The Parting Verse Or Charge To His Supposed Wife When He Travelled. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEFGHIJKKLLMM LLNNOCFFLPFFQQOCBBRR SSTTUUVVUUWBXXYYTYYY UUZZA2A2B2B2LLYYLLLL YYUUTTC2C2| Go hence and with this parting kiss | A |
| Which joins two souls remember this | A |
| Though thou be'st young kind soft and fair | B |
| And may'st draw thousands with a hair | B |
| Yet let these glib temptations be | C |
| Furies to others friends to me | C |
| Look upon all and though on fire | D |
| Thou set their hearts let chaste desire | D |
| Steer thee to me and think me gone | E |
| In having all that thou hast none | F |
| Nor so immured would I have | G |
| Thee live as dead and in thy grave | H |
| But walk abroad yet wisely well | I |
| Stand for my coming sentinel | J |
| And think as thou do'st walk the street | K |
| Me or my shadow thou do'st meet | K |
| I know a thousand greedy eyes | L |
| Will on thy feature tyrannise | L |
| In my short absence yet behold | M |
| Them like some picture or some mould | M |
| Fashion'd like thee which though 't have ears | L |
| And eyes it neither sees or hears | L |
| Gifts will be sent and letters which | N |
| Are the expressions of that itch | N |
| And salt which frets thy suitors fly | O |
| Both lest thou lose thy liberty | C |
| For that once lost thou't fall to one | F |
| Then prostrate to a million | F |
| But if they woo thee do thou say | L |
| As that chaste Queen of Ithaca | P |
| Did to her suitors this web done | F |
| Undone as oft as done I'm won | F |
| I will not urge thee for I know | Q |
| Though thou art young thou canst say no | Q |
| And no again and so deny | O |
| Those thy lust burning incubi | C |
| Let them enstyle thee fairest fair | B |
| The pearl of princes yet despair | B |
| That so thou art because thou must | R |
| Believe love speaks it not but lust | R |
| And this their flattery does commend | S |
| Thee chiefly for their pleasure's end | S |
| I am not jealous of thy faith | T |
| Or will be for the axiom saith | T |
| He that doth suspect does haste | U |
| A gentle mind to be unchaste | U |
| No live thee to thy self and keep | V |
| Thy thoughts as cold as is thy sleep | V |
| And let thy dreams be only fed | U |
| With this that I am in thy bed | U |
| And thou then turning in that sphere | W |
| Waking shalt find me sleeping there | B |
| But yet if boundless lust must scale | X |
| Thy fortress and will needs prevail | X |
| And wildly force a passage in | Y |
| Banish consent and 'tis no sin | Y |
| Of thine so Lucrece fell and the | T |
| Chaste Syracusian Cyane | Y |
| So Medullina fell yet none | Y |
| Of these had imputation | Y |
| For the least trespass 'cause the mind | U |
| Here was not with the act combin'd | U |
| The body sins not 'tis the will | Z |
| That makes the action good or ill | Z |
| And if thy fall should this way come | A2 |
| Triumph in such a martyrdom | A2 |
| I will not over long enlarge | B2 |
| To thee this my religious charge | B2 |
| Take this compression so by this | L |
| Means I shall know what other kiss | L |
| Is mixed with mine and truly know | Y |
| Returning if't be mine or no | Y |
| Keep it till then and now my spouse | L |
| For my wished safety pay thy vows | L |
| And prayers to Venus if it please | L |
| The great blue ruler of the seas | L |
| Not many full faced moons shall wane | Y |
| Lean horn'd before I come again | Y |
| As one triumphant when I find | U |
| In thee all faith of womankind | U |
| Nor would I have thee think that thou | T |
| Had'st power thyself to keep this vow | T |
| But having 'scaped temptation's shelf | C2 |
| Know virtue taught thee not thyself | C2 |
Robert Herrick
(1)
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