920. Cunctation in Correction
The lictors bundled up their rods; beside,Knit them with knots with much ado unti'd,That if, unknitting, men would yet repent,They might escape the lash of punishment.
Words in this poem
- repent a.
- Prostrate and rooting; -- said of stems. Gray. [L. repens, -entis, creeping, p. pr. of repere to creep.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
920. Cunctation in Correction 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, 920. Cunctation in Correction, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/920-cunctation-in-correction.html, id L05838.
Form and metre
920. Cunctation in Correction is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AABB besideA · unti'dA · repentB · punishmentB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The lictors bundled up their rods; beside, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Knit them with knots with much ado unti'd, | 10 | ······˘/˘/ |
| That if, unknitting, men would yet repent, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| They might escape the lash of punishment. | 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.