The Double Vision of Michael Robartes I
On the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eyeHas called up the cold spirits that are bornWhen the old moon is vanished from the skyAnd the new still hides her horn.
Under blank eyes and fingers never stillThe particular is pounded till it is man,When had I my own will?Oh, not since life began.
Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbentBy these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood,Themselves obedient,Knowing not evil and good;
Obedient to some hidden magical breath.They do not even feel, so abstract are they,So dead beyond our death,Triumph that we obey.
About this text
The Double Vision of Michael Robartes I 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 Double Vision of Michael Robartes I, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/the-double-vision-of-michael-robartes-i.html, id L20040.
Form and metre
The Double Vision of Michael Robartes I is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 eyeA · bornB · skyA · hornB
- 2 ABAB stillA · manB · willA · beganB
- 3 ABAB unbentA · woodB · obedientA · goodB
- 4 ABAB breathA · theyB · deathA · obeyB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| On the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye | 10 | ·········· |
| Has called up the cold spirits that are born | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| When the old moon is vanished from the sky | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And the new still hides her horn. | 7 | ······· |
| Under blank eyes and fingers never still | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| The particular is pounded till it is man, | 11 | ·˘/˘·/˘···· |
| When had I my own will? | 6 | ······ |
| Oh, not since life began. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent | 10 | ˘/˘//˘···· |
| By these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood, | 10 | ··//˘····· |
| Themselves obedient, | 6 | ˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Knowing not evil and good; | 7 | /˘·/˘·· |
| Obedient to some hidden magical breath. | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘/˘· |
| They do not even feel, so abstract are they, | 10 | ···/··˘/·· |
| So dead beyond our death, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Triumph that we obey. | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
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.