95. To the Generous Reader
See and not see, and if thou chance t'espySome aberrations in my poetry,Wink at small faults; the greater, ne'ertheless,Hide, and with them their father's nakedness.Let's do our best, our watch and ward to keep;Homer himself, in a long work, may sleep.
Words in this poem
- nakedness n.
- The condition of being naked.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
95. To the Generous Reader 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, 95. To the Generous Reader, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/95-to-the-generous-reader.html, id L05156.
Form and metre
95. To the Generous Reader is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 --AABB t'espy · poetry · ne'erthelessA · nakednessA · keepB · sleepB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| See and not see, and if thou chance t'espy | 10 | ·········· |
| Some aberrations in my poetry, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| Wink at small faults; the greater, ne'ertheless, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Hide, and with them their father's nakedness. | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Let's do our best, our watch and ward to keep; | 10 | ··/·/····· |
| Homer himself, in a long work, may sleep. | 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.