The Full Text of “Delight in Disorder”
1A sweet disorder in the dress
2Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
3A lawn about the shoulders thrown
4Into a fine distractión;
5An erring lace, which here and there
6Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
7A cuff neglectful, and thereby
8Ribbons to flow confusedly;
9A winning wave, deserving note,
10In the tempestuous petticoat;
11A careless shoestring, in whose tie
12I see a wild civility;
13Do more bewitch me than when art
14Is too precise in every part.
The Full Text of “Delight in Disorder”
1A sweet disorder in the dress
2Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
3A lawn about the shoulders thrown
4Into a fine distractión;
5An erring lace, which here and there
6Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
7A cuff neglectful, and thereby
8Ribbons to flow confusedly;
9A winning wave, deserving note,
10In the tempestuous petticoat;
11A careless shoestring, in whose tie
12I see a wild civility;
13Do more bewitch me than when art
14Is too precise in every part.
-
“Delight in Disorder” Introduction
-
Robert Herrick's "Delight in Disorder" was first published in his 1648 collection Hesperides—a book that reflects all the joie de vivre of the 17th-century English Cavalier poets. In this poem, a speaker says that he far prefers it when a lady's clothing looks a little "wild" rather than too "precise." After all, the speaker suggests, if a lady's clothes are messed up, she was probably doing something fun to get them that way! This is a poem about the beauty of imperfection and the joys of sex, expressed through images of "erring lace[s]" and "tempestuous petticoat[s]."
-
-
“Delight in Disorder” Summary
-
A delicious messiness in the way a woman gets dressed gives her clothes a feeling of playful sexiness. A fine linen shawl tossed casually around someone's shoulders in a lovely, confused tangle; a wrongly threaded corset string, which wanders tantalizingly over the bright-red bodice of a dress; an unbuttoned cuff, which lets ribbons stream messily out; a charming, attention-grabbing wrinkle in the stormy billows of an underskirt; a neglected shoelace, in whose messy knot I see the wildness under a woman's civilized veneer: all of these things entrance me much more than when women's outfit are too neat and formal.
-
-
“Delight in Disorder” Themes
-
The Allure of Messiness
In Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder,” a speaker relishes the thought of women’s messy, “disorder[ly]” clothes: untied laces, wrinkled skirts, and wild ribbons. That kind of disorder, the speaker says, “bewitch[es]” him more than when a woman’s clothes are neat, elegant, and “precise”—not least because messy clothes make him think about the various sexy ways those clothes could have gotten messed up! Through his “delight in disorder,” the speaker suggests that beauty and sexiness lie not in polished perfection, but in imperfection. The speaker prefers the way people look when they’re enjoying their lives, not when they’re presenting a perfect, pristine façade.
The speaker begins by imagining a bunch of disorderly clothes—not with disapproval, but with great pleasure. He envisions an “erring lace,” a “tempestuous petticoat,” and a “careless shoestring,” among other bits of wild and messy women’s clothing. And he sees them all as “winning,” “fine,” and “sweet.” In other words, he finds their messiness charming.
In fact, these rumpled clothes aren’t just charming, but sexy! That’s because their messiness makes the speaker think of how they might have gotten messed up in the first place—that is, in the course of fooling around. Readers get a sense of the speaker's feelings on the matter thanks to the sexually-charged language he uses to approvingly describe all this messy clothing. “Wantonness,” for example, can mean “playfulness,” “naughtiness,” and “promiscuity.” And “erring,” at the time the poem was written, could mean both “making a mistake” and “having illicit sex.” These sexy words all suggest that these clothes got rumpled while their wearer was busy having a good time.
The speaker also pays special attention to the steps involved in getting naked. All those disorderly fastenings, like laces, cuffs, and shoestrings, hint at clothes that could be about to come off—or that have been hastily pulled back on. Looking at messy clothing, in other words, makes the speaker notice how easy it would be to remove it!
