Maurteen
You have come indeedA long, long way--for I have never seenYour pretty face--and must be tired and hungry,Here is some bread and wine.
About this text
Maurteen 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, Maurteen, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/maurteen.html, id L16672.
Form and metre
Maurteen is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| You have come indeed | 5 | ···˘/ |
| A long, long way--for I have never seen | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Your pretty face--and must be tired and hungry, | 11 | ·/˘····/·/˘ |
| Here is some bread and wine. | 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.