Two Songs from a Play II
In pity for man’s darkening thoughtHe walked that room and issued thenceIn Galilean turbulence;The Babylonian Starlight broughtA fabulous, formless darkness in;Odour of blood when Christ was slainMade Plato’s tolerance in vainAnd vain the Doric discipline.
Words in this poem
- galilean a.
- Of or pertaining to Galileo; as, the Galilean telescope. See Telescope.
- babylonian a.
- Of or pertaining to the real or to the mystical Babylon, or to the ancient kingdom of Babylonia; Chaldean.
- starlight n.
- The light given by the stars.
- formless a.
- Shapeless; without a determinate form; wanting regularity of shape.
- odour n.
- Any smell, whether fragrant or offensive; scent; perfume. [OE. odor, odour, OF. odor, odour, F. odeur, fr. L. odor; akin to olere to smell, Gr. Olfactory, Osmium, Ozone, Redolent.]
- tolerance n.
- The power or capacity of enduring; the act of enduring; endurance. [L. tolerantia: cf. F. tolérance.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Two Songs from a Play II 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, Two Songs from a Play II, in The Tower (1928), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #72985, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-tower/two-songs-from-a-play-ii.html, id L19973.
Form and metre
Two Songs from a Play II is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 ABBACCCC thoughtA · thenceB · turbulenceB · broughtA · inC · slainC · vainC · disciplineC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In pity for man’s darkening thought | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| He walked that room and issued thence | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In Galilean turbulence; | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘˘ |
| The Babylonian Starlight brought | 8 | ··˘/˘/·· |
| A fabulous, formless darkness in; | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Odour of blood when Christ was slain | 8 | /˘······ |
| Made Plato’s tolerance in vain | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| And vain the Doric discipline. | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
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.