145. Upon a Wife That Died Mad with Jealousy
In this little vault she lies,Here, with all her jealousies:Quiet yet; but if ye makeAny noise they both will wake,And such spirits raise 'twill thenTrouble death to lay again.
About this text
145. Upon a Wife That Died Mad with Jealousy 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, 145. Upon a Wife That Died Mad with Jealousy, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/145-upon-a-wife-that-died-mad-with-jealousy.html, id L05199.
Form and metre
145. Upon a Wife That Died Mad with Jealousy is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 AABBCC liesA · jealousiesA · makeB · wakeB · thenC · againC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In this little vault she lies, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Here, with all her jealousies: | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Quiet yet; but if ye make | 7 | /˘····· |
| Any noise they both will wake, | 7 | /˘····· |
| And such spirits raise 'twill then | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Trouble death to lay again. | 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.