Analysis of The Host Of The Air
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
O'DRISCOLL drove with a song
The wild duck and the drake
From the tall and the tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.
And he saw how the reeds grew dark
At the coming of night-tide,
And dreamed of the long dim hair
Of Bridget his bride.
He heard while he sang and dreamed
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
And he saw young men and young girls
Who danced on a level place,
And Bridget his bride among them,
With a sad and a gay face.
The dancers crowded about him
And many a sweet thing said,
And a young man brought him red wine
And a young girl white bread.
But Bridget drew him by the sleeve
Away from the merry bands,
To old men playing at cards
With a twinkling of ancient hands.
The bread and the wine had a doom,
For these were the host of the air;
He sat and played in a dream
Of her long dim hair.
He played with the merry old men
And thought not of evil chance,
Until one bore Bridget his bride
Away from the merry dance.
He bore her away in his atms,
The handsomest young man there,
And his neck and his breast and his arms
Were drowned in her long dim hair.
O'Driscoll scattered the cards
And out of his dream awoke:
Old men and young men and young girls
Were gone like a drifting smoke;
But he heard high up in the air
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
Scheme | abcbdefegHIHjklkmnonpqrqsftfuvevcfwfrxjxfHIH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101101 011001 10100101 10111 01110111 1010111 0110111 11011 1111101 0101001 01011011 01011011 01111011 1110101 01011011 1010011 01010011 0100111 00111111 001111 11011101 0110101 1111011 101001101 01001101 11001101 1101001 10111 11101011 0111101 01111011 0110101 11001011 01111 011011011 0100111 0101001 0111101 11011011 0110101 11111001 0101001 01011011 01011011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,317 |
Words | 276 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 44 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,050 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 274 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:23 min read
- 167 Views
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