681. Upon His Verses
What offspring other men have got,The how, where, when, I question not.These are the children I have left,Adopted some, none got by theft;But all are touch'd, like lawful plate,And no verse illegitimate.
About this text
681. Upon His Verses 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, 681. Upon His Verses, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/681-upon-his-verses.html, id L05629.
Form and metre
681. Upon His Verses is 6 lines in a single stanza. 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 88%). 96% 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 AABB-A gotA · notA · leftB · theftB · plate · illegitimateA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| What offspring other men have got, | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| The how, where, when, I question not. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| These are the children I have left, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Adopted some, none got by theft; | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| But all are touch'd, like lawful plate, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And no verse illegitimate. | 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.