His Phoenix Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCBC DEDFBCBC GHI BCBC JBKBICIC| There is a queen in China or maybe it's in Spain | A |
| And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard | B |
| Of her unblemished lineaments a whiteness with no stain | A |
| That she might be that sprightly girl trodden by a bird | B |
| And there's a score of duchesses surpassing womankind | B |
| Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay | C |
| And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind | B |
| I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day | C |
| - | |
| The young men every night applaud their Gaby's laughing eye | D |
| And Ruth St Denis had more charm although she had poor luck | E |
| From nineteen hundred nine or ten Pavlova's had the cry | D |
| And there's a player in the States who gathers up her cloak | F |
| And flings herself out of the room when Juliet would be bride | B |
| With all a woman's passion a child's imperious way | C |
| And there are but no matter if there are scores beside | B |
| I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day | C |
| - | |
| There's Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan | G |
| A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy | H |
| One's had her fill of lovers another's had but one | I |
| Another boasts 'I pick and choose and have but two or three ' | - |
| If head and limb have beauty and the instep's high and light | B |
| They can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say | C |
| Be but the breakers of men's hearts or engines of delight | B |
| I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day | C |
| - | |
| There'll be that crowd that barbarous crowd through all the centuries | J |
| And who can say but some young belle may walk and talk men wild | B |
| Who is my beauty's equal though that my heart denies | K |
| But not the exact likeness the simplicity of a child | B |
| And that proud look as though she had gazed into the burning sun | I |
| And all the shapely body no tittle gone astray | C |
| I mourn for that most lonely thing and yet God's will be done | I |
| I knew a phoenix in my youth so let them have their day | C |
William Butler Yeats
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