She Turns the Dolls' Faces to the Wall
Because to-day is some religious festivalThey had a priest say Mass, and even the Japanese,Heel up and weight on toe, must face the wall--Pedant in passion, learned in old courtesies,Vehement and witty she had seemed--; the Venetian ladyWho had seemed to glide to some intrigue in her red shoes,Her domino, her panniered skirt copied from Longhi;The meditative critic; all are on their toes,Even our Beauty with her Turkish trousers on.Because the priest must have like every dog his dayOr keep us all awake with baying at the moon,We and our dolls being but the world were best away.
Words in this poem
- pedant n.
- A schoolmaster; a pedagogue. [F. pédant, It. pedante, fr. Gr. pai^s boy. See Pedagogue.]
- witty a.
- Possessed of wit; knowing; wise; skillful; judicious; clever; cunning. [AS. witig, wittig. See Wit, n.]
- domino n.
- A kind of hood worn by the canons of a cathedral church; a sort of amice. Kersey. [F. domino, or It. dominò, or Sp. dominó, fr. L. dominus master. The domino was orig. a hood worn by the canons of a cathedral. See Don, Dame.]
- panniered a.
- Bearing panniers.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
She Turns the Dolls' Faces to the Wall 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, She Turns the Dolls' Faces to the Wall, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/she-turns-the-dolls-faces-to-the-wall.html, id L20029.
Form and metre
She Turns the Dolls' Faces to the Wall is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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-B-B-C-C festivalA · japaneseB · wallA · courtesiesB · lady · shoesB · longhi · toesB · on · dayC · moon · awayC
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Because to-day is some religious festival | 11 | ······˘/˘/˘ |
| They had a priest say Mass, and even the Japanese, | 12 | ·······/··˘/ |
| Heel up and weight on toe, must face the wall | 10 | ·········· |
| --Pedant in passion, learned in old courtesies, | 11 | /˘·/˘···/˘˘ |
| Vehement and witty she had seemed--; the Venetian lady | 14 | /˘·/˘····˘/˘/˘ |
| Who had seemed to glide to some intrigue in her red shoes, | 13 | ·······˘/···· |
| Her domino, her panniered skirt copied from Longhi; | 13 | ·/˘··/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| The meditative critic; all are on their toes, | 12 | ·/˘·˘/˘····· |
| Even our Beauty with her Turkish trousers on. | 10 | ///˘··/˘/· |
| Because the priest must have like every dog his day | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
| Or keep us all awake with baying at the moon, | 12 | ····˘/·/˘··· |
| We and our dolls being but the world were best away. | 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.