152. Labour
Labour we must, and labour hardI' th' forum here, or vineyard.
Words in this poem
- forum n.
- A market place or public place in Rome, where causes were judicially tried, and orations delivered to the people. [L.; akin to foris, foras, out of doors. See Foreign.]
- vineyard n.
- An inclosure or yard for grapevines; a plantation of vines producing grapes. [For OE. winyard, AS. wingeard; influenced by E. vine. See Wine, and Yard an inclosure.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
152. Labour 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, 152. Labour, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/152-labour.html, id L06163.
Form and metre
152. Labour 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. 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Labour we must, and labour hard | 8 | /˘···/·· |
| I' th' forum here, or vineyard. | 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.