A Cradle Song
The Danann children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast,And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me.Desolate winds that cry over the wandering sea;Desolate winds that hover in the flaming West;Desolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven, and beatThe doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost;O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable hostIs comelier than candles before Maurya's feet.
Words in this poem
- whitening n.
- The act or process of making or becoming white.
- hover n.
- A cover; a shelter; a protection. Carew. C. Kingsley. [Etymol. doubtful.]
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Cradle Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Wind Among the Reeds, Project Gutenberg ebook #32233; 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, A Cradle Song, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/a-cradle-song.html, id L04519.
Form and metre
A Cradle Song is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.8 syllables. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 ABBACDDCEFFE goldA · eyesB · fliesB · coldA · breastC · meD · seaD · westC · beatE · ghostF · hostF · feetE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The Danann children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold, | 12 | ···/˘··/˘··· |
| And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes, | 12 | ····˘/˘····· |
| For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies, | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold: | 12 | ·/˘/˘····/˘· |
| I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast, | 12 | ···/˘······· |
| And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me. | 12 | ···/˘·/˘···· |
| Desolate winds that cry over the wandering sea; | 12 | /˘······/˘˘· |
| Desolate winds that hover in the flaming West; | 12 | /˘˘··/˘··/˘· |
| Desolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven, and beat | 12 | /˘·······/·· |
| The doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost; | 12 | ·······/·/˘· |
| O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable host | 14 | ·····/˘······· |
| Is comelier than candles before Maurya's feet. | 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.