321. Evensong
Begin with Jove; then is the work half done,And runs most smoothly when 'tis well begun.Jove's is the first and last: the morn's his due,The midst is thine; but Jove's the evening too;As sure a matins does to him belong,So sure he lays claim to the evensong.
Words in this poem
- jove n.
- The chief divinity of the ancient Romans; Jupiter. [L. Jupiter, gen. Jovis, OL. Jovis, nom. & gen. for Djovis; akin to E. Tuesday. See Tuesday, and cf. Jupiter.]
- evensong n.
- A song for the evening; the evening service or form of worship (in the Church of England including vespers and compline); also, the time of evensong. Wyclif. [AS. æfensang.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
321. Evensong 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, 321. Evensong, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/321-evensong.html, id L05343.
Form and metre
321. Evensong is 6 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 86%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 doneA · begunA · dueB · tooB · belongC · evensongC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Begin with Jove; then is the work half done, | 10 | ˘/········ |
| And runs most smoothly when 'tis well begun. | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Jove's is the first and last: the morn's his due, | 10 | ·········· |
| The midst is thine; but Jove's the evening too; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| As sure a matins does to him belong, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| So sure he lays claim to the evensong. | 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.