The Voice
The wind blows out of the gates of the day,The wind blows over the lonely of heart,And the lonely of heart is withered away.While the faeries dance in a place apart,Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and singOf a land where even the old are fair,And even the wise are merry of tongue;But I heard a reed of Coolaney say,"When the wind has laughed and murmured and sungThe lonely of heart is withered away!"
About this text
The Voice 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 Voice, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/the-voice.html, id L16671.
Form and metre
The Voice is 12 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEAEA. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABABCDCDEAEA dayA · heartB · awayA · apartB · ringC · airD · singC · fairD · tongueE · sayA · sungE · awayA
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 wind blows out of the gates of the day, | 10 | ·········· |
| The wind blows over the lonely of heart, | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| And the lonely of heart is withered away. | 11 | ··/˘···/˘˘/ |
| While the faeries dance in a place apart, | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, | 9 | /˘······· |
| Tossing their milk-white arms in the air; | 9 | /˘······· |
| For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Of a land where even the old are fair, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| And even the wise are merry of tongue; | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| But I heard a reed of Coolaney say, | 10 | ·········· |
| "When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| The lonely of heart is withered away!" | 10 | ·/˘···/˘˘/ |
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.