195. Upon Some Women
Thou who wilt not love, do this,Learn of me what woman is.Something made of thread and thrum.A mere botch of all and some.Pieces, patches, ropes of hair;Inlaid garbage everywhere.Outside silk and outside lawn;Scenes to cheat us neatly drawn.False in legs, and false in thighs;False in breast, teeth, hair, and eyes;False in head, and false enough;Only true in shreds and stuff.
Words in this poem
- thrum n.
- One of the ends of weaver's threads; hence, any soft, short threads or tufts resembling these. [OE. thrum, throm; akin to OD. drom, D. dreum, G. trumm, lump, end, fragment, OHG. drum end, Icel. edge, brim, and L. terminus a limit, term. Cf. Term.]
- garbage n.
- Offal, as the bowels of an animal or fish; refuse animal or vegetable matter from a kitchen; hence, anything worthless, disgusting, or loathsome. Grainger. [OE. also garbash, perh. orig., that which is purged or cleansed away; cf. OF. garber to make fine, neat, OHG. garawan to make ready, prepare, akin to E. garb dr]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
195. Upon Some Women 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, 195. Upon Some Women, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/195-upon-some-women.html, id L05242.
Form and metre
195. Upon Some Women is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 83% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 --AABBCCDDEE this · is · thrumA · someA · hairB · everywhereB · lawnC · drawnC · thighsD · eyesD · enoughE · stuffE
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Thou who wilt not love, do this, | 7 | ······· |
| Learn of me what woman is. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Something made of thread and thrum. | 7 | /˘····· |
| A mere botch of all and some. | 7 | ······· |
| Pieces, patches, ropes of hair; | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Inlaid garbage everywhere. | 7 | /·/˘/˘· |
| Outside silk and outside lawn; | 7 | //··//· |
| Scenes to cheat us neatly drawn. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| False in legs, and false in thighs; | 7 | ······· |
| False in breast, teeth, hair, and eyes; | 7 | ······· |
| False in head, and false enough; | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Only true in shreds and stuff. | 7 | /˘····· |
Notes from the edition 1
Word-glosses from Pollard's edition (Muses' Library, 1891; Project Gutenberg #22421).
- Thrum: a small thread · All and some: anything and everything
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.