914. A Request to the Graces
Ponder my words, if so that any beKnown guilty here of incivility:Let what is graceless, discompos'd, and rude,With sweetness, smoothness, softness, be endu'd.Teach it to blush, to curtsy, lisp, and showDemure, but yet full of temptation, too.Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly please,Unless they have some wanton carriages.This if ye do, each piece will here be good,And graceful made by your neat sisterhood.
Words in this poem
- graceless a.
- Wanting in grace or excellence; departed from, or deprived of, divine grace; hence, depraved; corrupt.
- lisp v. i.
- To pronounce the sibilant letter s imperfectly; to give s and z the sound of th; -- a defect common among children. [OE. lispen, lipsen, AS. wlisp stammering, lisping; akin to D. & OHG. lispen to lisp, G. lispeln, Sw. läspa, Dan. lespe.]
- demure v. i.
- To look demurely.
- tickle a.
- Ticklish; easily tickled.
- sisterhood n.
- The state or relation of being a sister; the office or duty of a sister. [Sister + hood.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
914. A Request to the Graces 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, 914. A Request to the Graces, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/914-a-request-to-the-graces.html, id L05832.
Form and metre
914. A Request to the Graces is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 3 lines end 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 --AA--BBCC be · incivility · rudeA · endu'dA · show · too · pleaseB · carriagesB · goodC · sisterhoodC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ponder my words, if so that any be | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Known guilty here of incivility: | 10 | ·/˘··˘˘/˘˘ |
| Let what is graceless, discompos'd, and rude, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| With sweetness, smoothness, softness, be endu'd. | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Teach it to blush, to curtsy, lisp, and show | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Demure, but yet full of temptation, too. | 10 | ˘/····˘/˘· |
| Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly please, | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| Unless they have some wanton carriages. | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| This if ye do, each piece will here be good, | 10 | ·········· |
| And graceful made by your neat sisterhood. | 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.