Analysis of The Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.
I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;
Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man: gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.
Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EBBE FBBF GBBG EHHX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (83%) |
Metre | 11011111001 1011011101 01110010111 0101011101 1101010111 010101001110 01010101110 0111010101 1110010101 0101011110 11010101010 1101011111 1111111101 01011101110 1111010111 1101011111 1111010001 11010111110 110111010 0101011101 1111111100 11010100110 101010011110 1101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,042 |
Words | 192 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 140 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 64 Views
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"The Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39466/the-dedication-to-a-book-of-stories-selected-from-the-irish-novelists>.
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