833. To Oenone
Thou say'st Love's dartHath pricked thy heart;And thou dost languish too:If one poor prickCan make thee sick,Say, what would many do?
Words in this poem
- languish v. i.
- To cause to dr Shak.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
833. To Oenone 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, 833. To Oenone, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/833-to-oenone.html, id L05764.
Form and metre
833. To Oenone is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes AABCCB. The metre is iambic dimeter, 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 4.7 syllables.
See other poems in iambic dimeter.
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 AABCCB dartA · heartA · tooB · prickC · sickC · doB
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Thou say'st Love's dart | 4 | ···· |
| Hath pricked thy heart; | 4 | ···· |
| And thou dost languish too: | 6 | ···/˘· |
| If one poor prick | 4 | ···· |
| Can make thee sick, | 4 | ···· |
| Say, what would many do? | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.