To a Child Dancing in the Wind I
Dance there upon the shore;What need have you to careFor wind or water's roar?And tumble out your hairThat the salt drops have wet;Being young you have not knownThe fool's triumph, nor yetLove lost as soon as won,Nor the best labourer deadAnd all the sheaves to bind.What need have you to dreadThe monstrous crying of wind?
About this text
To a Child Dancing in the Wind I 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, To a Child Dancing in the Wind I, in Responsibilities (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36865, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-responsibilities/to-a-child-dancing-in-the-wind-i.html, id L04572.
Form and metre
To a Child Dancing in the Wind I is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.2 syllables. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABABC-C-DEDE shoreA · careB · roarA · hairB · wetC · known · yetC · won · deadD · bindE · dreadD · windE
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Dance there upon the shore; | 6 | ······ |
| What need have you to care | 6 | ······ |
| For wind or water's roar? | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And tumble out your hair | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| That the salt drops have wet; | 6 | ······ |
| Being young you have not known | 6 | /····· |
| The fool's triumph, nor yet | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Love lost as soon as won, | 6 | ······ |
| Nor the best labourer dead | 7 | ······· |
| And all the sheaves to bind. | 6 | ······ |
| What need have you to dread | 6 | ······ |
| The monstrous crying of wind? | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
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.