S. Patric
On the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the Fenians are tost;None war on the masters of Hell, who could break up the worldin their rage;But kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lostThrough the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age.
Words in this poem
- kneel v. i.
- To bend the knee; to fall or rest on the knees; -- sometimes with down. [OE. knelen, cneolien; akin to D. knielen, Dan. knæle. See Knee.]
- godless a.
- Having, or acknowledging, no God; without reverence for God; impious; wicked.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
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-3.html, id L16705.
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 A-BAB tostA · world · rageB · lostA · ageB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| On the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the Fenians are tost; | 17 | ··/˘···/˘····/˘·· |
| None war on the masters of Hell, who could break up the world | 14 | ····/˘········ |
| in their rage; | 3 | ··· |
| But kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lost | 15 | ··············· |
| Through the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age. | 16 | ··/˘······/˘·/˘· |
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.