......."Delight in Disorder" is a fourteen-line lyric poem. John Williams and F. Eglesfield published the poem in London in 1648 as part of Hesperides: Or, The Works Both Humane & Divine of Robert Herrick Esq, a collection of Herrick's poems.

Theme

.......In this poem, Herrick presents the theme that beauty is at its most alluring when it is in disarray, like flaming October leaves along a footpath or a "winning wave (deserving note) / In the tempestuous petticoat" (lines 9 and 10). This is a popular theme in literature, as the following quotations—all similar in meaning to Herrick's observation—testify:

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn¹about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher:²
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly:
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Notes

1...lawn: Sheer cotton or linen fabric used in clothing.
2...stomacher (STUM uh ker): Stiff cloth, often adorned with jewels or embroidery, that covers the chest and abdomen of women or men.
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.......The tone is light and playful.
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End Rhyme

.......The poem consists of seven couplets. (A couplet is a pair of rhyming lines.) However, the rhyme scheme requires the reader to alter the pronunciation of the final syllable of some words. Here is the poem with the rhyming syllables highlighted.

.......Herrick also uses internal rhyme in the poem. In the following lines, the rhyming vowels are highlighted.

.......Herrick wrote the poem mainly in iambic tetrameter. A line of iambic tetrameter has eight syllables, or four feet. An iambic foot, or iamb, consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The first line of the poem demonstrates the pattern.

Structural Balance

.......Herrick achieves a pleasing structural balance in the poem by doing the following:

• Presenting the lines in seven couplets, for a total of fourteen lines.
• Giving each line eight syllables. (See Technique, above, for slight inconsistencies in this format.)
• Using parallel structure at the beginning of lines 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. Each of these lines begins with a definite article followed by a noun or an adjective-noun combination: a lawn, an erring lace, a cuff neglectful, a winning wave, and a careless shoestring.
• Writing opening and closing couplets with exactly rhyming final syllables: -ess (lines 1 and 2) and art and -art (lines 13 and 14).

.......Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem. (For definitions of figures of speech, click here.)

Alliteration

1. Do you like the poem? Explain why or why not.

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