Moral
Never, from folly or urbanity,Praise people thus profusely to their faces,Till quite in love with their own graces,They’re eaten up by vanity!
Words in this poem
- urbanity n.
- The quality or state of being urbane; civility or courtesy of manners; politeness; refinement. [L. urbanitas; cf. F. urbanité.]
- profusely adv.
- In a profuse manner.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Moral is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood A New and Complete Edition, Project Gutenberg ebook #56712; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hood, Moral, in Poems (1827–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56712, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poems/moral-2.html, id L06711.
Form and metre
Moral is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 urbanityA · facesB · gracesB · vanityA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Never, from folly or urbanity, | 9 | /·/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| Praise people thus profusely to their faces, | 11 | ·/˘·˘/˘··/˘ |
| Till quite in love with their own graces, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| They’re eaten up by vanity! | 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.