At the end of the poem, the speaker says it’s this sexy “disorder” in women’s clothing that truly “bewitch[es]” him—suggesting that he’s also most excited by the kind of woman who allows herself to get messy (perhaps with a little help from someone like him). Sexiness, this poem suggests, doesn’t come from perfect packaging, but in the kind of rumpled imperfection that speaks of a real enjoyment of sex, and of life in general.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Delight in Disorder”
-
Lines 1-2
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.This poem is titled "Delight in Disorder," and the speaker lays out exactly what kind of "delight" and "disorder" he means in the first two lines. He's not talking about the disorder of a messy room, but of clothing—and he finds "disorder in the dress" not frumpy or slovenly, but "sweet."
Why should disorderly dressing be so sweet, such a "delight"? Because it "Kindles in clothes a wantonness." In other words, it gives clothes a feeling of playfulness, naughtiness—and sexual promiscuity. The word "kindles" even suggests that disorder lights clothing up like a fire, making them smolder with passion.
This will be a poem about how imperfect, rumpled clothes suggest that their wearer has been having a lot of fun—and how the speaker finds the suggestion of that fun much sexier than a perfect, pristine exterior. In fact, the pleasure he takes from disorderly clothes is also about his delight in another kind of disorder: a wild sexual freedom that breaks out of 17th-century moral strictures.
The speaker's language already sets the tone of this more-than-a-little-lustful poem. Listen to the repeated sounds in this first couplet:
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.Here, alliterative /d/ and /k/ sounds gives the poem a sing-songy bounce. That bounce fits in with the poem's couplet-driven rhyme scheme (here, "dress" rhymes with "wantonness") and with its pulse-like iambic tetrameter (that is, lines of four iambs, metrical feet that follow a da-DUM syllable pattern). The sexy whisper of sibilant /s/ sounds and the delicious liquid consonance of /l/ and /z/ sounds only strengthens that sultry tone.
Take another look at how the meter works here. While the first line is in perfect iambic tetrameter, the second does something a little different:
A sweet | disor- | der in | the dress
Kindles | in clothes | a wan- | tonness.The first foot of line 2 is called a trochee (a foot that goes DUM-da), and this gives the line some extra galloping energy. It also matches the poem's themes: that deviation from the poem's main meter is, like the clothes it describes, a little messy!
-
Lines 3-4
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distractión; -
Lines 5-8
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly; -
Lines 9-12
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility; -
Lines 13-14
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
-
-
“Delight in Disorder” Symbols
-
Clothing
The wild, messy clothes in "Delight in Disorder" symbolize their wearers' whole attitudes toward life. In the speaker's eyes, women wearing clothes in "sweet disorder" are also probably living lives of sweet disorder, enjoying sex with gusto and not worrying whether their hats are on straight afterwards. The speaker here isn't just saying that he finds messy clothing sexy, but that he finds the attitude that messy clothing represents sexy.
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
-
-
“Delight in Disorder” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Alliteration
Alliteration evokes the "delight" this speaker takes in "disorder"—and draws attention to his claim that mess is sexier by far than elegant perfection.
Alliteration turns up right from the start with the paired /d/ sounds in the poem's title—/d/ sounds that reappear in the very first line: "A sweet disorder in the dress." That repeated /d/ helps the poem zero in on its subject, moving the reader from "disorder" in general to disorderly clothing in particular. (But it's worth noting that the poem is called "Delight in Disorder," not "Delight in Disorderly Clothes": the speaker is quietly enjoying all kinds of wild behavior here, not just the clothes that bring that behavior to his mind.)
That first line also sets up an alliterative pattern that continues throughout the poem. Every moment of alliteration here links only two words—a pattern that harmonizes with the poem's rhymed couplets. In line 2, for example, the reader finds linked /k/ sounds in "kindles in clothes," and in line 9, linked /w/ sounds in "A winning wave." These musical one-two sounds give the poem a singsong, back-and-forth music that might also evoke the fun the speaker imagines sharing with all these disorderly ladies!
