514. To the Lady Crew, upon the Death of Her Child
Why, madam, will ye longer weep,Whenas your baby's lull'd asleep?And (pretty child) feels now no moreThose pains it lately felt before.All now is silent; groans are fled:Your child lies still, yet is not dead;But rather like a flower hid hereTo spring again another year.
About this text
514. To the Lady Crew, upon the Death of Her Child 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. To the Lady Crew, upon the Death of Her Child, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/514-to-the-lady-crew-upon-the-death-of-her-child.html, id L05490.
Form and metre
514. To the Lady Crew, upon the Death of Her Child is 8 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 91%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 25% 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 AABBCCDD weepA · asleepA · moreB · beforeB · fledC · deadC · hereD · yearD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Why, madam, will ye longer weep, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Whenas your baby's lull'd asleep? | 8 | /˘·/˘·˘/ |
| And (pretty child) feels now no more | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Those pains it lately felt before. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| All now is silent; groans are fled: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Your child lies still, yet is not dead; | 8 | ········ |
| But rather like a flower hid here | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| To spring again another year. | 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.