196. Sin
There is no evil that we do commit,But hath th' extraction of some good from it:As when we sin, God, the great Chemist, thenceDraws out th' elixir of true penitence.
Words in this poem
- elixir n.
- A tincture with more than one base; a compound tincture or medicine, composed of various substances, held in solution by alcohol in some form. [F. élixir, Sp. elixir, Ar. eliksir the philosopher's stone, prob. from Gr. ksha to burn.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
196. Sin 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, 196. Sin, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/196-sin.html, id L06207.
Form and metre
196. Sin is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends 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 AABB commitA · itA · thenceB · penitenceB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There is no evil that we do commit, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| But hath th' extraction of some good from it: | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| As when we sin, God, the great Chemist, thence | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Draws out th' elixir of true penitence. | 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.