Analysis of On A Political Prisoner
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
SHE that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers' touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.
Did she in touching that lone wing
Recall the years before her mind
Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
Her thought some popular enmity:
Blind and leader of the blind
Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?
When long ago I saw her ride
Under Ben Bulben to the meet,
The beauty of her country-side
With all youth's lonely wildness stirred,
She seemed to have grown clean and sweet
Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:
Sea-borne, or balanced on the air
When first it sprang out of the nest
Upon some lofty rock to stare
Upon the cloudy canopy,
While under its storm-beaten breast
Cried out the hollows of the sea.
Scheme | ABACBCDCDCCECCCCCCFCFGCG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101 1111111 01111101 1101011 01010101 01010111 11010111 1010101 010101011 011100100 1010101 10011111 11011101 1011101 01010101 11110101 11111101 11011111 11110101 11111101 01110111 01010100 11011101 11010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 804 |
Words | 153 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 24 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 647 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 151 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 46 sec read
- 102 Views
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"On A Political Prisoner" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39399/on-a-political-prisoner>.
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