158. Prayer
A prayer that is said aloneStarves, having no companion.Great things ask for when thou dost pray,And those great are which ne'er decay.Pray not for silver, rust eats this;Ask not for gold, which metal is;Nor yet for houses, which are hereBut earth: such vows ne'er reach God's ear.
About this text
158. Prayer 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, 158. Prayer, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/158-prayer.html, id L06169.
Form and metre
158. Prayer 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 86%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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 AABB--CC aloneA · companionA · prayB · decayB · this · is · hereC · earC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A prayer that is said alone | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Starves, having no companion. | 7 | ·/˘·˘/˘ |
| Great things ask for when thou dost pray, | 8 | ········ |
| And those great are which ne'er decay. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Pray not for silver, rust eats this; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ask not for gold, which metal is; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Nor yet for houses, which are here | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But earth: such vows ne'er reach God's ear. | 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.