High Talk
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
PROCESSIONS that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye.
What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high,
And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks upon higher,
Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire.
Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, ake but poor shows,
Because children demand Daddy-long-legs upon This timber toes,
Because women in the upper storeys demand a face at the pane,
That patching old heels they may shriek, I take to chisel and plane.
Malachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild, From collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child.
All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all. A barnacle goose
Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the dawn breaks loose;
I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on;
Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 10, 2023
- 48 sec read
- 84 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCCDD XEEXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 899 |
Words | 162 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 5 |
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"High Talk" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/39355/high-talk>.
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