264. His Words to Christ Going to the Cross
When Thou wast taken, Lord, I oft have read,All Thy disciples Thee forsook and fled.Let their example not a pattern beFor me to fly, but now to follow Thee.
Words in this poem
- wast
- The second person singular of the verb be, in the indicative mood, imperfect tense; -- now used only in solemn or poetical style.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
264. His Words to Christ Going to the Cross 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, 264. His Words to Christ Going to the Cross, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/264-his-words-to-christ-going-to-the-cross.html, id L06275.
Form and metre
264. His Words to Christ Going to the Cross is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. 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 AABB readA · fledA · beB · theeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When Thou wast taken, Lord, I oft have read, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| All Thy disciples Thee forsook and fled. | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/·· |
| Let their example not a pattern be | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| For me to fly, but now to follow Thee. | 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.