Analysis of The Hour Before Dawn
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
A CURSING rogue with a merry face,
A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
Stumbled upon that windy place
Called Cruachan, and it was as much
As the one sturdy leg could do
To keep him upright while he cursed.
He had counted, where long years ago
Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed,
A pair of lapwings, one old sheep,
And not a house to the plain's edge,
When close to his right hand a heap
Of grey stones and a rocky ledge
Reminded him that he could make.
If he but shifted a few stones,
A shelter till the daylight broke.
But while he fumbled with the stones
They toppled over; 'Were it not
I have a lucky wooden shin
I had been hurt'; and toppling brought
Before his eyes, where stones had been,
A dark deep hollow in the rock.
He gave a gasp and thought to have fled,
Being certain it was no right rock
Because an ancient history said
Hell Mouth lay open near that place,
And yet stood still, because inside
A great lad with a beery face
Had tucked himself away beside
A ladle and a tub of beer,
And snored, no phantom by his look.
So with a laugh at his own fear
He crawled into that pleasant nook.
'Night grows uneasy near the dawn
Till even I sleep light; but who
Has tired of his own company?
What one of Maeve's nine brawling sons
Sick of his grave has wakened me?
But let him keep his grave for once
That I may find the sleep I have lost.'
What care I if you sleep or wake?
But I'Il have no man call me ghost.'
Say what you please, but from daybreak
I'll sleep another century.'
And I will talk before I sleep
And drink before I talk.'
And he
Had dipped the wooden ladle deep
Into the sleeper's tub of beer
Had not the sleeper started up.
Before you have dipped it in the beer
I dragged from Goban's mountain-top
I'll have assurance that you are able
To value beer; no half-legged fool
Shall dip his nose into my ladle
Merely for stumbling on this hole
In the bad hour before the dawn.'
Why beer is only beer.'
'But say
''I'll sleep until the winter's gone,
Or maybe to Midsummer Day,''
And drink and you will sleep that length.
'I'd like to sleep till winter's gone
Or till the sun is in his srrength.
This blast has chilled me to the bone.'
'I had no better plan at first.
I thought to wait for that or this;
Maybe the weather was accursed
Or I had no woman there to kiss;
So slept for half a year or so;
But year by year I found that less
Gave me such pleasure I'd forgo
Even a half-hour's nothingness,
And when at one year's end I found
I had not waked a single minute,
I chosc this burrow under ground.
I'll sleep away all time within it:
My sleep were now nine centuries
But for those mornings when I find
The lapwing at their foolish dies
And the sheep bleating at the wind
As when I also played the fool.'
The beggar in a rage began
Upon his hunkers in the hole,
'It's plain that you are no right man
To mock at everything I love
As if it were not worth, the doing.
I'd have a merry life enough
If a good Easter wind were blowing,
And though the winter wind is bad
I should not be too down in the mouth
For anything you did or said
If but this wind were in the south.'
'You cty aloud, O would 'twere spring
Or that the wind would shift a point,
And do not know that you would bring,
If time were suppler in the joint,
Neither the spring nor the south wind
But the hour when you shall pass away
And leave no smoking wick behind,
For all life longs for the Last Day
And there's no man but cocks his ear
To know when Michael's trumpet cries
'That flesh and bone may disappear,
And souls as if they were but sighs,
And there be nothing but God left;
But, I aone being blessed keep
Like some old rabbit to my cleft
And wait Him in a drunken sleep.'
He dipped his ladle in the tub
And drank and yawned and stretched him out,
The other shouted, 'You would rob
My life of every pleasant thought
And every comfortable thing,
And so take that and that.' Thereon
He gave him a great pummelling,
But might have pummelled at a stone
For all the sleeper knew or cared;
And after heaped up stone on stone,
And then, grown weary, prayed and cursed
And heaped up stone on stone again,
And prayed and cursed and cursed and bed
From Maeve and all that juggling plain,
Nor gave God thanks till overhead
The clouds were brightening with the dawn.
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010110101 010110101 10011101 1101111 10110111 11101111 111011101 1111111 0111111 01011011 11111101 11100101 01011111 11110011 0101011 11110101 11010011 11010101 111101001 01111111 01110001 110101111 101011111 011101001 11110111 01110101 01110101 11010101 01000111 01110111 11011111 11011101 11010101 11011111 110111100 11111101 1111111 11111111 111101111 11111111 111111111 1111111 11010100 01110111 010111 01 11010101 0101111 11010101 011111001 1111101 1101011110 110111101 111101110 101100111 001100101 111101 11 11010101 11011101 01011111 11111101 11011011 11111101 11110111 11111111 1001011 111110111 11110111 11111111 11110101 100110100 01111111 111101010 11110101 110111011 11011100 11110111 0111101 0011101 11110101 01000101 0111001 11111111 1111011 111011010 11010101 101101010 01010111 111111001 1101111 11110001 11011111 11011101 01111111 1101001 10011011 1010111101 01110101 11111011 01111111 11110101 1101101 01111011 01110111 1111011 11110111 01100101 11110001 01010111 01010111 111100101 010010001 01110101 111011 1111101 11010111 01011111 01110101 01111101 01010101 1010111001 11111101 010100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 4,127 |
Words | 848 |
Sentences | 28 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 124 |
Lines Amount | 124 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 3,282 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 834 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 29, 2023
- 4:17 min read
- 70 Views
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"The Hour Before Dawn" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39490/the-hour-before-dawn>.
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