960. To His Book
If hap it must, that I must see thee lieAbsyrtus-like, all torn confusedly:With solemn tears, and with much grief of heart,I'll recollect thee, weeping, part by part;And having wash'd thee, close thee in a chestWith spice; that done, I'll leave thee to thy rest.
Words in this poem
- recollect v. t.
- To recover or recall the knowledge of; to bring back to the mind or memory; to remember. [Pref. re- + collect: cf. L. recolligere, recollectum, to collect. Cf. Recollet.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
960. To His Book 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, 960. To His Book, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/960-to-his-book.html, id L05874.
Form and metre
960. To His Book is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 --AABB lie · confusedly · heartA · partA · chestB · restB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If hap it must, that I must see thee lie | 10 | ·········· |
| Absyrtus-like, all torn confusedly: | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| With solemn tears, and with much grief of heart, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| I'll recollect thee, weeping, part by part; | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| And having wash'd thee, close thee in a chest | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| With spice; that done, I'll leave thee to thy rest. | 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.