620. To Sir Clipseby Crew
Give me wine, and give me meat,To create in me a heat,That my pulses high may beat.
Cold and hunger never yetCould a noble verse beget;But your bowls with sack replete.
Give me these, my knight, and tryIn a minute's space how ICan run mad and prophesy.
Then, if any piece prove newAnd rare, I'll say, my dearest Crew,It was full inspired by you.
Words in this poem
- replete a.
- Filled again; completely filled; full; charged; abounding. [L. repletus, p. p. of replere to fill again, fill up; pref. re- re- + plere to fill, akin to plenus full: cf. F. replet corpulent. See Plenty, Replenish.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
620. To Sir Clipseby Crew 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, 620. To Sir Clipseby Crew, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/620-to-sir-clipseby-crew.html, id L05579.
Form and metre
620. To Sir Clipseby Crew is 12 lines in 4 stanzas of 3 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AAA meatA · heatA · beatA
- 2 AA- yetA · begetA · replete
- 3 AA- tryA · iA · prophesy
- 4 AAA newA · crewA · youA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Give me wine, and give me meat, | 7 | ······· |
| To create in me a heat, | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| That my pulses high may beat. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Cold and hunger never yet | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Could a noble verse beget; | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| But your bowls with sack replete. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Give me these, my knight, and try | 7 | ······· |
| In a minute's space how I | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Can run mad and prophesy. | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Then, if any piece prove new | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And rare, I'll say, my dearest Crew, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| It was full inspired by you. | 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.