Horace on His Muscle
You (blatant coward that you are!)Upon the helpless vent your spite;Suppose you ply your trade on me--Come, monkey with this bard and seeHow I'll repay your bark with bite!
Ay, snarl just once at me, you brute!And I shall hound you far and wide,As fiercely as through drifted snowThe shepherd dog pursues what foeSkulks on the Spartan mountain side!
The chip is on my shoulder, see?But touch it and I'll raise your fur;I'm full of business; so beware,For, though I'm loaded up for bear,I'm quite as likely to kill a cur!
Words in this poem
- blatant a.
- Bellowing, as a calf; bawling; brawling; clamoring; disagreeably clamorous; sounding loudly and harshly. [Cf. Bleat.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- beware v. t.
- To avoid; to take care of; to have a care for.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Horace on His Muscle 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 on His Muscle, in Hoosier Lyrics (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36150, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-poems/horace-on-his-muscle.html, id L11599.
Form and metre
Horace on His Muscle is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 20% 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 -ABBA are · spiteA · meB · seeB · biteA
- 2 -ABBA brute · wideA · snowB · foeB · sideA
- 3 -ABBA see · furA · bewareB · bearB · curA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| You (blatant coward that you are!) | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Upon the helpless vent your spite; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Suppose you ply your trade on me-- | 8 | ˘/······ |
| Come, monkey with this bard and see | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| How I'll repay your bark with bite! | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Ay, snarl just once at me, you brute! | 8 | ········ |
| And I shall hound you far and wide, | 8 | ········ |
| As fiercely as through drifted snow | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The shepherd dog pursues what foe | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| Skulks on the Spartan mountain side! | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The chip is on my shoulder, see? | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But touch it and I'll raise your fur; | 8 | ········ |
| I'm full of business; so beware, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| For, though I'm loaded up for bear, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I'm quite as likely to kill a cur! | 9 | ···/˘···· |
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.