The Peacock
What's riches to himThat has made a great peacockWith the pride of his eye?The wind-beaten, stone-grey,And desolate Three-rockWould nourish his whim.Live he or dieAmid wet rocks and heather,His ghost will be gayAdding feather to featherFor the pride of his eye.
Words in this poem
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Peacock 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, The Peacock, in Responsibilities (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36865, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-responsibilities/the-peacock.html, id L04570.
Form and metre
The Peacock is 11 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABCDBACEDEC. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 55% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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 ABCDBACEDEC himA · peacockB · eyeC · greyD · rockB · whimA · dieC · heatherE · gayD · featherE · eyeC
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| What's riches to him | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| That has made a great peacock | 7 | ·····/· |
| With the pride of his eye? | 6 | ······ |
| The wind-beaten, stone-grey, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| And desolate Three-rock | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Would nourish his whim. | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Live he or die | 4 | ···· |
| Amid wet rocks and heather, | 7 | ˘/···/˘ |
| His ghost will be gay | 5 | ····· |
| Adding feather to feather | 7 | /˘/˘·/˘ |
| For the pride of his eye. | 6 | ······ |
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.