Aedh Wishes His Beloved Were Dead
Were you but lying cold and dead,And lights were paling out of the West,You would come hither, and bend your head,And I would lay my head on your breast;And you would murmur tender words,Forgiving me, because you were dead:Nor would you rise and hasten away,Though you have the will of the wild birds,But know your hair was bound and woundAbout the stars and moon and sun:O would beloved that you layUnder the dock-leaves in the ground,While lights were paling one by one.
Words in this poem
- paling n.
- Pales, in general; a fence formed with pales or pickets; a limit; an inclosure.
- forgiving a.
- Disposed to forgive; inclined to overlook offenses; mild; merciful; compassionate; placable; as, a forgiving temper.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Aedh Wishes His Beloved Were Dead 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 Wishes His Beloved Were Dead, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/aedh-wishes-his-beloved-were-dead.html, id L04547.
Form and metre
Aedh Wishes His Beloved Were Dead is 13 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCADCEFDEF. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.5 syllables. 15% 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 ABABCADCEFDEF deadA · westB · headA · breastB · wordsC · deadA · awayD · birdsC · woundE · sunF · layD · groundE · oneF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Were you but lying cold and dead, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And lights were paling out of the West, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| You would come hither, and bend your head, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And I would lay my head on your breast; | 9 | ········· |
| And you would murmur tender words, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Forgiving me, because you were dead: | 9 | ˘/˘······ |
| Nor would you rise and hasten away, | 9 | ·····/˘˘/ |
| Though you have the will of the wild birds, | 9 | ········· |
| But know your hair was bound and wound | 8 | ········ |
| About the stars and moon and sun: | 8 | ········ |
| O would beloved that you lay | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Under the dock-leaves in the ground, | 8 | ········ |
| While lights were paling one by one. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
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.