Usheen
Ah, me! to be shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain,Without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear;All emptied of purple hours as a beggar's cloak in the rain,As a hay-cock out on the flood, or a wolf sucked under a weir.
It were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved of old there;I throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased,I will go to Caolte, and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast.
Words in this poem
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Usheen 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, Usheen, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/usheen-4.html, id L16706.
Form and metre
Usheen is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 16.0 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 painA · fearB · rainA · weirB
- 2 ABAB thereA · ceasedB · lomairA · feastB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ah, me! to be shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain, | 17 | ····/˘·/˘·/˘····· |
| Without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear; | 18 | ··/˘····/˘˘/·˘/˘·· |
| All emptied of purple hours as a beggar's cloak in the rain, | 16 | ·/˘·/˘/˘··/˘···· |
| As a hay-cock out on the flood, or a wolf sucked under a weir. | 16 | ················ |
| It were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved of old there; | 16 | ················ |
| I throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased, | 16 | ············/˘·· |
| I will go to Caolte, and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair, | 14 | ······/˘······ |
| And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast. | 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.