294. Event of Things Not in Our Power

Robert Herrick (1591–1674) · 1648

iambic tetrameter · 2 lines · from Hesperides

By time and counsel do the best we can,Th' event is never in the power of man.

About this text

294. Event of Things Not in Our Power 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, 294. Event of Things Not in Our Power, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/294-event-of-things-not-in-our-power.html, id L05323.

Form and metre

294. Event of Things Not in Our Power is 2 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.0 syllables.

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. 1 AA canA · manA
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.

LineSyl.Stress
By time and counsel do the best we can,10···/˘·····
Th' event is never in the power of man.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.

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