342. Upon His Julia
Will ye hear what I can sayBriefly of my Julia?Black and rolling is her eye,Double-chinn'd and forehead high;Lips she has all ruby red,Cheeks like cream enclareted;And a nose that is the graceAnd proscenium of her face.So that we may guess by theseThe other parts will richly please.
Words in this poem
- proscenium n.
- The part where the actors performed; the stage. [L., fr. Gr. Scene.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
342. Upon His Julia 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, 342. Upon His Julia, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/342-upon-his-julia.html, id L05362.
Form and metre
342. Upon His Julia is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 30% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 --AA--BBCC say · julia · eyeA · highA · red · enclareted · graceB · faceB · theseC · pleaseC
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Will ye hear what I can say | 7 | ······· |
| Briefly of my Julia? | 6 | /˘···· |
| Black and rolling is her eye, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Double-chinn'd and forehead high; | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Lips she has all ruby red, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Cheeks like cream enclareted; | 7 | ······· |
| And a nose that is the grace | 7 | ······· |
| And proscenium of her face. | 8 | ·˘/˘˘··· |
| So that we may guess by these | 7 | ······· |
| The other parts will richly please. | 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.