215. Predestination

Robert Herrick (1591–1674) · 1648

iambic tetrameter · 2 lines · from Hesperides

Predestination is the cause aloneOf many standing, but of fall to none.

About this text

215. Predestination 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, 215. Predestination, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/215-predestination.html, id L06226.

Form and metre

215. Predestination is 2 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.0 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.

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.

LineSyl.Stress
Predestination is the cause alone10··˘/˘···˘/
Of many standing, but of fall to none.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.

More by Robert Herrick