359. To the Right Honourable Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery
How dull and dead are books that cannot showA prince of Pembroke, and that Pembroke you!You who are high born, and a lord no lessFree by your fate than fortune's mightiness,Who hug our poems, honour'd sir, and thenThe paper gild and laureate the pen.Nor suffer you the poets to sit cold,But warm their wits and turn their lines to gold.Others there be who righteously will swearThose smooth-paced numbers amble everywhere,And these brave measures go a stately trot;Love those, like these, regard, reward them not.But you, my lord, are one whose hand alongGoes with your mouth or does outrun your tongue;Paying before you praise, and, cockering wit,Give both the gold and garland unto it.
Words in this poem
- mightiness n.
- The quality of being mighty; possession of might; power; greatness; high dignity.
- laureate a.
- Crowned, or decked, with laurel. [L. laureatus, fr. laurea laurel tree, fr. laureus of laurel, fr. laurus laurel: cf. F. lauréat. Cf. Laurel.]
- righteously adv.
- In a righteous manner; as, to judge righteously. [AS. rightwislice.]
- amble v. i.
- To go at the easy gait called an amble; -- applied to the horse or to its rider. [F. ambler to amble, fr. L. ambulare to walk, in LL., to amble, perh. fr. amb-, ambi-, and a root meaning to go: cf. Gr. base. Cf. Ambulate.]
- outrun v. t.
- To exceed, or leave behind, in running; to run faster than; to outstrip; to go beyond.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
359. To the Right Honourable Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery 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, 359. To the Right Honourable Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/359-to-the-right-honourable-philip-earl-of-pembroke-and-mont.html, id L05377.
Form and metre
359. To the Right Honourable Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery is 16 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 88%). 90% 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. 31% 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 --AABBCCDDEE--FF show · you · lessA · mightinessA · thenB · penB · coldC · goldC · swearD · everywhereD · trotE · notE · along · tongue · witF · itF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How dull and dead are books that cannot show | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| A prince of Pembroke, and that Pembroke you! | 10 | ···/···/·· |
| You who are high born, and a lord no less | 10 | ·········· |
| Free by your fate than fortune's mightiness, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Who hug our poems, honour'd sir, and then | 10 | ··//˘····· |
| The paper gild and laureate the pen. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘·· |
| Nor suffer you the poets to sit cold, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| But warm their wits and turn their lines to gold. | 10 | ·········· |
| Others there be who righteously will swear | 10 | /˘···/˘˘·· |
| Those smooth-paced numbers amble everywhere, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| And these brave measures go a stately trot; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Love those, like these, regard, reward them not. | 10 | ····˘/˘/·· |
| But you, my lord, are one whose hand along | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Goes with your mouth or does outrun your tongue; | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Paying before you praise, and, cockering wit, | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Give both the gold and garland unto it. | 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.