910. Upon Ben Jonson
Here lies Jonson with the restOf the poets: but the best.Reader, would'st thou more have known?Ask his story, not this stone.That will speak what this can't tellOf his glory. So farewell.
About this text
910. Upon Ben Jonson 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, 910. Upon Ben Jonson, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/910-upon-ben-jonson.html, id L05828.
Form and metre
910. Upon Ben Jonson is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 restA · bestA · knownB · stoneB · tellC · farewellC
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Here lies Jonson with the rest | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Of the poets: but the best. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Reader, would'st thou more have known? | 7 | /˘····· |
| Ask his story, not this stone. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| That will speak what this can't tell | 7 | ······· |
| Of his glory. So farewell. | 7 | ··/˘··/ |
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.