Merops
What care I, so they stand the same,--Things of the heavenly mind,--How long the power to give them nameTarries yet behind?
Thus far to-day your favors reach,O fair, appeasing presences!Ye taught my lips a single speech,And a thousand silences.
Space grants beyond his fated roadNo inch to the god of day;And copious language still bestowedOne word, no more, to say.
About this text
Merops is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Household Edition, Project Gutenberg ebook #12843; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Merops, in Poems (1847), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12843, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/emerson-poems/merops.html, id L07428.
Form and metre
Merops is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB sameA · mindB · nameA · behindB
- 2 A-A- reachA · presences · speechA · silences
- 3 ABAB roadA · dayB · bestowedA · sayB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| What care I, so they stand the same,-- | 8 | ········ |
| Things of the heavenly mind,-- | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| How long the power to give them name | 8 | ···/···· |
| Tarries yet behind? | 5 | /˘··· |
| Thus far to-day your favors reach, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| O fair, appeasing presences! | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Ye taught my lips a single speech, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And a thousand silences. | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| Space grants beyond his fated road | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| No inch to the god of day; | 7 | ······· |
| And copious language still bestowed | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| One word, no more, to say. | 6 | ······ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.