907. Upon M. William Lawes, the Rare Musician
Should I not put on blacks, when each one hereComes with his cypress and devotes a tear?Should I not grieve, my Lawes, when every lute,Viol, and voice is by thy loss struck mute?Thy loss, brave man! whose numbers have been hurl'd,And no less prais'd than spread throughout the world.Some have thee call'd Amphion; some of usNam'd thee Terpander, or sweet Orpheus:Some this, some that, but all in this agree,Music had both her birth and death with thee.
Words in this poem
- blacks n.
- The name of a kind of in used in copperplate printing, prepared from the charred husks of the grape, and residue of the wine press.
- orpheus n.
- The famous mythic Thracian poet, son of the Muse Calliope, and husband of Eurydice. He is reputed to have had power to entrance beasts and inanimate objects by the music of his lyre.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
907. Upon M. William Lawes, the Rare Musician 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, 907. Upon M. William Lawes, the Rare Musician, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/907-upon-m-william-lawes-the-rare-musician.html, id L05825.
Form and metre
907. Upon M. William Lawes, the Rare Musician is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% 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 AABBCCDDEE hereA · tearA · luteB · muteB · hurl'dC · worldC · usD · orpheusD · agreeE · theeE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Should I not put on blacks, when each one here | 10 | ·········· |
| Comes with his cypress and devotes a tear? | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Should I not grieve, my Lawes, when every lute, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Viol, and voice is by thy loss struck mute? | 10 | /˘········ |
| Thy loss, brave man! whose numbers have been hurl'd, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And no less prais'd than spread throughout the world. | 10 | ·········· |
| Some have thee call'd Amphion; some of us | 9 | ········· |
| Nam'd thee Terpander, or sweet Orpheus: | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Some this, some that, but all in this agree, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Music had both her birth and death with 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.