Another Song of a Fool
This great purple butterfly,In the prison of my hands,Has a learning in his eyeNot a poor fool understands.
Once he lived a schoolmasterWith a stark, denying look,A string of scholars went in fearOf his great birch and his great book.
Like the clangour of a bell,Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet,That is how he learnt so wellTo take the roses for his meat.
Words in this poem
- stark adv.
- Wholly; entirely; absolutely; quite; as, stark mind.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- clangour n.
- A sharp, harsh, ringing sound. [L., fr. clangere. See Clang, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Another Song of a Fool is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Wild Swans at Coole, Project Gutenberg ebook #32491; 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, Another Song of a Fool, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/another-song-of-a-fool.html, id L20039.
Form and metre
Another Song of a Fool is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABAB butterflyA · handsB · eyeA · understandsB
- 2 -A-A schoolmaster · lookA · fear · bookA
- 3 ABAB bellA · sweetB · wellA · meatB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| This great purple butterfly, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| In the prison of my hands, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Has a learning in his eye | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Not a poor fool understands. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Once he lived a schoolmaster | 7 | ····/·˘ |
| With a stark, denying look, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| A string of scholars went in fear | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Of his great birch and his great book. | 8 | ········ |
| Like the clangour of a bell, | 7 | ······· |
| Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet, | 6 | ······ |
| That is how he learnt so well | 7 | ······· |
| To take the roses for his meat. | 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.