S. Patric
Where the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stonesis their place;Where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide hell,Watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on God's face,Between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell.
About this text
S. Patric 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, S. Patric, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/s-patric-2.html, id L16703.
Form and metre
S. Patric is 5 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 13.0 syllables.
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 stones · placeA · hellB · faceA · fellB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Where the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stones | 15 | ········/˘··/˘· |
| is their place; | 3 | ··· |
| Where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide hell, | 16 | ··/˘···/··/˘···· |
| Watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on God's face, | 14 | /˘············ |
| Between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell. | 17 | ····/········/˘·· |
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.