279. To the Nightingale and Robin Redbreast
When I departed am, ring thou my knell,Thou pitiful and pretty Philomel:And when I'm laid out for a corse, then beThou sexton, redbreast, for to cover me.
Words in this poem
- corse n.
- A living body or its bulk. [OF. cors, F. corps. See Corpse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
279. To the Nightingale and Robin Redbreast 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, 279. To the Nightingale and Robin Redbreast, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/279-to-the-nightingale-and-robin-redbreast.html, id L05309.
Form and metre
279. To the Nightingale and Robin Redbreast is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 knell · philomel · beA · meA
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 I departed am, ring thou my knell, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Thou pitiful and pretty Philomel: | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| And when I'm laid out for a corse, then be | 10 | ·········· |
| Thou sexton, redbreast, for to cover me. | 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.