She
Now she has thrown her arms above her head;Whether she threw them up to flout me,Or but to find,Now that no fingers bind,That her hair streams upon the wind,I do not know, that know I am afraidOf the hovering thing night brought me.
About this text
She 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, She, in Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #72987, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-michael-robartes/she-3.html, id L19943.
Form and metre
She is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 -ABBB-A head · meA · findB · bindB · windB · afraid · meA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Now she has thrown her arms above her head; | 10 | ·········· |
| Whether she threw them up to flout me, | 9 | ········· |
| Or but to find, | 4 | ···· |
| Now that no fingers bind, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| That her hair streams upon the wind, | 8 | ········ |
| I do not know, that know I am afraid | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Of the hovering thing night brought me. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
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.