228. Upon a Gentlewoman with a Sweet Voice
So long you did not sing or touch your lute,We knew 'twas flesh and blood that there sat mute.But when your playing and your voice came in,'Twas no more you then, but a cherubin.
Words in this poem
- cherubin a.
- Cherubic; angelic.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
228. Upon a Gentlewoman with a Sweet Voice 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, 228. Upon a Gentlewoman with a Sweet Voice, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/228-upon-a-gentlewoman-with-a-sweet-voice.html, id L05269.
Form and metre
228. Upon a Gentlewoman with a Sweet Voice is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. 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 AA-- luteA · muteA · in · cherubin
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 |
|---|---|---|
| So long you did not sing or touch your lute, | 10 | ·········· |
| We knew 'twas flesh and blood that there sat mute. | 10 | ·········· |
| But when your playing and your voice came in, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| 'Twas no more you then, but a cherubin. | 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.