Analysis of The People
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
'WHAT have I earned for all that work,' I said,
'For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defaned,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning. I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall Should have lit
In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;
Or climbed among the images of the past --
The unperturbed and courtly images --
Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino
To where the Duchess and her people talked
The stately midnight through until they stood
In their great window looking at the dawn;
I might have had no friend that could not mix
Courtesy and passion into one like those
That saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn;
I might have used the one substantial right
My trade allows: chosen my company,
And chosen what scenery had pleased me best.
Thereon my phoenix answered in reproof,
'The drunkards, pilferers of public funds,
All the dishonest crowd I had driven away,
When my luck changed and they dared meet my face,
Crawled from obscurity, and set upon me
Those I had served and some that I had fed;
Yet never have I, now nor any time,
Complained of the people.'
All I could reply
Was: 'You, that have not lived in thought but deed,
Can have the purity of a natural force,
But I, whose virtues are the definitions
Of the analytic mind, can neither close
The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.'
And yet, because my heart leaped at her words,
I was abashed, and now they come to mind
After nine years, I sink my head abashed.
Scheme | ABCADEFGHIJCKLMNOMPQRSTUVQAWXYZ1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111111 1111111111 01011111 111101111 00101111 01010101111 01111101011 1100111111 001110101 11010100101 001010100 1001001111 1101000101 010110111 0111010101 1111111111 10001001111 1101110001 1111010101 1101101100 01011001111 011101001 01011101 100101111001 1111011111 11010001011 1111011111 1101111101 011010 11101 1111110111 110100101001 1111010010 1001011101 01101111111 0101111101 1101011111 1011111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,585 |
Words | 307 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 38 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,262 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 305 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:31 min read
- 117 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The People" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39523/the-people>.
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