Horace I, 34
I have not worshiped God, my King--Folly has led my heart astray;Backward I turn my course to learnThe wisdom of a wiser way.
How marvelous is God, the King!How do His lightnings cleave the sky--His thundering car spreads fear afar,And even hell is quaked thereby!
Omnipotent is God, our King!There is no thought He hath not read,And many a crown His hand plucks downTo place it on a worthier head!
Words in this poem
- thundering a.
- Emitting thunder.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Horace I, 34 is in the public domain. This text is taken from Hoosier Lyrics, Project Gutenberg ebook #36150; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eugene Field, Horace I, 34, in Hoosier Lyrics (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36150, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-poems/horace-i-34.html, id L11616.
Form and metre
Horace I, 34 is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 17% 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 -A-A king · astrayA · learn · wayA
- 2 -A-A king · skyA · afar · therebyA
- 3 -A-A king · readA · down · headA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I have not worshiped God, my King-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Folly has led my heart astray; | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| Backward I turn my course to learn | 8 | /˘······ |
| The wisdom of a wiser way. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| How marvelous is God, the King! | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| How do His lightnings cleave the sky-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| His thundering car spreads fear afar, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And even hell is quaked thereby! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Omnipotent is God, our King! | 8 | ˘/˘˘··/· |
| There is no thought He hath not read, | 8 | ········ |
| And many a crown His hand plucks down | 8 | ·/······ |
| To place it on a worthier head! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
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.