Moeris
O Lycidas,We have lived to see, what never yet we feared,An interloper own our little farm,And say, "Be off, you former husbandmen!These fields are mine." Now, cowed and out of heart,Since Fortune turns the whole world upside down,We are taking him- ill luck go with the same!-'These kids you see.
Words in this poem
- interloper n.
- One who interlopes; one who interlopes; one who unlawfully intrudes upon a property, a station, or an office; one who interferes wrongfully or officiously. [Pref. inter- + D. looper a runner, fr. loopen to run; akin to E. leap. See Leap, and cf. Elope.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Moeris is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Bucolics and Eclogues, Project Gutenberg ebook #230; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Virgil, Moeris, in The Eclogues (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #230, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/virgil-eclogues/moeris.html, id L25458.
Form and metre
Moeris is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O Lycidas, | 4 | ···· |
| We have lived to see, what never yet we feared, | 10 | ······/··· |
| An interloper own our little farm, | 10 | ·/˘·˘·//˘· |
| And say, "Be off, you former husbandmen! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| These fields are mine." Now, cowed and out of heart, | 10 | ·········· |
| Since Fortune turns the whole world upside down, | 10 | ·/˘····//· |
| We are taking him- ill luck go with the same!-' | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| These kids you see. | 4 | ···· |
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.