Alliteration turns up once more at the end of the poem, when the speaker concludes that disorder is much more charming than:
[...] when art
Is too precise in every part.The firm pop of those two final /p/ sounds makes it seem as if the speaker has come to a final pronouncement on the matter of mess: precision just isn't for him.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Assonance
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Consonance
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Caesura
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Enjambment
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
End-Stopped Line
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Personification
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Repetition
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Oxymoron
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
-
"Delight in Disorder" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Disorder
- Dress
- Kindles
- Wantonness
- Lawn
- Distractión
- Erring
- Enthralls
- Crimson
- Stomacher
- Cuff
- Thereby
- Winning
- Tempestuous petticoat
- Civility
-
Messiness.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Delight in Disorder”
-
Form
"Delight in Disorder" doesn't use a standard form (it's not a sonnet, for instance). Its improvised shape fits right in with its subject: this is a poem about mess, so it makes sense that it wouldn't use a strict form.
The poem is one long stanza, built from seven pairs of rhymed couplets (though a lot of those couplets use slant rhyme rather than perfect rhymes; see the Rhyme Scheme section for more on that). This elegant but slightly mismatched shape evokes the lovely, messy clothing that so "bewitch[es]" the speaker—and also reflects the poem's simplicity. This speaker doesn't need a bunch of separate stanzas to develop a complex thought here. Rather, each couplet is part of the same continuous idea: that "disorder" is "delight[ful]."
-
Meter
"Delight in Disorder" uses iambic tetrameter. That means that each line has four iambs, metrical feet that follow a da-DUM rhythm.
Iambic meters are pretty common in English poetry, in part because they sound natural: a lot of English falls easily into an iambic rhythm. Iambic meters are also flexible, allowing for a little variation within their steady, pulsing rhythm. For instance, take a look at the rhythms in this poem's first two lines:
A sweet | disor- | der in | the dress
Kindles | in clothes | a wan- | tonness.The first line is straightforwardly iambic, but the second begins with a trochee, a foot that goes DUM-da, and ends with two unstressed syllables in a row. A trochee pops up again at the beginning of line 8: "Ribbons." These little variations in the meter gives the poem some extra gusto and momentum, mirroring the speaker's enthusiasm for the sexy mess he describes.
The meter also lets the speaker have a little fun with pronunciation in line 4:
A lawn | about | the shoul- | ders thrown
Into | a fine | distract- | ión;Here, the meter wrings four whole syllables out of the word "distraction," making it sound as if the speaker is putting on an absurd French accent—and really relishing the thought of that distracted, distracting lawn.
-
Rhyme Scheme
"Delight in Disorder" uses a rhyme scheme of couplets, like this:
AABBCCDDEE
...and so forth. But, as befits this poem's theme, those couplets are often a little messy. Many of them don't rhyme perfectly, but use slant rhymes, like "there" and "stomacher" (pronounced STUM-a-kerr) or "tie" and "civility." Those little almost-rhymes—still harmonious, just not quite perfectly matched— mirror the thrillingly messy clothes the poem celebrates.
That said, it's worth noting that some of these words might have rhymed better at the time the poem was written! The way English speakers pronounce vowels has e since the 17th century, and words like "thereby" and "confusedly" might once have sounded a little closer to each other.
-
-
“Delight in Disorder” Speaker
-
The first-person speaker of "Delight and Disorder" doesn't tell readers much about himself directly. But readers still learn plenty about him from the way he describes women's messy clothing.
This speaker clearly loves female beauty. He pays careful attention to every little detail of women's clothes, from an "erring lace" to a "careless shoestring." And he's not shy about peeking under a skirt to spot a "tempestuous petticoat"! His eye for appearances—and his way of seeing everything in sexual terms—marks him out as a sensuous, pleasure-loving kind of guy.
The specific articles of clothing he notices, from a "stomacher" to a "lawn," also place him in the 17th century, a time when women's clothing was often especially rich and elaborate.
