440. Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breast
Have ye beheld (with much delight)A red rose peeping through a white?Or else a cherry, double grac'd,Within a lily centre plac'd?Or ever mark'd the pretty beamA strawberry shows half-drown'd in cream?Or seen rich rubies blushing throughA pure smooth pearl and orient too?So like to this, nay all the rest,Is each neat niplet of her breast.
Words in this poem
- centre v. i.
- To be placed in a center; to be central.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
440. Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breast 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, 440. Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breast, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/440-upon-the-nipples-of-julia-s-breast.html, id L05427.
Form and metre
440. Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breast 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 92%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 20% 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 delightA · whiteA · grac'dB · plac'dB · beamC · creamC · throughD · tooD · restE · breastE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Have ye beheld (with much delight) | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| A red rose peeping through a white? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or else a cherry, double grac'd, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Within a lily centre plac'd? | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Or ever mark'd the pretty beam | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| A strawberry shows half-drown'd in cream? | 9 | ·/·˘····· |
| Or seen rich rubies blushing through | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| A pure smooth pearl and orient too? | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| So like to this, nay all the rest, | 8 | ········ |
| Is each neat niplet of her breast. | 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.