Analysis of The bad season makes the poet sad

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



Dull to myself, and almost dead to these,
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since every thing
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to th' heart; and doth endure
More dangerous faintings by her desperate cure.
But if that golden age would come again,
And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
If smooth and unperplex'd the seasons were,
As when the sweet Maria lived here;
I should delight to have my curls half drown'd
In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd:
And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead,
Knock at a star with my exalted head.


Scheme ABCCDDEFGHIIJJ
Poetic Form
Metre 11101111 1101010100 11110111001 11010111 110111110101 1100110101 1111011101 0111110111 11010100 110101011 1101111111 011011101 0111111111 1101110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 593
Words 114
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 466
Words per stanza (avg) 112
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 20, 2023

35 sec read
199

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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