801. Upon Comely, a Good Speaker but an ILL Singer. Epig
Comely acts well; and when he speaks his part,He doth it with the sweetest tones of art:But when he sings a psalm, there's none can beMore curs'd for singing out of tune than he.
About this text
801. Upon Comely, a Good Speaker but an ILL Singer. 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, 801. Upon Comely, a Good Speaker but an ILL Singer. Epig, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/801-upon-comely-a-good-speaker-but-an-ill-singer-epig.html, id L06404.
Form and metre
801. Upon Comely, a Good Speaker but an ILL Singer. 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 partA · artA · beB · heB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Comely acts well; and when he speaks his part, | 10 | /˘········ |
| He doth it with the sweetest tones of art: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But when he sings a psalm, there's none can be | 10 | ·········· |
| More curs'd for singing out of tune than he. | 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.