A Dream of Death
I dreamed that one had died in a strange placeNear no accustomed hand;And they had nailed the boards above her faceThe peasants of that land,Wondering to lay her in that solitude,And raised above her moundA cross they had made out of two bits of wood,And planted cypress round;And left her to the indifferent stars aboveUntil I carved these words:She was more beautiful than thy first love,But now lies under boards.
About this text
A Dream of Death 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 Death, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/a-dream-of-death.html, id L16659.
Form and metre
A Dream of Death is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAB-C-CD-D- placeA · handB · faceA · landB · solitude · moundC · wood · roundC · aboveD · words · loveD · boards
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I dreamed that one had died in a strange place | 10 | ·········· |
| Near no accustomed hand; | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| And they had nailed the boards above her face | 10 | ·········· |
| The peasants of that land, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Wondering to lay her in that solitude, | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| And raised above her mound | 6 | ······ |
| A cross they had made out of two bits of wood, | 11 | ··········· |
| And planted cypress round; | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| And left her to the indifferent stars above | 11 | ·····˘/˘··· |
| Until I carved these words: | 6 | ······ |
| She was more beautiful than thy first love, | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| But now lies under boards. | 6 | ······ |
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.