Analysis of The Two Trees
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with metry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Joves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile.
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For ill things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
Scheme | AbabcdcdefefghghbabAIjijklklhmnmgogpqiqI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) |
Metre | 0110111 01011101 11010101 0101001011 0101111 1101111 010011101 11010001 01011101 110011100 01110101 100010111 1010101 010101101 11101 011100101 010011101 0101101 11111101 0110111 11100101 01011101 11011111 11010101 11010101 1010101 1110101 1010101 111111 00110101 01110100 11110111 11010101 010111 1010101 1010101 11110101 01110101 11011101 11100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,306 |
Words | 245 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 40 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,055 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 243 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 25, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 266 Views
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