818. To My Dearest Sister, M. Mercy Herrick
Whene'er I go, or whatsoe'er befallsMe in mine age, or foreign funerals,This blessing I will leave thee, ere I go:Prosper thy basket and therein thy dough.Feed on the paste of filberts, or else kneadAnd bake the flour of amber for thy bread.Balm may thy trees drop, and thy springs run oil,And everlasting harvest crown thy soil!These I but wish for; but thyself shall seeThe blessing fall in mellow times on thee.
Words in this poem
- prosper v. t.
- To favor; to render successful. [F. prospérer v. i., or L. prosperare, v. i., or L. prosperare, v. t., fr. prosper or prosperus. See Prosperous.]
- knead v. t.
- To work and press into a mass, usually with the hands; esp., to work, as by repeated pressure with the knuckles, into a well mixed mass, as the materials of bread, cake, etc.; as, to knead dough. [OE. kneden, As. cnedan; akin to D. kneden, G. kneten, Sw. kn, Icel. kno; cf. OSlav.gnesti.]
- bake v. t.
- To prepare, as food, by cooking in a dry heat, either in an oven or under coals, or on heated stone or metal; as, to bake bread, meat, apples.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
818. To My Dearest Sister, M. Mercy Herrick 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, 818. To My Dearest Sister, M. Mercy Herrick, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/818-to-my-dearest-sister-m-mercy-herrick.html, id L05752.
Form and metre
818. To My Dearest Sister, M. Mercy Herrick is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 30% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABB--CCDD befallsA · funeralsA · goB · doughB · knead · bread · oilC · soilC · seeD · theeD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Whene'er I go, or whatsoe'er befalls | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Me in mine age, or foreign funerals, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| This blessing I will leave thee, ere I go: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Prosper thy basket and therein thy dough. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Feed on the paste of filberts, or else knead | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And bake the flour of amber for thy bread. | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| Balm may thy trees drop, and thy springs run oil, | 10 | ·········· |
| And everlasting harvest crown thy soil! | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| These I but wish for; but thyself shall see | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| The blessing fall in mellow times on thee. | 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.