184. Upon Batt
Batt he gets children, not for love to rear 'em;But out of hope his wife might die to bear 'em.
Words in this poem
- batt n.
- A large stick; a club; specifically, a piece of wood with one end thicker or broader than the other, used in playing baseball, cricket, etc. [OE. batte, botte, AS. batt; perhaps fr. the Celtic; cf. Ir. bat, bata, stick, staff; but cf. also F. batte a beater (thing), wooden sword, battre to beat.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
184. Upon Batt 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, 184. Upon Batt, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/184-upon-batt.html, id L06306.
Form and metre
184. Upon Batt is 2 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 11.0 syllables.
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 emA · emA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Batt he gets children, not for love to rear 'em; | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| But out of hope his wife might die to bear 'em. | 11 | ··········· |
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.