251. The Perfume
To-morrow, Julia, I betimes must rise,For some small fault to offer sacrifice:The altar's ready: fire to consumeThe fat; breathe thou, and there's the rich perfume.
Words in this poem
- betimes adv.
- In good season or time; before it is late; seasonably; early. [Pref. be- (for by) + time; that is, by the proper time. The -s is an adverbial ending.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
251. The Perfume 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, 251. The Perfume, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/251-the-perfume.html, id L05286.
Form and metre
251. The Perfume is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
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 rise · sacrifice · consumeA · perfumeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To-morrow, Julia, I betimes must rise, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| For some small fault to offer sacrifice: | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| The altar's ready: fire to consume | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| The fat; breathe thou, and there's the rich perfume. | 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.