116. Satan
When we 'gainst Satan stoutly fight, the moreHe tears and tugs us than he did before;Neglecting once to cast a frown on thoseWhom ease makes his without the help of blows.
Words in this poem
- stoutly adv.
- In a stout manner; lustily; boldly; obstinately; as, he stoutly defended himself.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
116. Satan 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, 116. Satan, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/116-satan.html, id L06127.
Form and metre
116. Satan is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
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 moreA · beforeA · thoseB · blowsB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When we 'gainst Satan stoutly fight, the more | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| He tears and tugs us than he did before; | 10 | ·········· |
| Neglecting once to cast a frown on those | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| Whom ease makes his without the help of blows. | 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.