456. Upon Spunge. Epig
Spunge makes his boasts that he's the only manCan hold of beer and ale an ocean;Is this his glory? then his triumph's poor;I know the tun of Heidleberg holds more.
About this text
456. Upon Spunge. 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, 456. Upon Spunge. Epig, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/456-upon-spunge-epig.html, id L06359.
Form and metre
456. Upon Spunge. Epig is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 AA-- manA · oceanA · poor · more
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Spunge makes his boasts that he's the only man | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Can hold of beer and ale an ocean; | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Is this his glory? then his triumph's poor; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| I know the tun of Heidleberg holds more. | 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.