Mongan Laments the Change That Has Come upon Him and His Beloved
Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns!I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fearUnder my feet that they follow you night and day.A man with a hazel wand came without sound;He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;And now my calling is but the calling of a hound;And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.I would that the boar without bristles had come from the WestAnd had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the skyAnd lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.
Words in this poem
- somebody n.
- A person unknown or uncertain; a person indeterminate; some person.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mongan Laments the Change That Has Come upon Him and His Beloved 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, Mongan Laments the Change That Has Come upon Him and His Beloved, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/mongan-laments-the-change-that-has-come-upon-him-and-his-bel.html, id L04526.
Form and metre
Mongan Laments the Change That Has Come upon Him and His Beloved is 12 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEF. 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.6 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABABCDCDEFEF hornsA · earB · thornsA · fearB · dayC · soundD · wayC · houndD · byE · westF · skyE · restF
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns! | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| I have been changed to a hound with one red ear; | 11 | ··········· |
| I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns, | 13 | ············· |
| For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear | 14 | ·/˘˘·/˘···˘/·· |
| Under my feet that they follow you night and day. | 12 | ······/˘···· |
| A man with a hazel wand came without sound; | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way; | 13 | ···/˘··/˘˘/˘· |
| And now my calling is but the calling of a hound; | 13 | ···/˘···/˘··· |
| And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| I would that the boar without bristles had come from the West | 14 | ·······/˘····· |
| And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky | 14 | ··/˘·········· |
| And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest. | 14 | ····/˘/˘·/˘··· |
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.