504. The Broken Crystal
To fetch me wine my Lucia went,Bearing a crystal continent:But, making haste, it came to passShe brake in two the purer glass,Then smil'd, and sweetly chid her speed;So with a blush beshrew'd the deed.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- continent a.
- Serving to restrain or limit; restraining; opposing. [L. continens, -entis, prop., p. pr. of continere to hold together, to repress: cf. F. continent. See Contain.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
504. The Broken Crystal 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, 504. The Broken Crystal, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/504-the-broken-crystal.html, id L05481.
Form and metre
504. The Broken Crystal is 6 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%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 AABBCC wentA · continentA · passB · glassB · speedC · deedC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To fetch me wine my Lucia went, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Bearing a crystal continent: | 8 | /˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| But, making haste, it came to pass | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| She brake in two the purer glass, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Then smil'd, and sweetly chid her speed; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| So with a blush beshrew'd the deed. | 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.