Analysis of To A Wealthy Man Who Promised A Second Subscription To The Dublin Municipal Gallery If It Were Proved The People Wanted Pictures
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
YOU gave, but will not give again
Until enough of paudeen's pence
By Biddy's halfpennies have lain
To be 'some sort of evidence',
Before you'll put your guineas down,
That things it were a pride to give
Are what the blind and ignorant town
Imagines best to make it thrive.
What cared Duke Ercole, that bid
His mummers to the market-place,
What th' onion-sellers thought or did
So that his plautus set the pace
For the Italian comedies?
And Guidobaldo, when he made
That grammar school of courtesies
Where wit and beauty learned their trade
Upon Urbino's windy hill,
Had sent no runners to and fro
That he might learn the shepherds' will
And when they drove out Cosimo,
Indifferent how the rancour ran,
He gave the hours they had set free
To Michelozzo's latest plan
For the San Marco Library,
Whence turbulent Italy should draw
Delight in Art whoSe end is peace,
In logic and in natural law
By sucking at the dugs of Greece.
Your open hand but shows our loss,
For he knew better how to live.
Let paudeens play at pitch and toss,
Look up in the sun's eye and give
What the exultant heart calls good
That some new day may breed the best
Because you gave, not what they would,
But the right twigs for an eagle's nest!
December
Scheme | ABCDEFEGHIHIJKJKLMLNOPOPQRQRSGSFTUTUV |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111101 0101111 11111 11111100 01111101 11100111 110101001 01011111 11101011 1110101 1111010111 1111101 10010100 01111 11011100 11010111 011101 11110101 11110101 011111 0101011 110101111 11101 1011010 110010011 01011111 010001001 11010111 110111101 11110111 1111101 11001101 10010111 11111101 01111111 101111101 010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,195 |
Words | 227 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 37 |
Lines Amount | 37 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 966 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 225 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:10 min read
- 130 Views
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"To A Wealthy Man Who Promised A Second Subscription To The Dublin Municipal Gallery If It Were Proved The People Wanted Pictures" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39592/to-a-wealthy-man-who-promised-a-second-subscription-to-the-dublin-municipal-gallery-if-it-were-proved-the-people-wanted-pictures>.
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