94. To His Mistress
Choose me your valentine,Next let us marry--Love to the death will pineIf we long tarry.
Promise, and keep your vows,Or vow ye never--Love's doctrine disallowsTroth-breakers ever.
You have broke promise twice,Dear, to undo me,If you prove faithless thriceNone then will woo ye.
Words in this poem
- valentine n.
- A sweetheart chosen on St. Valentine's Day.
- troth n.
- Belief; faith; fidelity. [A variant of truth. See Truth.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
94. To His Mistress 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, 94. To His Mistress, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/94-to-his-mistress.html, id L05155.
Form and metre
94. To His Mistress is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.5 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABAB valentineA · marryB · pineA · tarryB
- 2 ABAB vowsA · neverB · disallowsA · everB
- 3 ABAB twiceA · meB · thriceA · yeB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Choose me your valentine, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Next let us marry-- | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Love to the death will pine | 6 | ······ |
| If we long tarry. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Promise, and keep your vows, | 6 | /˘···· |
| Or vow ye never-- | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Love's doctrine disallows | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Troth-breakers ever. | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| You have broke promise twice, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Dear, to undo me, | 5 | ··˘/· |
| If you prove faithless thrice | 6 | ···/˘· |
| None then will woo ye. | 5 | ····· |
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.