The Collar-Bone of a Hare
Would I could cast a sail on the waterWhere many a king has goneAnd many a king's daughter,And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,The playing upon pipes and the dancing,And learn that the best thing isTo change my loves while dancingAnd pay but a kiss for a kiss.
I would find by the edge of that waterThe collar-bone of a hareWorn thin by the lapping of water,And pierce it through with a gimlet and stareAt the old bitter world where they marry in churches,And laugh over the untroubled waterAt all who marry in churches,Through the white thin bone of a hare.
About this text
The Collar-Bone of a Hare 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, The Collar-Bone of a Hare, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/the-collar-bone-of-a-hare.html, id L20002.
Form and metre
The Collar-Bone of a Hare is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in anapaestic 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 ABABC-C- waterA · goneB · daughterA · lawnB · dancingC · is · dancingC · kiss
- 2 ABABCACB waterA · hareB · waterA · stareB · churchesC · waterA · churchesC · hareB
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 anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Would I could cast a sail on the water | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Where many a king has gone | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| And many a king's daughter, | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| And alight at the comely trees and the lawn, | 11 | ·˘/··/˘···· |
| The playing upon pipes and the dancing, | 10 | ·/˘·····/˘ |
| And learn that the best thing is | 7 | ······· |
| To change my loves while dancing | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And pay but a kiss for a kiss. | 8 | ········ |
| I would find by the edge of that water | 10 | ········/˘ |
| The collar-bone of a hare | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Worn thin by the lapping of water, | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| At the old bitter world where they marry in churches, | 13 | ···/˘···/˘·/˘ |
| And laugh over the untroubled water | 10 | ·····˘/˘/˘ |
| At all who marry in churches, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| Through the white thin bone of a hare. | 8 | ········ |
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.