A Dream of a Blessed Spirit
All the heavy days are over;Leave the body's coloured prideUnderneath the grass and clover,With the feet laid side by side.
One with her are mirth and duty,Bear the gold embroidered dress,For she needs not her sad beauty,To the scented oaken press.
Hers the kiss of Mother Mary,The long hair is on her face;Still she goes with footsteps wary,Full of earth's old timid grace.
With white feet of angels sevenHer white feet go glimmeringAnd above the deep of heaven,Flame on flame and wing on wing.
Words in this poem
- coloured a.
- Having color; tinged; dyed; painted; stained.
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
- oaken a.
- Made or consisting of oaks or of the wood of oaks. [AS. acen.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Dream of a Blessed Spirit is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #38877; 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 Dream of a Blessed Spirit, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/a-dream-of-a-blessed-spirit.html, id L16660.
Form and metre
A Dream of a Blessed Spirit is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 19% 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 · prideB · cloverA · sideB
- 2 ABAB dutyA · dressB · beautyA · pressB
- 3 ABAB maryA · faceB · waryA · graceB
- 4 ABAB sevenA · glimmeringB · heavenA · wingB
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 heavy days are over; | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Leave the body's coloured pride | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Underneath the grass and clover, | 8 | ·˘/···/˘ |
| With the feet laid side by side. | 7 | ······· |
| One with her are mirth and duty, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Bear the gold embroidered dress, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| For she needs not her sad beauty, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| To the scented oaken press. | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Hers the kiss of Mother Mary, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| The long hair is on her face; | 7 | ······· |
| Still she goes with footsteps wary, | 8 | ····/·/˘ |
| Full of earth's old timid grace. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| With white feet of angels seven | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Her white feet go glimmering | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| And above the deep of heaven, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Flame on flame and wing on wing. | 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.