596. Upon Spalt
Of pushes Spalt has such a knotty race,He needs a tucker for to burl his face.
Words in this poem
- spalt a.
- Liable to break or split; brittle; as, spalt timber. [See 1st Spell.]
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
- burl v. t.
- To dress or finish up (cloth); to pick knots, burs, loose threads, etc., from, as in finishing cloth. Burling iron, a peculiar kind of nippers or tweezers used in burling woolen cloth. [OE. burle stuffing, or a knot in cloth; cf. F. bourlet, bourrelet, OF. bourel, a wreath or a roll of cloth, linen, or leather, stuffed with flocks, etc., dim. o]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
596. Upon Spalt 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, 596. Upon Spalt, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/596-upon-spalt.html, id L06381.
Form and metre
596. Upon Spalt 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 raceA · faceA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Of pushes Spalt has such a knotty race, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| He needs a tucker for to burl his face. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
Notes from the edition 1
Word-glosses from Pollard's edition (Muses' Library, 1891; Project Gutenberg #22421).
- Pushes: pimples · Tucker: a fuller · Burl: to remove knots from cloth
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.