Lyric Poem · Life
No Fault in Women
No fault in women, to refuse
The offer which they most would chuse.
— No fault: in women, to confess
How tedious they are in their dress;
— No fault in women, to lay on
The tincture of vermilion;
And there to give the cheek a dye
Of white, where Nature doth deny.
— No fault in women, to make show
Of largeness, when they're nothing so;
When, true it is, the outside swells
With inward buckram, little else.
— No fault in women, though they be
But seldom from suspicion free;
— No fault in womankind at all,
If they but slip, and never fall.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“No Fault in Women” by Robert Herrick — quilloak.com/poems/no-fault-in-women
Quick facts
- Poem
- No Fault in Women
- Poet
- Robert Herrick
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Life
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 16 lines · one 16-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Robert Herrick1591–1674
- Source record
- PoetryDBNo Fault in Women by robert-herrick, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 e9724b0b423babff…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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