Analysis of Solomon And The Witch
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
AND thus declared that Arab lady:
'Last night, where under the wild moon
On grassy mattress I had laid me,
Within my arms great Solomon,
I suddenly cried out in a strange tongue
Not his, not mine.'
Who understood
Whatever has been said, sighed, sung,
Howled, miau-d, barked, brayed, belled, yelled, cried, crowed,
Thereon replied: 'A cockerel
Crew from a blossoming apple bough
Three hundred years before the Fall,
And never crew again till now,
And would not now but that he thought,
Chance being at one with Choice at last,
All that the brigand apple brought
And this foul world were dead at last.
He that crowed out eternity
Thought to have crowed it in again.
For though love has a spider's eye
To find out some appropriate pain --
Aye, though all passion's in the glance --
For every nerve, and tests a lover
With cruelties of Choice and Chance;
And when at last that murder's over
Maybe the bride-bed brings despair,
For each an imagined image brings
And finds a real image there;
Yet the world ends when these two things,
Though several, are a single light,
When oil and wick are burned in one;
Therefore a blessed moon last night
Gave Sheba to her Solomon.'
'Yet the world stays.'
'If that be so,
Your cockerel found us in the wrong
Although he thought it. worth a crow.
Maybe an image is too strong
Or maybe is not strong enough.'
'The night has fallen; not a sound
In the forbidden sacred grove
Unless a petal hit the ground,
Nor any human sight within it
But the crushed grass where we have lain!
And the moon is wilder every minute.
O! Solomon! let us try again.'
Scheme | ABACDEFDGHIHIJKJKALMNOPOPQRQRSCSCTUVUVWXYXZN1 L |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010111010 11110011 110101111 01111100 1100110011 1111 101 1011111 111111111 010101 110100101 11010101 01010111 01111111 110111111 1101101 01110111 11110100 11111001 1111011 111101001 1111001 1100101010 1101101 01111110 10011101 111010101 0101101 10111111 11010101 11011101 101111 11010100 1011 1111 1111001 1111101 10110111 11011101 01110101 00100101 01010101 110101011 10111111 00111010010 110011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,540 |
Words | 295 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 46 |
Lines Amount | 46 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,223 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 290 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 16, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 107 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Solomon And The Witch" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39429/solomon-and-the-witch>.
Discuss this William Butler Yeats poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In