Analysis of To Ireland In The Coming Times

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



Know, that I would accounted be
True brother of a company
That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong,
Ballad and story, rann and song;
Nor be I any less of them,
Because the red-rose-bordered hem
Of her, whose history began
Before God made the angelic clan,
Trails all about the written page.
When Time began to rant and rage
The measure of her flying feet
Made Ireland's heart hegin to beat;
And Time bade all his candles flare
To light a measure here and there;
And may the thoughts of Ireland brood
Upon a measured guietude.
Nor may I less be counted one
With Davis, Mangan, Ferguson,
Because, to him who ponders well,
My rhymes more than their rhyming tell
Of things discovered in the deep,
Where only body's laid asleep.
For the elemental creatures go
About my table to and fro,
That hurry from unmeasured mind
To rant and rage in flood and wind,
Yet he who treads in measured ways
May surely barter gaze for gaze.
Man ever journeys on with them
After the red-rose-bordered hem.
Ah, faerics, dancing under the moon,
A Druid land, a Druid tune.!
While stiIl I may, I write for you
The love I lived, the dream I knew.
From our birthday, until we die,
Is but the winking of an eye;
And we, our singing and our love,
What measurer Time has lit above,
And all benighted things that go
About my table to and fro,
Are passing on to where may be,
In truth's consuming ecstasy,
No place for love and dream at all;
For God goes by with white footfall.
I cast my heart into my rhymes,
That you, in the dim coming times,
May know how my heart went with them
After the red-rose-bordered hem.


Scheme aabbccddeeffgghfiijjkklLmmnncCooppqqrrlLaassttcC
Poetic Form
Metre 11110101 11010100 11110101 10010101 11110111 01011101 10110001 01110101 11010101 11011101 01010101 1101111 01111101 11010101 010111001 010101 11111101 11010100 01111101 11111101 11010001 11010101 10010101 01110101 110111 11010101 11110101 11010111 11010111 10011101 11101001 01010101 11111111 01110111 11010111 11010111 0110100101 1111101 01010111 01110101 11011111 01010100 11110111 1111111 11110111 11001101 11111111 10011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,539
Words 297
Sentences 10
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 48
Lines Amount 48
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 1,227
Words per stanza (avg) 295
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 27, 2023

1:30 min read
95

William Butler Yeats

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

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