632. Upon Bran. Epig
What made that mirth last night? the neighbours say,That Bran the baker did his breech beray:I rather think, though they may speak the worst,'Twas to his batch, but leaven laid there first.
Words in this poem
- beray v.
- TO make foul; to soil; to defile. [Pref. be + ray to defile]
- batch n.
- The quantity of bread baked at one time. [OE. bache, bacche, fr. AS. bacan to bake; cf. G. gebäck and D. baksel. See Bake, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
632. Upon Bran. Epig 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, 632. Upon Bran. Epig, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/632-upon-bran-epig.html, id L06385.
Form and metre
632. Upon Bran. Epig is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 sayA · berayA · worstB · firstB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| What made that mirth last night? the neighbours say, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| That Bran the baker did his breech beray: | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| I rather think, though they may speak the worst, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| 'Twas to his batch, but leaven laid there first. | 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.