Aleel
I shatter you in fragments, for the faceThat brimmed you up with beauty is no more;And die, dull heart, for you that were a mirrorAre but a ball of passionate dust again!And level earth and plumy sea, rise up!And haughty sky, fall down!
Angels and devils clash in the middle air,And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms.Look, look, a spear has gone through Belial's eye!
(A winged ANGEL, carrying a torch and a sword, enters from the R.with eyes fixed upon some distant thing. The ANGEL is about to passout to the L. when ALEEL speaks. The ANGEL stops a moment andturns.)
Look no more on the half-closed gates of Hell,But speak to me whose mind is smitten of God,That it may be no more with mortal things:And tell of her who lies there.
Till you speakYou shall not drift into eternity.
Words in this poem
- plumy a.
- Covered or adorned with plumes, or as with plumes; feathery.
- haughty a.
- High; lofty; bold. [OE. hautein, F. hautain, fr. haut high, OF. also halt, fr. L. altus. See Altitude.]
- clang v. t.
- To strike together so as to produce a ringing metallic sound. [L. clangere; akin to Gr. clank.]
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Aleel 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, Aleel, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/aleel-6.html, id L16712.
Form and metre
Aleel is 19 lines in 5 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 26% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter, other poems in blank verse.
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.
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 shatter you in fragments, for the face | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| That brimmed you up with beauty is no more; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And die, dull heart, for you that were a mirror | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Are but a ball of passionate dust again! | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| And level earth and plumy sea, rise up! | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And haughty sky, fall down! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Angels and devils clash in the middle air, | 11 | /˘·/˘···/˘· |
| And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Look, look, a spear has gone through Belial's eye! | 10 | ·········· |
| (A winged ANGEL, carrying a torch and a sword, enters from the R. | 16 | ··/˘/˘·····/˘··· |
| with eyes fixed upon some distant thing. The ANGEL is about to pass | 17 | ······/˘··/˘····· |
| out to the L. when ALEEL speaks. The ANGEL stops a moment and | 16 | ·········/˘··/˘· |
| turns.) | 1 | · |
| Look no more on the half-closed gates of Hell, | 10 | ·········· |
| But speak to me whose mind is smitten of God, | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| That it may be no more with mortal things: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And tell of her who lies there. | 7 | ······· |
| Till you speak | 3 | ··· |
| You shall not drift into eternity. | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
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.