When Helen Lived
We have cried in our despairThat men desert,For some trivial affairOr noisy, insolent sport,Beauty that we have wonFrom bitterest hours;Yet we, had we walked withinThose topless towersWhere Helen walked with her boy,Had given but as the restOf the men and women of Troy,A word and a jest.
Words in this poem
- trivial a.
- Found anywhere; common. [L. trivialis, properly, that is in, or belongs to, the crossroads or public streets; hence, that may be found everywhere, common, fr. trivium a place where thre]
- topless a.
- Having no top, or no visble fop; hence, fig.: very lofty; supreme; unequaled.
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
When Helen Lived 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, When Helen Lived, in Responsibilities (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36865, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-responsibilities/when-helen-lived.html, id L04559.
Form and metre
When Helen Lived is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.4 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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 A-A--B-BCDCD despairA · desert · affairA · sport · won · hoursB · within · towersB · boyC · restD · troyC · jestD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| We have cried in our despair | 8 | ····/˘˘/ |
| That men desert, | 4 | ··/˘ |
| For some trivial affair | 7 | ··/˘˘˘/ |
| Or noisy, insolent sport, | 7 | ·/˘/˘˘· |
| Beauty that we have won | 6 | /˘···· |
| From bitterest hours; | 6 | ·/˘˘/˘ |
| Yet we, had we walked within | 7 | ······· |
| Those topless towers | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Where Helen walked with her boy, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Had given but as the rest | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Of the men and women of Troy, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| A word and a jest. | 5 | ····· |
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.