On Being Asked for a War Poem
I think it better that in times like theseA poet keep his mouth shut, for in truthWe have no gift to set a statesman right;He has had enough of meddling who can pleaseA young girl in the indolence of her youth,Or an old man upon a winter's night.
Words in this poem
- indolence n.
- Freedom from that which pains, or harasses, as toil, care, grief, etc. [L. indolentia freedom from pain: cf. F. indolence.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On Being Asked for a War Poem 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, On Being Asked for a War Poem, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/on-being-asked-for-a-war-poem.html, id L20025.
Form and metre
On Being Asked for a War Poem is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABCABC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABCABC theseA · truthB · rightC · pleaseA · youthB · nightC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I think it better that in times like these | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| We have no gift to set a statesman right; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| He has had enough of meddling who can please | 11 | ···˘/·/˘··· |
| A young girl in the indolence of her youth, | 11 | ·····/˘˘··· |
| Or an old man upon a winter's night. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
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.