859. To His Friend, Mr. J. Jincks
Love, love me now, because I placeThee here among my righteous race:The bastard slips may droop and dieWanting both root and earth; but thyImmortal self shall boldly trustTo live for ever with my Just.
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- boldly adv.
- In a bold manner. [AS. bealdlice.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
859. To His Friend, Mr. J. Jincks 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, 859. To His Friend, Mr. J. Jincks, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/859-to-his-friend-mr-j-jincks.html, id L05786.
Form and metre
859. To His Friend, Mr. J. Jincks is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
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 AABBCC placeA · raceA · dieB · thyB · trustC · justC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Love, love me now, because I place | 8 | ········ |
| Thee here among my righteous race: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The bastard slips may droop and die | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Wanting both root and earth; but thy | 8 | /˘······ |
| Immortal self shall boldly trust | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| To live for ever with my Just. | 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.