The Indian upon God
I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees,My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl paceAll dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chaseEach other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weakIs an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tideIs but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyesBrimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could HeConceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the nightHis languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.
Words in this poem
- dripping n.
- A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
- undying a.
- Not dying; imperishable; unending; immortal; as, the undying souls of men.
- brimful a.
- Full to the brim; completely full; ready to overflow.
- starlight n.
- The light given by the stars.
- stamper n.
- One who stamps.
- myriad n.
- The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. [Gr. myriade.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Indian upon God 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 Indian upon God, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/the-indian-upon-god.html, id L16685.
Form and metre
The Indian upon God is 20 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.8 syllables. 35% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic heptameter.
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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJ treesA · kneesA · paceB · chaseB · speakC · weakC · skyD · eyeD · talkE · stalkE · tideF · wideF · eyesG · skiesG · heH · meH · sayI · gayI · nightJ · lightJ
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees, | 14 | ··˘/·/˘····/˘· |
| My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees, | 14 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘··· |
| My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace | 14 | ·/˘··········· |
| All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase | 14 | ·/˘··/˘······· |
| Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak: | 13 | ·/˘··/˘···/˘· |
| Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak | 14 | ·············· |
| Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky. | 14 | ··˘/˘········· |
| The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye. | 14 | ·····/˘··/···· |
| I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk: | 14 | ···/˘/˘····/˘· |
| Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk, | 14 | ·········/˘··· |
| For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide | 14 | ·····/˘····/˘· |
| Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide. | 14 | ···/˘······/˘· |
| A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes | 14 | ·/˘······/···· |
| Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies, | 14 | /˘·/·····/˘··· |
| He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He | 14 | ···/˘/········ |
| Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me? | 14 | ˘/·······/˘··· |
| I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say: | 14 | ···/˘/˘····/·· |
| Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay, | 14 | ···········/˘· |
| He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night | 14 | ···/˘/········ |
| His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light. | 14 | ·/˘······/˘··· |
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.