399. The Dream
By dream I saw one of the threeSisters of fate appear to me;Close to my bedside she did stand,Showing me there a firebrand;She told me too, as that did spend,So drew my life unto an end.Three quarters were consum'd of it;Only remained a little bit,Which will be burnt up by-and-by;Then, Julia, weep, for I must die.
Words in this poem
- bedside n.
- The side of a bed.
- firebrand n.
- A piece of burning wood. L'Estrange.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
399. The Dream 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, 399. The Dream, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/399-the-dream.html, id L05405.
Form and metre
399. The Dream is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCCDDEE threeA · meA · standB · firebrandB · spendC · endC · itD · bitD · byE · dieE
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| By dream I saw one of the three | 8 | ········ |
| Sisters of fate appear to me; | 8 | /˘··˘/·· |
| Close to my bedside she did stand, | 8 | ···/···· |
| Showing me there a firebrand; | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| She told me too, as that did spend, | 8 | ········ |
| So drew my life unto an end. | 8 | ········ |
| Three quarters were consum'd of it; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| Only remained a little bit, | 8 | /˘˘/·/˘· |
| Which will be burnt up by-and-by; | 8 | ········ |
| Then, Julia, weep, for I must die. | 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.