Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty
When my arms wrap you round I pressMy heart upon the lovelinessThat has long faded from the world;The jewelled crowns that kings have hurledIn shadowy pools, when armies fled;The love-tales wove with silken threadBy dreaming ladies upon clothThat has made fat the murderous moth;The roses that of old time wereWoven by ladies in their hair,The dew-cold lilies ladies boreThrough many a sacred corridorWhere such gray clouds of incense roseThat only the gods' eyes did not close:For that pale breast and lingering handCome from a more dream-heavy land,A more dream-heavy hour than this;And when you sigh from kiss to kissI hear white Beauty sighing, too,For hours when all must fade like dewBut flame on flame, deep under deep,Throne over throne, where in half sleepTheir swords upon their iron kneesBrood her high lonely mysteries.
Words in this poem
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- wove
- p. pr. & rare vb. n. of Weave.
- corridor n.
- A gallery or passageway leading to several apartments of a house. [F., fr. Itt. corridpore, or Sp. corredor; prop., a runner, hence, a running or long line, a gallery, fr. L. currere to run. See Course.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty 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, Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/michael-robartes-remembers-forgotten-beauty.html, id L04529.
Form and metre
Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty is 24 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 83% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 58% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABBCCDD----EEFFGGHHIIJJ pressA · lovelinessA · worldB · hurledB · fledC · threadC · clothD · mothD · were · hair · bore · corridor · roseE · closeE · handF · landF · thisG · kissG · tooH · dewH · deepI · sleepI · kneesJ · mysteriesJ
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When my arms wrap you round I press | 8 | ········ |
| My heart upon the loveliness | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| That has long faded from the world; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In shadowy pools, when armies fled; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The love-tales wove with silken thread | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| By dreaming ladies upon cloth | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| That has made fat the murderous moth; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The roses that of old time were | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Woven by ladies in their hair, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| The dew-cold lilies ladies bore | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Through many a sacred corridor | 9 | ·/˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| Where such gray clouds of incense rose | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| That only the gods' eyes did not close: | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| For that pale breast and lingering hand | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Come from a more dream-heavy land, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A more dream-heavy hour than this; | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| And when you sigh from kiss to kiss | 8 | ········ |
| I hear white Beauty sighing, too, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| For hours when all must fade like dew | 8 | ·/······ |
| But flame on flame, deep under deep, | 8 | ········ |
| Throne over throne, where in half sleep | 8 | ········ |
| Their swords upon their iron knees | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Brood her high lonely mysteries. | 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.