272. Upon Pink, an Ill-Fac'd Painter. Epig
To paint the fiend, Pink would the devil see;And so he may, if he'll be rul'd by me;Let but Pink's face i' th' looking-glass be shown,And Pink may paint the devil's by his own.
About this text
272. Upon Pink, an Ill-Fac'd Painter. Epig 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, 272. Upon Pink, an Ill-Fac'd Painter. Epig, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/272-upon-pink-an-ill-fac-d-painter-epig.html, id L06318.
Form and metre
272. Upon Pink, an Ill-Fac'd Painter. Epig 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 seeA · meA · shownB · ownB
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 paint the fiend, Pink would the devil see; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And so he may, if he'll be rul'd by me; | 10 | ·········· |
| Let but Pink's face i' th' looking-glass be shown, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And Pink may paint the devil's by his own. | 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.