Paudeen
Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spiteOf our old Paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blindAmong the stones and thorn trees, under morning light;Until a curlew cried and in the luminous windA curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thoughtThat on the lonely height where all are in God's eye,There cannot be, confusion of our sound forgot,A single soul that lacks a sweet crystaline cry.
Words in this poem
- indignant a.
- Affected with indignation; wrathful; passionate; irate; feeling wrath, as when a person is exasperated by unworthy or unjust treatment, by a mean action, or by a degrading accusation. [L. indignans, -antis, p. pr. of indignari to be indignant, disdain. See Indign.]
- thereupon adv.
- Upon that or this; thereon.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Paudeen 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, Paudeen, in Responsibilities (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36865, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-responsibilities/paudeen.html, id L04557.
Form and metre
Paudeen is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.1 syllables. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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-C-C spiteA · blindB · lightA · windB · thought · eyeC · forgot · cryC
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite | 12 | ˘/˘··/˘··˘/· |
| Of our old Paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind | 12 | ·/·······/˘· |
| Among the stones and thorn trees, under morning light; | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind | 12 | ···/˘····/˘· |
| A curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thought | 13 | ·/˘/˘·/˘·˘/·· |
| That on the lonely height where all are in God's eye, | 12 | ···/˘······· |
| There cannot be, confusion of our sound forgot, | 12 | ·/˘·˘/˘·/·˘/ |
| A single soul that lacks a sweet crystaline cry. | 12 | ·/˘········· |
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.