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Lyric Poem · Life

No Fault in Women

by Robert Herrick

1No fault in women, to refuse

2The offer which they most would chuse.

3 — No fault: in women, to confess

4How tedious they are in their dress;

5 — No fault in women, to lay on

6The tincture of vermilion;

7And there to give the cheek a dye

8Of white, where Nature doth deny.

9 — No fault in women, to make show

10Of largeness, when they're nothing so;

11When, true it is, the outside swells

12With inward buckram, little else.

13 — No fault in women, though they be

14But seldom from suspicion free;

15 — No fault in womankind at all,

16If 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).
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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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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Lyric PoemLife

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