Her Courtesy
With the old kindness, the old distinguished graceShe lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hairPropped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face.She would not have us sad because she is lying there,And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit,Her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with herMatching our broken-hearted wit against her wit,Thinking of saints and of Petronius Arbiter.
Words in this poem
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- pallor n.
- Paleness; want of color; pallidity; as, pallor of the complexion. Jer. Taylor. [L., fr. pallere to be or look pale. See Pale, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Her Courtesy 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, Her Courtesy, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/her-courtesy.html, id L20027.
Form and metre
Her Courtesy is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%).
See other poems in trochaic heptameter.
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 ABABC-C- graceA · hairB · faceA · thereB · litC · her · witC · arbiter
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 trochaic heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| With the old kindness, the old distinguished grace | 12 | ···/˘··˘/˘˘· |
| She lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hair | 14 | ···/˘/˘˘·˘/··· |
| Propped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face. | 13 | ···/˘···/˘··· |
| She would not have us sad because she is lying there, | 13 | ··········/˘· |
| And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit, | 13 | ····/˘····/˘· |
| Her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her | 13 | ···/˘˘······· |
| Matching our broken-hearted wit against her wit, | 13 | /˘/˘/˘/˘····· |
| Thinking of saints and of Petronius Arbiter. | 12 | /˘·······/˘˘ |
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.