The Moods
Time drops in decay,Like a candle burnt out,And the mountains and woodsHave their day, have their day;What one in the routOf the fire-born moods,Has fallen away?
About this text
The Moods 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, The Moods, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/the-moods.html, id L04515.
Form and metre
The Moods is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.6 syllables.
See other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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 AB-AB-A decayA · outB · woods · dayA · routB · moods · awayA
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Time drops in decay, | 5 | ···˘/ |
| Like a candle burnt out, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| And the mountains and woods | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Have their day, have their day; | 6 | ······ |
| What one in the rout | 5 | ····· |
| Of the fire-born moods, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Has fallen away? | 5 | ·/˘˘/ |
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.