He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
WERE you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast;
And you would murmur tender words,
Forgiving me, because you were dead:
Nor would you rise and hasten away,
Though you have the will of the wild birds,
But know your hair was bound and wound
About the stars and moon and sun:
O would, beloved, that you lay
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,
While lights were paling one by one.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 09, 2023
- 28 sec read
- 424 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABABCADCEFDEF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 482 |
Words | 96 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 13 |
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"He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/39349/he-wishes-his-beloved-were-dead>.
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