188. God's Presence
God's evident, and may be said to bePresent with just men, to the verity;But with the wicked if He doth comply,'Tis, as St. Bernard saith, but seemingly.
Words in this poem
- verity n.
- The quality or state of being true, or real; consonance of a statement, proposition, or other thing, with fact; truth; reality. [F. vérité, L. veritas, fr. verus true. See Very.]
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
- seemingly adv.
- In appearance; in show; in semblance; apparently; ostensibly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
188. God's Presence 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, 188. God's Presence, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/188-god-s-presence.html, id L06199.
Form and metre
188. God's Presence is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 A-A- beA · verity · complyA · seemingly
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 |
|---|---|---|
| God's evident, and may be said to be | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| Present with just men, to the verity; | 10 | ˘/·····/˘˘ |
| But with the wicked if He doth comply, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| 'Tis, as St. Bernard saith, but seemingly. | 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.