22. To Anthea
If, dear Anthea, my hard fate it beTo live some few sad hours after thee,Thy sacred corse with odours I will burn,And with my laurel crown thy golden urn.Then holding up there such religious thingsAs were, time past, thy holy filletings,Near to thy reverend pitcher I will fallDown dead for grief, and end my woes withal:So three in one small plat of ground shall lie--Anthea, Herrick, and his poetry.
Words in this poem
- corse n.
- A living body or its bulk. [OF. cors, F. corps. See Corpse.]
- reverend a.
- Worthy of reverence; entitled to respect mingled with fear and affection; venerable. [F. révérend, L. reverendus, fr. revereri. See Revere.]
- withal adv.
- With this; with that. [With + all.]
- plat a.
- Plain; flat; level. Gower. [F. plat. See Plate, n.]
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
22. To Anthea 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, 22. To Anthea, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/22-to-anthea.html, id L05085.
Form and metre
22. To Anthea is 10 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 85%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 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 AABBCCDD-- beA · theeA · burnB · urnB · thingsC · filletingsC · fallD · withalD · lie · poetry
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If, dear Anthea, my hard fate it be | 10 | ··/˘˘····· |
| To live some few sad hours after thee, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Thy sacred corse with odours I will burn, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And with my laurel crown thy golden urn. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Then holding up there such religious things | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| As were, time past, thy holy filletings, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Near to thy reverend pitcher I will fall | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Down dead for grief, and end my woes withal: | 10 | ········˘/ |
| So three in one small plat of ground shall lie-- | 10 | ·········· |
| Anthea, Herrick, and his poetry. | 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.