The Death of the Hare
I have pointed out the yelling pack,The hare leap to the wood,And when I pass a complimentRejoice as lover shouldAt the drooping of an eyeAt the mantling of the blood.
Then suddenly my heart is wrungBy her distracted airAnd I remember wildness lostAnd after, swept from there,Am set down standing in the woodAt the death of the hare.
Words in this poem
- mantling n.
- The representation of a mantle, or the drapery behind and around a coat of arms: -- called also lambrequin.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Death of the Hare 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, The Death of the Hare, in The Tower (1928), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #72985, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-tower/the-death-of-the-hare.html, id L19984.
Form and metre
The Death of the Hare is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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-A pack · woodA · compliment · shouldA · eye · bloodA
- 2 -A-A-A wrung · airA · lost · thereA · wood · hareA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I have pointed out the yelling pack, | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| The hare leap to the wood, | 6 | ······ |
| And when I pass a compliment | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Rejoice as lover should | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
| At the drooping of an eye | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| At the mantling of the blood. | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| Then suddenly my heart is wrung | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| By her distracted air | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| And I remember wildness lost | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| And after, swept from there, | 6 | ······ |
| Am set down standing in the wood | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| At the death of the hare. | 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.