127. The Poor's Portion
The sup'rabundance of my store,That is the portion of the poor:Wheat, barley, rye, or oats; what is'tBut He takes toll of? all the grist.Two raiments have I: Christ then makesThis law; that He and I part stakes.Or have I two loaves, then I useThe poor to cut, and I to choose.
Words in this poem
- grist n.
- Ground corn; that which is ground at one time; as much grain as is carried to the mill at one time, or the meal it produces. [AS. grist, fr. grindan. See Grind.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
127. The Poor's Portion 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, 127. The Poor's Portion, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/127-the-poor-s-portion.html, id L06138.
Form and metre
127. The Poor's Portion is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 75% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 --AABBCC store · poor · is'tA · gristA · makesB · stakesB · useC · chooseC
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The sup'rabundance of my store, | 8 | ········ |
| That is the portion of the poor: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Wheat, barley, rye, or oats; what is't | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| But He takes toll of? all the grist. | 8 | ········ |
| Two raiments have I: Christ then makes | 8 | ········ |
| This law; that He and I part stakes. | 8 | ········ |
| Or have I two loaves, then I use | 8 | ········ |
| The poor to cut, and I to choose. | 8 | ········ |
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.