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/1124-on-himself.html, id L06005.
Form and metre
1124. On Himself is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.5 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 repentA · spentA · endedB · commendedB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I'll write no more of love; but now repent | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Of all those times that I in it have spent. | 10 | ·········· |
| I'll write no more of life; but wish 'twas ended, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| And that my dust was to the earth commended. | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
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.