63. Cheerfulness in Charity; Or, the Sweet Sacrifice
'Tis not a thousand bullocks' thighsCan please those heav'nly deities,If the vower don't expressIn his offering cheerfulness.
Words in this poem
- vower n.
- One who makes a vow. Bale.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
63. Cheerfulness in Charity; Or, the Sweet Sacrifice 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, 63. Cheerfulness in Charity; Or, the Sweet Sacrifice, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/63-cheerfulness-in-charity-or-the-sweet-sacrifice.html, id L05125.
Form and metre
63. Cheerfulness in Charity; Or, the Sweet Sacrifice is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 79% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 2 lines end 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 AABB thighsA · deitiesA · expressB · cheerfulnessB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 'Tis not a thousand bullocks' thighs | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Can please those heav'nly deities, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| If the vower don't express | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| In his offering cheerfulness. | 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.