536. ILL Government
Preposterous is that government, and rude,When kings obey the wilder multitude.
Words in this poem
- preposterous a.
- Having that first which ought to be last; inverted in order. [L. praeposterus; prae before + posterus coming after, latter. See Posterior.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
536. ILL Government 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, 536. ILL Government, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/536-ill-government.html, id L05508.
Form and metre
536. ILL Government 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 rudeA · multitudeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Preposterous is that government, and rude, | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘˘·· |
| When kings obey the wilder multitude. | 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.