To The, Most Illustrious and Most Hopeful, Prince, Charles,, Prince of Wales
Well may my book come forth like public dayWhen such a light as you are leads the way,Who are my work's creator, and aloneThe flame of it, and the expansion.And look how all those heavenly lamps acquireLight from the sun, that inexhausted fire,So all my morn and evening stars from youHave their existence, and their influence too.Full is my book of glories; but all theseBy you become immortal substances.
Words in this poem
- inexhausted a.
- Not exhausted; not emptied; not spent; not having lost all strength or resources; unexhausted. [Pref. in- not + exhausted: cf. F. inexhaustus.]
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To The, Most Illustrious and Most Hopeful, Prince, Charles,, Prince of Wales 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, To The, Most Illustrious and Most Hopeful, Prince, Charles,, Prince of Wales, in Hesperides (1648), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herrick-hesperides/to-the-most-illustrious-and-most-hopeful-prince-charles-prin.html, id L05065.
Form and metre
To The, Most Illustrious and Most Hopeful, Prince, Charles,, Prince of Wales is 10 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 85%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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 AABBCCDDEE dayA · wayA · aloneB · expansionB · acquireC · fireC · youD · tooD · theseE · substancesE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Well may my book come forth like public day | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| When such a light as you are leads the way, | 10 | ·········· |
| Who are my work's creator, and alone | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘/ |
| The flame of it, and the expansion. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| And look how all those heavenly lamps acquire | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Light from the sun, that inexhausted fire, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| So all my morn and evening stars from you | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Have their existence, and their influence too. | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Full is my book of glories; but all these | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| By you become immortal substances. | 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.