While this speaker doesn't ever reveal his gender, we're calling him "he" in this guide because of his strong resemblance to his author, Robert Herrick. Herrick was a Cavalier poet—that is, one of a group of writers who supported the monarchy during the English Civil War. The Cavaliers loved flamboyant clothing, partying, and sex, and Herrick was one of the lustiest of this famously lusty crew. This is only one of his many poems about the pleasures of sex and love—poems that are often spoken in what seems to be his own voice.
That said, it's certainly not necessary to treat the speaker as being Herrick, or as being a man, to understand the poem or identify with its delight in mess.
-
-
“Delight in Disorder” Setting
-
While the poem doesn't give the reader any real sense of its setting, its lavish descriptions of women's clothing suggest a specific time period: the 17th century. Women's clothing in this era was elaborate and complex, with lots of fiddly buttons and laces. A rich woman's outfits might be so complicated that she'd need a maid to help her get dressed in the morning!
The kinds of elegant clothes this poem refers to suggest that this speaker lives in a pretty well-to-do world, where women are decked out in satin ribbons, fine linen shawls, and expensively-dyed dresses. In fact, the loving care with which the speaker describes these clothes almost creates a setting of its own: it's as if his whole imagination is filled up with visions of sexy ladies and their sexy clothes.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “Delight in Disorder”
-
Literary Context
The English poet Robert Herrick (1591-1694) first published "Delight in Disorder" in his major book, Hesperides (1648). This is only one of the many poems in that collection celebrating one of Herrick's favorite themes: sex. Like his fellow Cavalier poets Richard Lovelace and Andrew Marvell, Herrick often wrote not just about the joys of sex, but also about coaxing women into sharing those joys with him.
Herrick also considered himself one of the "Sons of Ben": that is, a follower of the poet and playwright Ben Jonson. Jonson was a contemporary (and rival) of Shakespeare's, and his witty, exuberant plays and poetry had a deep influence on Herrick's themes and style.
Herrick's verse fell out of favor in the 18th and 19th centuries, when his sexual frankness wasn't in fashion. But today, he's considered one of the 17th century's most important poets, and some of his poems (especially "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time") are so famous they've become almost proverbial. Readers might have already encountered some Herrick without knowing if they've ever heard someone tell them to "gather ye rosebuds while ye may"!
Historical Context
"Delight in Disorder" was published right in the thick of the English Civil War, a bloody conflict that tore Britain apart between 1642 and 1651. The war began when English anti-monarchist Parliamentarians (also known as Roundheads) clashed with monarchist Royalists (aka Cavaliers) over the governance of the kingdom. The Roundheads were to depose, try, and behead King Charles I only a year after this poem was published: a deep shock to England as a whole and to Herrick (a Cavalier to his core) in particular.
It might seem strange that Herrick and his fellow Cavalier poets would write such light, carefree poetry in the midst of a terrible war: "Delight in Disorder" is hardly Wilfred Owen. But life-loving poetry was one of the ways that the Cavaliers stood up for their own beliefs, rebelling against the grim and Puritanical Roundheads. The Cavalier poets celebrated the pleasures of life not just as an escape from the horrors around them, but as a stand against what they saw as the forces of joyless Roundhead oppression. They'd later rejoice when King Charles II, Charles I's son, returned to the throne at last, ushering in an era of decadence and sexual freedom.
-
-
More “Delight in Disorder” Resources
-
External Resources
-
17th-Century Fashion — Read up on the clothes that Herrick might have had in mind when he wrote "Delight in Disorder."
-
Herrick's Meter — Read an excerpt from a lecture in which a professor discusses how Herrick's meter gives the poem some of its wit and charm.
-
The Poetry Foundation on Herrick — Read a short biography of Herrick, and find links to more of his poems.
-
The Introduction to Herrick's Book — Read an appreciation of the poem that opens Herrick's Hesperides, the collection this poem was first printed in. This first poem's world-relishing tone tells readers something about Herrick and his poetry in general!
-
The Poem Aloud — Listen to the poem read aloud—with some accompanying images that criticize modern ideas about messiness, perfection, and beauty!
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Herrick
-
