Aedh Hears the Cry of the Sedge
I wander by the edgeOf this desolate lakeWhere wind cries in the sedgeUntil the axle breakThat keeps the stars in their roundAnd hands hurl in the deepThe banners of East and WestAnd the girdle of light is unbound,Your breast will not lie by the breastOf your beloved in sleep.
About this text
Aedh Hears the Cry of the Sedge 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, Aedh Hears the Cry of the Sedge, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/aedh-hears-the-cry-of-the-sedge.html, id L04538.
Form and metre
Aedh Hears the Cry of the Sedge is 10 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDECED. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.8 syllables. 80% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABABCDECED edgeA · lakeB · sedgeA · breakB · roundC · deepD · westE · unboundC · breastE · sleepD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I wander by the edge | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Of this desolate lake | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Where wind cries in the sedge | 6 | ······ |
| Until the axle break | 6 | ···/˘· |
| That keeps the stars in their round | 7 | ······· |
| And hands hurl in the deep | 6 | ······ |
| The banners of East and West | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| And the girdle of light is unbound, | 9 | ··/˘···˘/ |
| Your breast will not lie by the breast | 8 | ········ |
| Of your beloved in sleep. | 7 | ··˘/˘·· |
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.