The Dolls

William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)



A DOLL in the doll-maker's house
Looks at the cradle and bawls:
'That is an insult to us.'
But the oldest of all the dolls,
Who had seen, being kept for show,
Generations of his sort,
Out-screams the whole shelf:  'Although
There's not a man can report
Evil of this place,
The man and the woman bring
Hither, to our disgrace,
A noisy and filthy thing.'
Hearing him groan and stretch
The doll-maker's wife is aware
Her husband has heard the wretch,
And crouched by the arm of his chair,
She murmurs into his ear,
Head upon shoulder leant:
'My dear, my dear, O dear.
It was an accident.'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 24, 2023

34 sec read
127

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABCDEDEFGFGHIDIJKLK
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 574
Words 114
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 20

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. more…

All William Butler Yeats poems | William Butler Yeats Books

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