An Appointment
Being out of heart with governmentI took a broken root to flingWhere the proud, wayward squirrel went,Taking delight that he could spring;And he, with that low whinnying soundThat is like laughter, sprang againAnd so to the other tree at a bound.Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limbAnd threw him up to laugh on the bough;No government appointed him.
Words in this poem
- wayward a.
- Taking one's own way; disobedient; froward; perverse; willful. [OE. weiward, for aweiward, i. e., turned away. See Away, and -ward.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- cleanly a.
- Habitually clean; pure; innocent. [From Clean.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Appointment is in the public domain. This text is taken from Responsibilities, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #36865; 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, An Appointment, in Responsibilities (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36865, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-responsibilities/an-appointment.html, id L04579.
Form and metre
An Appointment is 11 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 46% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABABCDCDE-E governmentA · flingB · wentA · springB · soundC · againD · boundC · brainD · limbE · bough · himE
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Being out of heart with government | 9 | /˘····/˘˘ |
| I took a broken root to fling | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Where the proud, wayward squirrel went, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Taking delight that he could spring; | 8 | /˘˘/···· |
| And he, with that low whinnying sound | 8 | ········ |
| That is like laughter, sprang again | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And so to the other tree at a bound. | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| Nor the tame will, nor timid brain, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And threw him up to laugh on the bough; | 9 | ········· |
| No government appointed him. | 8 | ·/˘˘˘/˘· |
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.