Stanza III
I have taken ‘the honey of generation’ from Porphyry’s essay on ‘TheCave of the Nymphs’, but find no warrant in Porphyry for consideringit the ‘drug’ that destroys the ‘recollection’ of pre-natal freedom.He blamed a cup of oblivion given in the zodiacal sign of Cancer.
Words in this poem
- oblivion n.
- The act of forgetting, or the state of being forgotten; cessation of remembrance; forgetfulness. [L. oblivio, akin to oblivisci to forget: cf. OF. oblivion.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Stanza III 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, Stanza III, in The Tower (1928), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #72985, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-tower/stanza-iii.html, id L19997.
Form and metre
Stanza III is 4 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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.
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I have taken ‘the honey of generation’ from Porphyry’s essay on ‘The | 19 | ··/˘·/˘··˘/˘·/˘˘/·· |
| Cave of the Nymphs’, but find no warrant in Porphyry for considering | 16 | ·······/˘·/˘·˘/˘ |
| it the ‘drug’ that destroys the ‘recollection’ of pre-natal freedom. | 17 | ····˘/··˘/˘··/˘/˘ |
| He blamed a cup of oblivion given in the zodiacal sign of Cancer. | 19 | ·····˘/˘/··˘/˘˘··/˘ |
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.