Analysis of The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman

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



YOU waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play,
Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;
In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;
My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cart
That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.
And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oar
Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,
Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,
When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.


Scheme abaBcbcBdbdB
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111111011 111011111011 001101011101011 1110111001011 0101100111011 11011001101001 11001111111 1110111001011 01111011111111 11101011001001 110011011011 1110111001011
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 666
Words 146
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 42
Words per line (avg) 12
Letters per stanza (avg) 507
Words per stanza (avg) 144
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 15, 2023

43 sec read
201

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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