271. Upon a Maid That Died the Day She Was Married
That morn which saw me made a bride,The evening witness'd that I died.Those holy lights, wherewith they guideUnto the bed the bashful bride,Serv'd but as tapers for to burnAnd light my relics to their urn.This epitaph, which here you see,Supplied the epithalamy.
Words in this poem
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- wherewith adv.
- With which; -- used relatively.
- bashful a.
- Abashed; daunted; dismayed. [See Bash.]
- epithalamy n.
- Epithalamium. Donne.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
271. Upon a Maid That Died the Day She Was Married 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. Upon a Maid That Died the Day She Was Married, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/271-upon-a-maid-that-died-the-day-she-was-married.html, id L05304.
Form and metre
271. Upon a Maid That Died the Day She Was Married is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 75% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 AAAABB-- brideA · diedA · guideA · brideA · burnB · urnB · see · epithalamy
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| That morn which saw me made a bride, | 8 | ········ |
| The evening witness'd that I died. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Those holy lights, wherewith they guide | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| Unto the bed the bashful bride, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Serv'd but as tapers for to burn | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And light my relics to their urn. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| This epitaph, which here you see, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Supplied the epithalamy. | 8 | ˘/······ |
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.