Analysis of An ode of the birth of our saviour

Robert Herrick 1591 (London) – 1674 (Dean Prior)



In numbers, and but these few,
I sing thy birth, oh JESU!
Thou pretty Baby, born here,
With sup'rabundant scorn here;
Who for thy princely port here,
Hadst for thy place
Of birth, a base
Out-stable for thy court here.

Instead of neat enclosures
Of interwoven osiers;
Instead of fragrant posies
Of daffadils and roses,
Thy cradle, kingly stranger,
As gospel tells,
Was nothing else,
But, here, a homely manger.

But we with silks, not cruels,
With sundry precious jewels,
And lily-work will dress thee;
And as we dispossess thee
Of clo}ts, we'll make a chamber,
Sweet babe, for thee,
Of ivory,
And plaster'd round with amber.

The Jews, they did disdain thee;
But we will entertain thee
With glories to await here,
Upon thy princely state here,
And more for love than pity:
From year to year
We'll make thee, here,
A free-born of our city.


Scheme XABBBAAB AAAACAAC AADDCDDC DDBBDXBD
Poetic Form
Metre 0100111 111111 1101011 1111 1111011 1111 1101 1101111 0111010 10101 011101 11010 1101010 1101 1101 1101010 111111 1101010 0101111 011011 111111010 1111 1100 0101110 0111011 111011 1101011 0111011 0111110 1111 1111 01111010
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 813
Words 149
Sentences 6
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 20
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 161
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

45 sec read
38

Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick was born in London, England, in 1591. He was apprenticed to a goldsmith (his uncle, Sir William), but went to Cambridge, at St John's, in 1613. He was ordained at Peterborough in 1623 and became chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham a few years later. "Hesperides" - a collection of 1200 lyrical poems - was published in 1648 and it remained his magnum opus. Herrick died in 1674, aged 83. more…

All Robert Herrick poems | Robert Herrick Books

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