The Double Vision of Michael Robartes III
I knew that I had seen, had seen at lastThat girl my unremembering nights hold fastOr else my dreams that fly,If I should rub an eye,
And yet in flying fling into my meatA crazy juice that makes the pulses beatAs though I had been undoneBy Homer's Paragon
Who never gave the burning town a thought;To such a pitch of folly I am brought,Being caught between the pullOf the dark moon and the full,
The commonness of thought and imagesThat have the frenzy of our Western seas.Thereon I made my moan,And after kissed a stone,
And after that arranged it in a songSeeing that I, ignorant for so long,Had been rewarded thusIn Cormac's ruined house.
Words in this poem
- undone a.
- Not done or performed; neglected. [Pref. un- not + done.]
- paragon n.
- A companion; a match; an equal.
- thereon adv.
- On that or this. [AS. . See There, and On.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Double Vision of Michael Robartes III 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 III, 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-iii.html, id L20042.
Form and metre
The Double Vision of Michael Robartes III is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 AABB lastA · fastA · flyB · eyeB
- 2 AA-- meatA · beatA · undone · paragon
- 3 AABB thoughtA · broughtA · pullB · fullB
- 4 AABB imagesA · seasA · moanB · stoneB
- 5 AA-- songA · longA · thus · house
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 knew that I had seen, had seen at last | 10 | ·········· |
| That girl my unremembering nights hold fast | 11 | ··········· |
| Or else my dreams that fly, | 6 | ······ |
| If I should rub an eye, | 6 | ······ |
| And yet in flying fling into my meat | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| As though I had been undone | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| By Homer's Paragon | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Who never gave the burning town a thought; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| To such a pitch of folly I am brought, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Being caught between the pull | 7 | /˘····· |
| Of the dark moon and the full, | 7 | ······· |
| The commonness of thought and images | 10 | ·/˘˘···/˘˘ |
| That have the frenzy of our Western seas. | 10 | ···/˘·//˘· |
| Thereon I made my moan, | 6 | ˘/···· |
| And after kissed a stone, | 6 | ······ |
| And after that arranged it in a song | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Seeing that I, ignorant for so long, | 10 | /˘··/˘˘··· |
| Had been rewarded thus | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| In Cormac's ruined house. | 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.