612. The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad
Dull to myself, and almost dead to theseMy many fresh and fragrant mistresses;Lost to all music now, since everythingPuts on the semblance here of sorrowing.Sick is the land to the heart, and doth endureMore dangerous faintings by her desp'rate cure.But if that golden age would come again,And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;If smooth and unperplexed the seasons were,As when the sweet Maria lived here:I should delight to have my curls half drown'dIn Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd;And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead,Knock at a star with my exalted head.
Words in this poem
- tyrian a.
- Of or pertaining to Tyre or its people.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
612. The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad 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, 612. The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/612-the-bad-season-makes-the-poet-sad.html, id L05571.
Form and metre
612. The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 86% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABBCCDD--EEFF theseA · mistressesA · everythingB · sorrowingB · endureC · cureC · againD · reignD · were · here · drown'dE · crown'dE · deadF · headF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dull to myself, and almost dead to these | 10 | ···/·/···· |
| My many fresh and fragrant mistresses; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| Lost to all music now, since everything | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| Sick is the land to the heart, and doth endure | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| More dangerous faintings by her desp'rate cure. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| But if that golden age would come again, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And Charles here rule, as he before did reign; | 10 | ·········· |
| If smooth and unperplexed the seasons were, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| As when the sweet Maria lived here: | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘· |
| I should delight to have my curls half drown'd | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd; | 11 | ·/˘˘····/˘· |
| And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead, | 10 | ·········· |
| Knock at a star with my exalted head. | 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.