Moral
Adhere to facts, avoid romance,And you a clergyman may be;To lie is wrong, except perchanceIn matters of Diplomacy.And, when you start out to convert,Make certain that you don't get hurt!
Words in this poem
- avoid v. t.
- To empty. Wyclif. [OF. esvuidier, es (L. ex) + vuidier, voidier, to empty. See Void, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Moral is in the public domain. This text is taken from Verse and Worse, Project Gutenberg ebook #36702; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Harry Graham, Moral, in Verse and Worse (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36702, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/graham-verse-and-worse/moral.html, id L23299.
Form and metre
Moral is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
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-BB romanceA · be · perchanceA · diplomacy · convertB · hurtB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Adhere to facts, avoid romance, | 8 | ˘/··˘/˘/ |
| And you a clergyman may be; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To lie is wrong, except perchance | 8 | ······˘/ |
| In matters of Diplomacy. | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| And, when you start out to convert, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Make certain that you don't get hurt! | 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.