121. The Bellman
Along the dark and silent night,With my lantern and my light,And the tinkling of my bell,Thus I walk, and this I tell:Death and dreadfulness call onTo the gen'ral session,To whose dismal bar we thereAll accounts must come to clear.Scores of sins w'ave made here many,Wip'd out few, God knows, if any.Rise, ye debtors, then, and fallTo make payment while I call.Ponder this, when I am gone;By the clock 'tis almost one.
Words in this poem
- dreadfulness n.
- The quality of being dreadful.
- session n.
- The act of sitting, or the state of being seated. [L. sessio, fr. sedere, sessum, to sit: cf. F. session. See Sit.]
- dismal a.
- Fatal; ill-omened; unlucky. [Formerly a noun; e. g., "I trow it was in the dismalle." Chaucer. Of uncertain origin; but perh. (as suggested by Skeat) from OF. disme, F. dîme, tithe, the phr]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
121. The Bellman 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, 121. The Bellman, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/121-the-bellman.html, id L06132.
Form and metre
121. The Bellman is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 86% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABBCCDDEEFFC- nightA · lightA · bellB · tellB · onC · sessionC · thereD · clearD · manyE · anyE · fallF · callF · goneC · one
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Along the dark and silent night, | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| With my lantern and my light, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And the tinkling of my bell, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Thus I walk, and this I tell: | 7 | ······· |
| Death and dreadfulness call on | 7 | ··/˘˘·· |
| To the gen'ral session, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| To whose dismal bar we there | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| All accounts must come to clear. | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Scores of sins w'ave made here many, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Wip'd out few, God knows, if any. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Rise, ye debtors, then, and fall | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| To make payment while I call. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Ponder this, when I am gone; | 7 | /˘····· |
| By the clock 'tis almost one. | 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.