The Three Witches
All the moon-shed nights are over,And the days of gray and dun;There is neither may nor clover,And the day and night are one.
Not an hamlet, not a cityMeets our strained and tearless eyes;In the plain without a pity,Where the wan grass droops and dies.
We shall wander through the meaningOf a day and see no light,For our lichened arms are leaningOn the ends of endless night.
We, the children of Astarte,Dear abortions of the moon,In a gay and silent party,We are riding to you soon.
Burning ramparts, ever burning!To the flame which never diesWe are yearning, yearning, yearning,With our gay and tearless eyes.
In the plain without a pity,(Not an hamlet, not a city)Where the wan grass droops and dies.
Words in this poem
- tearless a.
- Shedding no tears; free from tears; unfeeling.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- lichened a.
- Belonging to, or covered with, lichens.
- astarte n.
- A genus of bivalve mollusks, common on the coasts of America and Europe.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Three Witches is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson, With a Memoir by Arthur Symons, Project Gutenberg ebook #8497; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ernest Dowson, The Three Witches, in The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1896–1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8497, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dowson-poems/the-three-witches.html, id L01666.
Form and metre
The Three Witches is 23 lines in 6 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 5 of its 6 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.7 syllables. 11 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB overA · dunB · cloverA · oneB
- 2 ABAB cityA · eyesB · pityA · diesB
- 3 ABAB meaningA · lightB · leaningA · nightB
- 4 ABAB astarteA · moonB · partyA · soonB
- 5 ABAB burningA · diesB · yearningA · eyesB
- 6 AA- pityA · cityA · dies
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| All the moon-shed nights are over, | 8 | ········ |
| And the days of gray and dun; | 7 | ······· |
| There is neither may nor clover, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| And the day and night are one. | 7 | ······· |
| Not an hamlet, not a city | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Meets our strained and tearless eyes; | 9 | ·/˘·˘·/˘· |
| In the plain without a pity, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Where the wan grass droops and dies. | 7 | ······· |
| We shall wander through the meaning | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Of a day and see no light, | 7 | ······· |
| For our lichened arms are leaning | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘··/˘ |
| On the ends of endless night. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| We, the children of Astarte, | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| Dear abortions of the moon, | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| In a gay and silent party, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| We are riding to you soon. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Burning ramparts, ever burning! | 8 | /˘/·/˘/˘ |
| To the flame which never dies | 7 | ····/˘· |
| We are yearning, yearning, yearning, | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| With our gay and tearless eyes. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| In the plain without a pity, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| (Not an hamlet, not a city) | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Where the wan grass droops and dies. | 7 | ······· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.