160. To Dianeme
Sweet, be not proud of those two eyesWhich, starlike, sparkle in their skies;Nor be you proud that you can seeAll hearts your captives, yours yet free;Be you not proud of that rich hairWhich wantons with the love-sick air;Whenas that ruby which you wear,Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,Will last to be a precious stoneWhen all your world of beauty's gone.
About this text
160. To Dianeme 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, 160. To Dianeme, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/160-to-dianeme.html, id L05213.
Form and metre
160. To Dianeme is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 40% 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 AABBCCCC-- eyesA · skiesA · seeB · freeB · hairC · airC · wearC · earC · stone · gone
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes | 8 | ········ |
| Which, starlike, sparkle in their skies; | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| Nor be you proud that you can see | 8 | ········ |
| All hearts your captives, yours yet free; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Be you not proud of that rich hair | 8 | ········ |
| Which wantons with the love-sick air; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Whenas that ruby which you wear, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Sunk from the tip of your soft ear, | 8 | ········ |
| Will last to be a precious stone | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| When all your world of beauty's gone. | 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.