400. Upon Rasp. Epig
Rasp plays at nine-holes; and 'tis known he getsMany a tester by his game and bets:But of his gettings there's but little sign;When one hole wastes more than he gets by nine.
Words in this poem
- tester n.
- A headpiece; a helmet. [OE. testere a headpiece, helmet, OF. testiere, F. têtière a head covering, fr. OF. teste the head, F. tête, fr. L. testa an earthen pot, the skull. See Test a c]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
400. Upon Rasp. Epig 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, 400. Upon Rasp. Epig, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/400-upon-rasp-epig.html, id L06341.
Form and metre
400. Upon Rasp. Epig is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AABB getsA · betsA · signB · nineB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Rasp plays at nine-holes; and 'tis known he gets | 10 | ·········· |
| Many a tester by his game and bets: | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| But of his gettings there's but little sign; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| When one hole wastes more than he gets by nine. | 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.