Owen Ahern and His Dancers I
A strange thing surely that my heart when love had come unsoughtUpon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade,Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out.It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.
The south wind brought it longing, and the east wind despair,The west wind made it pitiful, and the north wind afraid.It feared to give its love a hurt with all the tempest there;It feared the hurt that she could give and therefore it went mad.
I can exchange opinion with any neighbouring mind,I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer’s had,But oh my Heart could bear no more when the upland caught the wind;I ran, I ran, from my love’s side because my Heart went mad.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- neighbouring a.
- Living or being near; adjacent; as, the neighboring nations or countries.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Owen Ahern and His Dancers I is in the public domain. This text is taken from The tower, Project Gutenberg ebook #72985; 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, Owen Ahern and His Dancers I, in The Tower (1928), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #72985, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-tower/owen-ahern-and-his-dancers-i.html, id L19980.
Form and metre
Owen Ahern and His Dancers I is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See other poems in iambic heptameter.
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-B unsought · shadeA · out · madB
- 2 CACB despairC · afraidA · thereC · madB
- 3 DBDB mindD · hadB · windD · madB
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A strange thing surely that my heart when love had come unsought | 14 | ···/˘········· |
| Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade, | 13 | ···/˘/˘···/˘· |
| Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out. | 14 | ···/˘·˘/······ |
| It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad. | 13 | ·····/˘······ |
| The south wind brought it longing, and the east wind despair, | 13 | ·····/˘····˘/ |
| The west wind made it pitiful, and the north wind afraid. | 14 | ·····/˘˘····˘/ |
| It feared to give its love a hurt with all the tempest there; | 14 | ···········/˘· |
| It feared the hurt that she could give and therefore it went mad. | 14 | ·············· |
| I can exchange opinion with any neighbouring mind, | 14 | ··˘/˘/˘·/˘/˘˘· |
| I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer’s had, | 14 | ···/˘····/˘/˘· |
| But oh my Heart could bear no more when the upland caught the wind; | 15 | ··········/˘··· |
| I ran, I ran, from my love’s side because my Heart went mad. | 14 | ·············· |
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.