Analysis of The apparition of his, mistress,calling him to elysium

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



THE APPARITION OF HIS, MISTRESS,
CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM

Come then, and like two doves with silvery wings,
Let our souls fly to th' shades, wherever springs
Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil,
Roses and cassia, crown the untill'd soil;
Where no disease reigns, or infection comes
To blast the air, but amber-gris and gums.
This, that, and ev'ry thicket doth transpire
More sweet than storax from the hallow'd fire;
Where ev'ry tree a wealthy issue bears
Of fragrant apples, blushing plums, or pears;
And all the shrubs, with sparkling spangles, shew
Like morning sun-shine, tinselling the dew.
Here in green meadows sits eternal May,
Purfling the margents, while perpetual day
So double-gilds the air, as that no night
Can ever rust th' enamel of the light:
Here naked younglings, handsome striplings, run
Their goals for virgins' kisses; which when done,
Then unto dancing forth the learned round
Commix'd they meet, with endless roses crown'd.
And here we'll sit on primrose-banks, and see
Love's chorus led by Cupid; and we'll he
Two loving followers too unto the grove,
Where poets sing the stories of our love.
There thou shalt hear divine Musaeus sing
Of Hero and Leander; then I'll bring
Thee to the stand, where honour'd Homer reads
His Odyssees and his high Iliads;
About whose throne the crowd of poets throng
To hear the incantation of his tongue:
To Linus, then to Pindar; and that done,
I'll bring thee, Herrick, to Anacreon,
Quaffing his full-crown'd bowls of burning wine,
And in his raptures speaking lines of thine,
Like to his subject; and as his frantic
Looks shew him truly Bacchanalian like,
Besmear'd with grapes,--welcome he shall thee thither,
Where both may rage, both drink and dance together.
Then stately Virgil, witty Ovid, by
Whom fair Corinna sits, and doth comply
With ivory wrists his laureat head, and steeps
His eye in dew of kisses while he sleeps.
Then soft Catullus, sharp-fang'd Martial,
And towering Lucan, Horace, Juvenal,
And snaky Persius; these, and those whom rage,
Dropt for the jars of heaven, fill'd, t' engage
All times unto their frenzies; thou shalt there
Behold them in a spacious theatre:
Among which glories, crown'd with sacred bays
And flatt'ring ivy, two recite their plays,
Beaumont and Fletcher, swans, to whom all ears
Listen, while they, like sirens in their spheres,
Sing their Evadne; and still more for thee
There yet remains to know than thou canst see
By glimm'ring of a fancy; Do but come,
And there I'll shew thee that capacious room
In which thy father, Jonson, now is placed
As in a globe of radiant fire, and graced
To be in that orb crown'd, that doth include
Those prophets of the former magnitude,
And he one chief.  But hark!  I hear the cock,
The bell-man of the night, proclaim the clock
Of late struck One; and now I see the prime
Of day break from the pregnant east:--'tis time
I vanish:--more I had to say,
But night determines here;(Away!


Scheme AB CCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMMXXNNXAXXKKOOXXFFPPAXXDQQXFRRSSMMBXTTUUVVWWII
Poetic Form
Metre 00101110 10110100 11011111001 1101111110101 1100011101 1001001011 1101110101 1101110101 1101101010 1111101010 111010101 1101010111 010111011 11011101 101110101 101101001 1101011111 110111010101 11011011 1111010111 110101011 111110101 011111101 1101110011 11010011001 11010101101 11110111 1100010111 110111101 110111 0111011101 1100110111 110111011 1111011 111111101 001110111 1110101110 1111011 111101111 11111101010 110101011 111010101 1100111101 1101110111 1111110 01001101 01110111 11011101101 1110110111 0110010100 0111011101 0111010111 1001011111 1011110011 1101001111 1101111111 111010111 0111110101 0111010111 100111001001 1101111101 110101010 0111111101 0111010101 1111011101 1111010111 11011111 11010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 2,886
Words 511
Sentences 10
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 2, 66
Lines Amount 68
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 1,144
Words per stanza (avg) 253
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:40 min read
83

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…

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