955. To M. Leonard Willan, His Peculiar Friend
I will be short, and having quickly hurl'dThis line about, live thou throughout the world;Who art a man for all scenes; unto whom,What's hard to others, nothing's troublesome.Can'st write the comic, tragic strain, and fallFrom these to pen the pleasing pastoral:Who fli'st at all heights: prose and verse run'st through;Find'st here a fault, and mend'st the trespass too:For which I might extol thee, but speak less,Because thyself art coming to the press:And then should I in praising thee be slow,Posterity will pay thee what I owe.
Words in this poem
- extol v. t.
- To place on high; to lift up; to elevate. [L. extollere; ex out + tollere to lift, take up, or raise: cf. OF. extoller. See Tollerate, and cf. Flate.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
955. To M. Leonard Willan, His Peculiar Friend 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, 955. To M. Leonard Willan, His Peculiar Friend, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/955-to-m-leonard-willan-his-peculiar-friend.html, id L05870.
Form and metre
955. To M. Leonard Willan, His Peculiar Friend is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 95% 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. 17% 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 AABBCCDDEEFF hurl'dA · worldA · whomB · troublesomeB · fallC · pastoralC · throughD · tooD · lessE · pressE · slowF · oweF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I will be short, and having quickly hurl'd | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| This line about, live thou throughout the world; | 10 | ·········· |
| Who art a man for all scenes; unto whom, | 10 | ·········· |
| What's hard to others, nothing's troublesome. | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Can'st write the comic, tragic strain, and fall | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| From these to pen the pleasing pastoral: | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Who fli'st at all heights: prose and verse run'st through; | 10 | ·········· |
| Find'st here a fault, and mend'st the trespass too: | 10 | ·······/·· |
| For which I might extol thee, but speak less, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Because thyself art coming to the press: | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| And then should I in praising thee be slow, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Posterity will pay thee what I owe. | 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.