Be My Mistress Short or Tall

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



Be my mistress short or tall
And distorted therewithall
Be she likewise one of those
That an acre hath of nose
Be her teeth ill hung or set
And her grinders black as jet
Be her cheeks so shallow too
As to show her tongue wag through
Hath she thin hair, hath she none
She's to me a paragon.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

18 sec read
80

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCCDDEF
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 297
Words 61
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 10

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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