To a Young Beauty
Dear fellow-artist, why so freeWith every sort of company,With every Jack and Jill?Choose your companions from the best;Who draws a bucket with the restSoon topples down the hill.
You may, that mirror for a school,Be passionate, not bountifulAs common beauties may,Who were not born to keep in trimWith old Ezekiel's cherubimBut those of Beaujolet.
I know what wages beauty gives,How hard a life her servant lives,Yet praise the winters gone;There is not a fool can call me friend,And I may dine at journey's endWith Landor and with Donne.
Words in this poem
- artist n.
- One who practices some mechanic art or craft; an artisan. [F. artiste, LL. artista, fr. L. ars. See Art, n., and cf. Artiste.]
- jill n.
- A young woman; a sweetheart. See Gill. Beau. & Fl. [See Gill sweetheart.]
- bountiful a.
- Free in giving; liberal in bestowing gifts and favors.
- cherubim n.
- The Hebrew plural of Cherub.. Cf. Seraphim.
- dine v. i.
- To eat the principal regular meal of the day; to take dinner. [F. dîner, OF. disner, LL. disnare, contr. fr. an assumed disjunare; dis- + an assumed junare (OF. juner) to fast, for L. jejunare, fr. jejunus fasting. See Jeju]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To a Young Beauty 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, To a Young Beauty, in The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32491, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wild-swans/to-a-young-beauty.html, id L20007.
Form and metre
To a Young Beauty is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 --ABBA free · company · jillA · bestB · restB · hillA
- 2 AAB--B schoolA · bountifulA · mayB · trim · cherubim · beaujoletB
- 3 AA-BB- givesA · livesA · gone · friendB · endB · donne
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dear fellow-artist, why so free | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| With every sort of company, | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘˘ |
| With every Jack and Jill? | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| Choose your companions from the best; | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Who draws a bucket with the rest | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Soon topples down the hill. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| You may, that mirror for a school, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Be passionate, not bountiful | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘˘ |
| As common beauties may, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Who were not born to keep in trim | 8 | ········ |
| With old Ezekiel's cherubim | 8 | ··/˘·/˘˘ |
| But those of Beaujolet. | 6 | ······ |
| I know what wages beauty gives, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| How hard a life her servant lives, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Yet praise the winters gone; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| There is not a fool can call me friend, | 9 | ········· |
| And I may dine at journey's end | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| With Landor and with Donne. | 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.