Horace to Ligurine
O cruel fair,Whose flowing hairThe envy and the pride of all is,As onward rollThe years, that pollWill get as bald as a billiard ball is;Then shall your skin, now pink and dimply,Be tanned to parchment, sear and pimply!
When you beholdYourself grown oldThese words shall speak your spirits moody:"Unhappy one!What heaps of funI've missed by being goody-goody!Oh! that I might have felt the hungerOf loveless age when I was younger!"
Words in this poem
- billiard a.
- Of or pertaining to the game of billiards.
- 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,]
- dimply a.
- Full of dimples, or small depressions; dimpled; as, the dimply pool. Thomson.
- loveless a.
- Void of love; void of tenderness or kindness. Milton. Shelton.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Horace to Ligurine 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 to Ligurine, in Hoosier Lyrics (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36150, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-poems/horace-to-ligurine.html, id L11598.
Form and metre
Horace to Ligurine is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.6 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 44% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABCCBDD fairA · hairA · isB · rollC · pollC · isB · dimplyD · pimplyD
- 2 AA-BB-CC beholdA · oldA · moody · oneB · funB · goody · hungerC · youngerC
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O cruel fair, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Whose flowing hair | 4 | ·/˘· |
| The envy and the pride of all is, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| As onward roll | 4 | ·/˘· |
| The years, that poll | 4 | ···· |
| Will get as bald as a billiard ball is; | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| Then shall your skin, now pink and dimply, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Be tanned to parchment, sear and pimply! | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| When you behold | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Yourself grown old | 4 | ˘/·· |
| These words shall speak your spirits moody: | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| "Unhappy one! | 4 | ˘/˘· |
| What heaps of fun | 4 | ···· |
| I've missed by being goody-goody! | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| Oh! that I might have felt the hunger | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Of loveless age when I was younger!" | 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.