125. To His Saviour. The New-Year's Gift
That little pretty bleeding partOf foreskin send to me:And I'll return a bleeding heartFor New-Year's gift to Thee.
Rich is the gem that Thou did'st send,Mine's faulty too and small;But yet this gift Thou wilt commendBecause I send Thee all.
Words in this poem
- foreskin n.
- The fold of skin which covers the glans of the penis; the prepuce.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
125. To His Saviour. The New-Year's Gift 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, 125. To His Saviour. The New-Year's Gift, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/125-to-his-saviour-the-new-year-s-gift.html, id L06136.
Form and metre
125. To His Saviour. The New-Year's Gift is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABAB partA · meB · heartA · theeB
- 2 ABAB sendA · smallB · commendA · allB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| That little pretty bleeding part | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Of foreskin send to me: | 6 | ·/···· |
| And I'll return a bleeding heart | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| For New-Year's gift to Thee. | 6 | ······ |
| Rich is the gem that Thou did'st send, | 8 | ········ |
| Mine's faulty too and small; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| But yet this gift Thou wilt commend | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Because I send Thee all. | 6 | ······ |
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.