Men Improve with the Years
I am worn out with dreams;A weather-worn, marble tritonAmong the streams;And all day long I lookUpon this lady's beautyAs though I had found in bookA pictured beauty,Pleased to have filled the eyesOr the discerning ears,Delighted to be but wise,For men improve with the years;And yet and yetIs this my dream, or the truth?O would that we had metWhen I had my burning youth;But I grow old among dreams,A weather-worn, marble tritonAmong the streams.
Words in this poem
- pictured a.
- Furnished with pictures; represented by a picture or pictures; as, a pictured scene.
- delighted a.
- Endowed with delight.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Men Improve with the Years 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, Men Improve with the Years, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/men-improve-with-the-years.html, id L20001.
Form and metre
Men Improve with the Years is 18 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABACDCDEFEFGHGHABA. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABACDCDEFEFGHGHABA dreamsA · tritonB · streamsA · lookC · beautyD · bookC · beautyD · eyesE · earsF · wiseE · yearsF · yetG · truthH · metG · youthH · dreamsA · tritonB · streamsA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I am worn out with dreams; | 6 | ······ |
| A weather-worn, marble triton | 8 | ·/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Among the streams; | 4 | ···· |
| And all day long I look | 6 | ······ |
| Upon this lady's beauty | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| As though I had found in book | 7 | ······· |
| A pictured beauty, | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Pleased to have filled the eyes | 6 | ······ |
| Or the discerning ears, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Delighted to be but wise, | 7 | ˘/˘···· |
| For men improve with the years; | 7 | ··˘/··· |
| And yet and yet | 4 | ···· |
| Is this my dream, or the truth? | 7 | ······· |
| O would that we had met | 6 | ······ |
| When I had my burning youth; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| But I grow old among dreams, | 7 | ······· |
| A weather-worn, marble triton | 8 | ·/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Among the streams. | 4 | ···· |
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.