615. Purposes
No wrath of men or rage of seasCan shake a just man's purposes:No threats of tyrants or the grimVisage of them can alter him;But what he doth at first intend,That he holds firmly to the end.
Words in this poem
- visage n.
- The face, countenance, or look of a person or an animal; -- chiefly applied to the human face. [F. visage, from L. visus a seeing, a look, fr. videre, visum, to see. See Vision.]
- intend v. t.
- To stretch' to extend; to distend. [OE. entenden to be attentive, F. entendre, fr. L. intendre, intentum, and intensum, to intend, attend, stretch out, extend; pref. in- in + tendere to stretch, s]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
615. Purposes 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, 615. Purposes, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/615-purposes.html, id L05574.
Form and metre
615. Purposes is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCC seasA · purposesA · grimB · himB · intendC · endC
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| No wrath of men or rage of seas | 8 | ········ |
| Can shake a just man's purposes: | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| No threats of tyrants or the grim | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Visage of them can alter him; | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| But what he doth at first intend, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| That he holds firmly to the end. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
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.