271. His Coming to the Sepulchre
Hence they have borne my Lord; behold! the stoneIs rolled away and my sweet Saviour's gone.Tell me, white angel, what is now becomeOf Him we lately sealed up in this tomb?Is He, from hence, gone to the shades beneath,To vanquish hell as here He conquered death?If so, I'll thither follow without fear,And live in hell if that my Christ stays there.
Of all the good things whatsoe'er we do,God is the ΑΡΧΗ, and the ΤΕΛΟΣ too.
About this text
271. His Coming to the Sepulchre 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, 271. His Coming to the Sepulchre, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/271-his-coming-to-the-sepulchre.html, id L06281.
Form and metre
271. His Coming to the Sepulchre is 10 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.5 syllables. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ------AA stone · gone · become · tomb · beneath · death · fearA · thereA
- 2 AA doA · tooA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hence they have borne my Lord; behold! the stone | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Is rolled away and my sweet Saviour's gone. | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Tell me, white angel, what is now become | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Of Him we lately sealed up in this tomb? | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Is He, from hence, gone to the shades beneath, | 10 | ·········· |
| To vanquish hell as here He conquered death? | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| If so, I'll thither follow without fear, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And live in hell if that my Christ stays there. | 10 | ·········· |
| Of all the good things whatsoe'er we do, | 9 | ········· |
| God is the ΑΡΧΗ, and the ΤΕΛΟΣ too. | 6 | ······ |
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.