514. Kissing and Bussing
Kissing and bussing differ both in this;We buss our wantons, but our wives we kiss.
Words in this poem
- buss n.
- A kiss; a rude or playful kiss; a smack. [OE. basse, fr. L. basium; cf. G. bus (Luther), Prov. G. busserl, dim. of bus kiss, bussen to kiss, Sw. puss kiss, pussa to kiss, W. & Gael. bus lip, mouth.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
514. Kissing and Bussing 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, 514. Kissing and Bussing, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/514-kissing-and-bussing.html, id L06366.
Form and metre
514. Kissing and Bussing is 2 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
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 thisA · kissA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Kissing and bussing differ both in this; | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| We buss our wantons, but our wives we kiss. | 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.