178. Observation
The Jews, when they built houses, I have read,One part thereof left still unfinished,To make them thereby mindful of their ownCity's most sad and dire destruction.
Words in this poem
- mindful a.
- Bearing in mind; regardful; attentive; heedful; observant.
- dire a.
- Ill-boding; portentous; as, dire omens. [L. dirus; of uncertain origin.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
178. Observation 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, 178. Observation, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/178-observation.html, id L06189.
Form and metre
178. Observation is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 read · unfinished · ownA · destructionA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The Jews, when they built houses, I have read, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| One part thereof left still unfinished, | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| To make them thereby mindful of their own | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| City's most sad and dire destruction. | 9 | /˘····˘/˘ |
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.