69. All Things Decay and Die
All things decay with time: the forest seesThe growth and downfall of her aged trees;That timber tall, which threescore lusters stoodThe proud dictator of the state-like wood,--I mean (the sovereign of all plants) the oak--Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke.
Words in this poem
- downfall n.
- A sudden fall; a body of things falling.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
69. All Things Decay and Die 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, 69. All Things Decay and Die, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/69-all-things-decay-and-die.html, id L05130.
Form and metre
69. All Things Decay and Die is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.8 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCC seesA · treesA · stoodB · woodB · oakC · strokeC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| All things decay with time: the forest sees | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| The growth and downfall of her aged trees; | 9 | ···/····· |
| That timber tall, which threescore lusters stood | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| The proud dictator of the state-like wood,-- | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| I mean (the sovereign of all plants) the oak-- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke. | 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.