A Meditation in Time of War
For one throb of the Artery,While on that old grey stone I satUnder the old wind-broken tree,I knew that One is animateMankind inanimate phantasy.
Words in this poem
- throb v. i.
- To beat, or pulsate, with more than usual force or rapidity; to beat in consequence of agitation; to palpitate; -- said of the heart, pulse, etc. [OE. ; of uncertain origin; cf. Russ. trepete a trembling, and E. trepidation.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Meditation in Time of War is in the public domain. This text is taken from Michael Robartes and the dancer, Project Gutenberg ebook #72987; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: W. B. Yeats, A Meditation in Time of War, in Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #72987, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-michael-robartes/a-meditation-in-time-of-war.html, id L19954.
Form and metre
A Meditation in Time of War is 5 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in iambic 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 -A-A- artery · satA · tree · animateA · phantasy
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| For one throb of the Artery, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| While on that old grey stone I sat | 8 | ········ |
| Under the old wind-broken tree, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I knew that One is animate | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Mankind inanimate phantasy. | 9 | //˘/˘˘/˘˘ |
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.