137. Single Life Most Secure
Suspicion, discontent, and strifeCome in for dowry with a wife.
Words in this poem
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- dowry n.
- A gift; endowment. [Contr. from dowery; cf. LL. dotarium. See Dower.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
137. Single Life Most Secure 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, 137. Single Life Most Secure, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/137-single-life-most-secure.html, id L05191.
Form and metre
137. Single Life Most Secure is 2 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
See 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 AA strifeA · wifeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Suspicion, discontent, and strife | 8 | ˘/˘˘˘/·· |
| Come in for dowry with a wife. | 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.