856. To Julia
I am zealless; prithee prayFor my welfare, Julia,For I think the gods requireMale perfumes, but female fire.
Words in this poem
- zealless a.
- Wanting zeal. Hammond.
- prithee interj.
- A corruption of pray thee; as, I prithee; generally used without I.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
856. To Julia 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, 856. To Julia, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/856-to-julia.html, id L05783.
Form and metre
856. To Julia is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 --AA pray · julia · requireA · fireA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I am zealless; prithee pray | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| For my welfare, Julia, | 6 | ··/··· |
| For I think the gods require | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Male perfumes, but female fire. | 8 | ·˘/·/·/˘ |
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.