522. To His Kinswoman, Mistress Susanna Herrick
When I consider, dearest, thou dost stayBut here a-while, to languish and decay,Like to these garden-glories, which here beThe flowery-sweet resemblances of thee;With grief of heart, methinks, I thus do cry:Would thou hadst ne'er been born, or might'st not die.
Words in this poem
- languish v. i.
- To cause to dr Shak.
- methinks v.
- It seems to me; I think. See Me. [AS. þyncan to seem, me þynceedh, me þuhte, OE. me thinketh, me thoughte; akin to G. dünken to seem, denken to think, and E. think. See Me, and Think.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
522. To His Kinswoman, Mistress Susanna Herrick 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, 522. To His Kinswoman, Mistress Susanna Herrick, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/522-to-his-kinswoman-mistress-susanna-herrick.html, id L05497.
Form and metre
522. To His Kinswoman, Mistress Susanna Herrick is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCC stayA · decayA · beB · theeB · cryC · dieC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When I consider, dearest, thou dost stay | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| But here a-while, to languish and decay, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Like to these garden-glories, which here be | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The flowery-sweet resemblances of thee; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘·· |
| With grief of heart, methinks, I thus do cry: | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Would thou hadst ne'er been born, or might'st not die. | 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.