The Angel
The light beats down; the gates of pearl are wide.And she is passing to the floor of peace,And Mary of the seven times wounded heartHas kissed her lips, and the long blessed hairHas fallen on her face; the Light of LightsLooks always on the motive, not the deed,The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.
About this text
The Angel 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, The Angel, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/the-angel-2.html, id L16645.
Form and metre
The Angel is 7 lines in a single verse paragraph. 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 87%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The light beats down; the gates of pearl are wide. | 10 | ·········· |
| And she is passing to the floor of peace, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And Mary of the seven times wounded heart | 10 | ·/˘··/·/˘· |
| Has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair | 10 | ··˘······· |
| Has fallen on her face; the Light of Lights | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Looks always on the motive, not the deed, | 10 | ·/···/˘··· |
| The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone. | 11 | ·/··/····˘/ |
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.