444. To His Peculiar Friend, Mr. Thomas Shapcott, Lawyer
I've paid thee what I promis'd; that's not all;Besides I give thee here a verse that shall(When hence thy circummortal part is gone),Arch-like, hold up thy name's inscription.Brave men can't die, whose candid actions areWrit in the poet's endless calendar:Whose vellum and whose volume is the sky,And the pure stars the praising poetry.Farewell
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
444. To His Peculiar Friend, Mr. Thomas Shapcott, Lawyer 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, 444. To His Peculiar Friend, Mr. Thomas Shapcott, Lawyer, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/444-to-his-peculiar-friend-mr-thomas-shapcott-lawyer.html, id L05431.
Form and metre
444. To His Peculiar Friend, Mr. Thomas Shapcott, Lawyer is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.0 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 --AA----- all · shall · goneA · inscriptionA · are · calendar · sky · poetry · farewell
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I've paid thee what I promis'd; that's not all; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Besides I give thee here a verse that shall | 10 | ˘/········ |
| (When hence thy circummortal part is gone), | 10 | ·········· |
| Arch-like, hold up thy name's inscription. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| Brave men can't die, whose candid actions are | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Writ in the poet's endless calendar: | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Whose vellum and whose volume is the sky, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And the pure stars the praising poetry. | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Farewell | 2 | ·/ |
Notes from the edition 1
Word-glosses from Pollard's edition (Muses' Library, 1891; Project Gutenberg #22421).
- Circummortal: more than mortal · Candid: fair
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