769. The Spell
Holy water come and bring;Cast in salt, for seasoning:Set the brush for sprinkling:Sacred spittle bring ye hither;Meal and it now mix together,And a little oil to either.Give the tapers here their light,Ring the saints'-bell, to affrightFar from hence the evil sprite.
Words in this poem
- sprite n.
- A spirit; a soul; a shade; also, an apparition. See Spright. [OE. sprit, F. esprit, fr. L. spiritus. See Spirit, and cf. Sprightly.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
769. The Spell 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, 769. The Spell, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/769-the-spell.html, id L05710.
Form and metre
769. The Spell is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 AAA---BBB bringA · seasoningA · sprinklingA · hither · together · either · lightB · affrightB · spriteB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Holy water come and bring; | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Cast in salt, for seasoning: | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Set the brush for sprinkling: | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Sacred spittle bring ye hither; | 9 | /˘˘/˘··/˘ |
| Meal and it now mix together, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| And a little oil to either. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Give the tapers here their light, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Ring the saints'-bell, to affright | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Far from hence the evil sprite. | 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.