320. Matins; Or, Morning Prayer
When with the virgin morning thou dost rise,Crossing thyself, come thus to sacrifice;First wash thy heart in innocence, then bringPure hands, pure habits, pure, pure everything.Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thenceGive up thy soul in clouds of frankincense.Thy golden censers, fill'd with odours sweet,Shall make thy actions with their ends to meet.
Words in this poem
- humbly adv.
- With humility; lowly.
- kneel v. i.
- To bend the knee; to fall or rest on the knees; -- sometimes with down. [OE. knelen, cneolien; akin to D. knielen, Dan. knæle. See Knee.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
320. Matins; Or, Morning Prayer 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, 320. Matins; Or, Morning Prayer, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/320-matins-or-morning-prayer.html, id L05342.
Form and metre
320. Matins; Or, Morning Prayer is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 75% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 25% 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 --AABBCC rise · sacrifice · bringA · everythingA · thenceB · frankincenseB · sweetC · meetC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When with the virgin morning thou dost rise, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Crossing thyself, come thus to sacrifice; | 10 | /˘˘/···/˘· |
| First wash thy heart in innocence, then bring | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| Pure hands, pure habits, pure, pure everything. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thence | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Give up thy soul in clouds of frankincense. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Thy golden censers, fill'd with odours sweet, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Shall make thy actions with their ends to meet. | 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.