823. To the King, upon His Taking of Leicester
This day is yours, great Charles! and in this warYour fate, and ours, alike victorious are.In her white stole now Victory does restEnsphered with palm on your triumphant crest.Fortune is now your captive; other KingsHold but her hands; you hold both hands and wings.
Words in this poem
- stole n.
- A long, loose garment reaching to the feet. [AS. stole, L. stola, Gr. stall. See Stall.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
823. To the King, upon His Taking of Leicester 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, 823. To the King, upon His Taking of Leicester, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/823-to-the-king-upon-his-taking-of-leicester.html, id L05756.
Form and metre
823. To the King, upon His Taking of Leicester is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 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 --AABB war · are · restA · crestA · kingsB · wingsB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| This day is yours, great Charles! and in this war | 10 | ·········· |
| Your fate, and ours, alike victorious are. | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| In her white stole now Victory does rest | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| Ensphered with palm on your triumphant crest. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Fortune is now your captive; other Kings | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| Hold but her hands; you hold both hands and wings. | 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.