677. To Fortune
Tumble me down, and I will sitUpon my ruins, smiling yet;Tear me to tatters, yet I'll bePatient in my necessity.Laugh at my scraps of clothes, and shunMe, as a fear'd infection;Yet, scare-crow-like, I'll walk as oneNeglecting thy derision.
Words in this poem
- scare v. t.
- To frighten; to strike with sudden fear; to alarm. [OE. skerren, skeren, Icel. skirra to bar, prevent, skirrask to shun , shrink from; or fr. OE. skerre, adj., scared, Icel. skjarr; both perhaps akin to E. sheer ]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
677. To Fortune 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, 677. To Fortune, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/677-to-fortune.html, id L05625.
Form and metre
677. To Fortune is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 ----AAAA sit · yet · be · necessity · shunA · infectionA · oneA · derisionA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Tumble me down, and I will sit | 8 | /˘······ |
| Upon my ruins, smiling yet; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Tear me to tatters, yet I'll be | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Patient in my necessity. | 8 | /˘··˘/˘˘ |
| Laugh at my scraps of clothes, and shun | 8 | ········ |
| Me, as a fear'd infection; | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Yet, scare-crow-like, I'll walk as one | 8 | ········ |
| Neglecting thy derision. | 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.