The Stare’s Nest by My Window
The bees build in the crevicesOf loosening masonry, and thereThe mother birds bring grubs and flies.My wall is loosening; honey-beesCome build in the empty house of the stare.
We are closed in, and the key is turnedOn our uncertainty; somewhereA man is killed, or a house burned,Yet no clear fact to be discerned:Come build in the empty house of the stare.
A barricade of stone or of wood;Some fourteen days of civil war;Last night they trundled down the roadThat dead young soldier in his blood:Come build in the empty house of the stare.
We had fed the heart on fantasies,The heart’s grown brutal from the fare,More substance in our enmitiesThan in our love; oh, honey-beesCome build in the empty house of the stare.
Words in this poem
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Stare’s Nest by My Window 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 Stare’s Nest by My Window, in The Tower (1928), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #72985, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-tower/the-stare-s-nest-by-my-window.html, id L19965.
Form and metre
The Stare’s Nest by My Window is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%).
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 ABAAB crevicesA · thereB · fliesA · beesA · stareB
- 2 ABAAB turnedA · somewhereB · burnedA · discernedA · stareB
- 3 A--A- woodA · war · road · bloodA · stare
- 4 ABAAB fantasiesA · fareB · enmitiesA · beesA · stareB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The bees build in the crevices | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Of loosening masonry, and there | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| The mother birds bring grubs and flies. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| My wall is loosening; honey-bees | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Come build in the empty house of the stare. | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| We are closed in, and the key is turned | 9 | ········· |
| On our uncertainty; somewhere | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘/· |
| A man is killed, or a house burned, | 8 | ········ |
| Yet no clear fact to be discerned: | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Come build in the empty house of the stare. | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| A barricade of stone or of wood; | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Some fourteen days of civil war; | 8 | ·//··/˘· |
| Last night they trundled down the road | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That dead young soldier in his blood: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Come build in the empty house of the stare. | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| We had fed the heart on fantasies, | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| The heart’s grown brutal from the fare, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| More substance in our enmities | 9 | ·/˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| Than in our love; oh, honey-bees | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| Come build in the empty house of the stare. | 10 | ····/˘···· |
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.