Certain Artists Bring Her Dolls and Drawings
Bring where our Beauty liesA new modelled doll, or drawing,With a friend's or an enemy'sFeatures, or maybe showingHer features when a tressOf dull red hair was flowingOver some silken dressCut in the Turkish fashion,Or it may be like a boy's.We have given the world our passionWe have naught for death but toys.
Words in this poem
- maybe adv.
- Perhaps; possibly; peradventure. [For it may be.]
- tress n.
- A braid, knot, or curl, of hair; a ringlet. [OE. tresse, OF. trece, F. tresse, LL. tricia, fr. Gr. tri`cha threefold, because a tress is usually formed by interlacing three pieces; akin to trei^s three. Se]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Certain Artists Bring Her Dolls and Drawings 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, Certain Artists Bring Her Dolls and Drawings, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/certain-artists-bring-her-dolls-and-drawings.html, id L20028.
Form and metre
Certain Artists Bring Her Dolls and Drawings is 11 lines in a single stanza. 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-ABCBCDEDE liesA · drawing · enemy'sA · showingB · tressC · flowingB · dressC · fashionD · boy'sE · passionD · toysE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bring where our Beauty lies | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| A new modelled doll, or drawing, | 8 | ··˘/··/˘ |
| With a friend's or an enemy's | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Features, or maybe showing | 7 | /˘·/˘/˘ |
| Her features when a tress | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Of dull red hair was flowing | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Over some silken dress | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Cut in the Turkish fashion, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Or it may be like a boy's. | 7 | ······· |
| We have given the world our passion | 8 | ··/··//˘ |
| We have naught for death but toys. | 7 | ······· |
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.