299. The Bellman
From noise of scare-fires rest ye free,From murders Benedicite.From all mischances that may frightYour pleasing slumbers in the night,Mercy secure ye all, and keepThe goblin from ye while ye sleep.Past one o'clock, and almost two!My masters all, good-day to you.
Words in this poem
- scare v. t.
- To frighten; to strike with sudden fear; to alarm. [OE. skerren, skeren, Icel. skirra to bar, prevent, skirrask to shun , shrink from; or fr. OE. skerre, adj., scared, Icel. skjarr; both perhaps akin to E. sheer ]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
299. The Bellman 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, 299. The Bellman, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/299-the-bellman.html, id L05328.
Form and metre
299. The Bellman 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 92%). 94% 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 --AABBCC free · benedicite · frightA · nightA · keepB · sleepB · twoC · youC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| From noise of scare-fires rest ye free, | 8 | ····/··· |
| From murders Benedicite. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| From all mischances that may fright | 8 | ········ |
| Your pleasing slumbers in the night, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Mercy secure ye all, and keep | 8 | /˘˘/···· |
| The goblin from ye while ye sleep. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Past one o'clock, and almost two! | 8 | ··˘/·/·· |
| My masters all, good-day to you. | 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.