The Song of the Old Mother
I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blowTill the seed of the fire flicker and glow;And then I must scrub and bake and sweepTill stars are beginning to blink and peep;And the young lie long and dream in their bedOf the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,And their day goes over in idleness,And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:While I must work because I am old,And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.
Words in this poem
- kneel v. i.
- To bend the knee; to fall or rest on the knees; -- sometimes with down. [OE. knelen, cneolien; akin to D. knielen, Dan. knæle. See Knee.]
- flicker v. i.
- To flutter; to flap the wings without flying. [OE. flikeren, flekeren, to flutter, AS. flicerian, flicorian, cf. D. flikkeren to sparkle. Flacker.]
- bake v. t.
- To prepare, as food, by cooking in a dry heat, either in an oven or under coals, or on heated stone or metal; as, to bake bread, meat, apples.
- blink v. i.
- To wink; to twinkle with, or as with, the eye. [OE. blenken; akin to dan. blinke, Sw. blinka, G. blinken to shine, glance, wink, twinkle, D. blinken to shine; and prob. to D. blikken to glance, twinkle, G. bl]
- tress n.
- A braid, knot, or curl, of hair; a ringlet. [OE. tresse, OF. trece, F. tresse, LL. tricia, fr. Gr. tri`cha threefold, because a tress is usually formed by interlacing three pieces; akin to trei^s three. Se]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Song of the Old Mother 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 Song of the Old Mother, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/the-song-of-the-old-mother.html, id L04522.
Form and metre
The Song of the Old Mother is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 30% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AABBCCDDEE blowA · glowA · sweepB · peepB · bedC · headC · idlenessD · tressD · oldE · coldE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow | 10 | ·········· |
| Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow; | 10 | ·····//˘·· |
| And then I must scrub and bake and sweep | 9 | ········· |
| Till stars are beginning to blink and peep; | 10 | ···˘/˘···· |
| And the young lie long and dream in their bed | 10 | ·········· |
| Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head, | 12 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| And their day goes over in idleness, | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress: | 10 | ·········· |
| While I must work because I am old, | 9 | ········· |
| And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold. | 11 | ·····/·/˘·· |
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.