527. Upon His Grey Hairs
Fly me not, though I be grey:Lady, this I know you'll say;Better look the roses redWhen with white commingled.Black your hairs are, mine are white;This begets the more delight,When things meet most opposite:As in pictures we descryVenus standing Vulcan by.
Words in this poem
- descry
- , Discovery or view, as of an army seen at a distance.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
527. Upon His Grey Hairs 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, 527. Upon His Grey Hairs, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/527-upon-his-grey-hairs.html, id L05502.
Form and metre
527. Upon His Grey Hairs is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.9 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 22% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 AA--BBBCC greyA · sayA · red · commingled · whiteB · delightB · oppositeB · descryC · byC
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Fly me not, though I be grey: | 7 | ······· |
| Lady, this I know you'll say; | 7 | /˘····· |
| Better look the roses red | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| When with white commingled. | 7 | ···˘/˘˘ |
| Black your hairs are, mine are white; | 7 | ······· |
| This begets the more delight, | 7 | ·˘/··˘/ |
| When things meet most opposite: | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| As in pictures we descry | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Venus standing Vulcan by. | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
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.