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Lyric Poem · Childhood

To the Lady Crewe, Upon the Death of Her Child

by Robert Herrick

1Why, Madam, will ye longer weep,

2Whenas your baby's lull'd asleep?

3And, pretty child, feels now no more

4Those pains it lately felt before.

5All now is silent; groans are fled;

6Your child lies still, yet is not dead,

7But rather like a flower hid here,

8To spring again another year.

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Quick facts

Poem
To the Lady Crewe, Upon the Death of Her Child
Poet
Robert Herrick
Length
8 lines
Form
Lyric Poem, Short Poems
Themes
Childhood, Death & Loss, Nature, Short

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
8 lines · 2 quatrains
Line length
Consistent with long metre. Four eight-syllable lines (8.8.8.8), the hymn stanza's longer cousin.
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
PoetryDBTo the Lady Crewe, Upon the Death of Her Child 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 252a1d7f3abb990c
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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