186. To His Dying Brother, Master William Herrick
Life of my life, 'take not so soon thy flight,But stay the time till we have bade good-night.Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy wayAs soon despatch'd is by the night as day.Let us not then so rudely henceforth goTill we have wept, kissed, sigh'd, shook hands, or so.There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell,When once true lovers take their last farewell.What! shall we two our endless leaves take hereWithout a sad look or a solemn tear?He knows not love that hath not this truth proved,Love is most loth to leave the thing beloved.Pay we our vows and go; yet when we part,Then, even then, I will bequeath my heartInto thy loving hands; for I'll keep noneTo warm my breast when thou, my pulse, art gone.No, here I'll last, and walk (a harmless shade)About this urn wherein thy dust is laid,To guard it so as nothing here shall beHeavy to hurt those sacred seeds of thee.
Words in this poem
- bade
- A form of the pat tense of Bid.
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- henceforth adv.
- From this time forward; henceforward.
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- bequeath v. t.
- To give or leave by will; to give by testament; -- said especially of personal property. [OE. biquethen, AS. becwe to say, affirm, bequeath; pref. be- + cwe to say, speak. See Quoth.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
186. To His Dying Brother, Master William Herrick 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, 186. To His Dying Brother, Master William Herrick, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/186-to-his-dying-brother-master-william-herrick.html, id L05234.
Form and metre
186. To His Dying Brother, Master William Herrick is 20 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 30% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDDEE--FF--GGHH flightA · nightA · wayB · dayB · goC · soC · hellD · farewellD · hereE · tearE · proved · beloved · partF · heartF · none · gone · shadeG · laidG · beH · theeH
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Life of my life, 'take not so soon thy flight, | 10 | ·········· |
| But stay the time till we have bade good-night. | 10 | ·········· |
| Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way | 10 | ·········· |
| As soon despatch'd is by the night as day. | 10 | ·········· |
| Let us not then so rudely henceforth go | 10 | ·····/˘//· |
| Till we have wept, kissed, sigh'd, shook hands, or so. | 10 | ·········· |
| There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| When once true lovers take their last farewell. | 10 | ···/˘····/ |
| What! shall we two our endless leaves take here | 10 | ····//˘··· |
| Without a sad look or a solemn tear? | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| He knows not love that hath not this truth proved, | 10 | ·········· |
| Love is most loth to leave the thing beloved. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Pay we our vows and go; yet when we part, | 10 | ··/······· |
| Then, even then, I will bequeath my heart | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| Into thy loving hands; for I'll keep none | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| To warm my breast when thou, my pulse, art gone. | 10 | ·········· |
| No, here I'll last, and walk (a harmless shade) | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| About this urn wherein thy dust is laid, | 10 | ·········· |
| To guard it so as nothing here shall be | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Heavy to hurt those sacred seeds of thee. | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
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.