Analysis of Tom O'Roughley
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
'THOUGH logic-choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,'
Or so did Tom O'Roughley say
That saw the surges running by.
'And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.
'If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What's dying but a second wind?
How but in zig-zag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?'
Or something of that sort he said,
'And if my dearest friend were dead
I'd dance a measure on his grave.'
Scheme | ABABCDDCEFGCHIIH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010101 010010101 11010101 11011011 111111 11010101 0101010 01010111 11011101 11010101 11010101 110111 110010111 11011111 01110101 11010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 523 |
Words | 104 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 16 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 410 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 99 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 31 sec read
- 70 Views
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"Tom O'Roughley" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39605/tom-o%27roughley>.
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