3. To His Book
While thou didst keep thy candour undefil'd,Dearly I lov'd thee as my first-born child,But when I saw thee wantonly to roamFrom house to house, and never stay at home,I brake my bonds of love, and bade thee go,Regardless whether well thou sped'st or no.On with thy fortunes then, whate'er they be:If good, I'll smile; if bad, I'll sigh for thee.
Words in this poem
- didst
- , the 2d pers. sing. imp. of Do.
- candour n.
- Whiteness; brightness; (as applied to moral conditions) usullied purity; innocence. [L. candor, fr. candëre; cf. F. candeur. See candid.]
- wantonly adv.
- In a wanton manner; without regularity or restraint; loosely; sportively; gayly; playfully; recklessly; lasciviously.
- bade
- A form of the pat tense of Bid.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
3. To His Book 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, 3. To His Book, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/3-to-his-book.html, id L05068.
Form and metre
3. To His Book is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDD undefil'dA · childA · roamB · homeB · goC · noC · beD · theeD
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| While thou didst keep thy candour undefil'd, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Dearly I lov'd thee as my first-born child, | 10 | /˘········ |
| But when I saw thee wantonly to roam | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| From house to house, and never stay at home, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I brake my bonds of love, and bade thee go, | 10 | ·········· |
| Regardless whether well thou sped'st or no. | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| On with thy fortunes then, whate'er they be: | 11 | ···/˘·˘˘/·· |
| If good, I'll smile; if bad, I'll sigh for thee. | 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.