The Winding Stair Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCADEFD GHIGJKKJ LMNLOPPO QRSTUVVN WXXWYFFY ZA2NB2C2LD2E2 GF2F2G2H2F2F2H2 I2J2J2I2K2L2M2D N2O2P2N2Q2PPQ2| My Soul I summon to the winding ancient stair | A |
| Set all your mind upon the steep ascent | B |
| Upon the broken crumbling battlement | C |
| Upon the breathless starlit air | A |
| 'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole | D |
| Fix every wandering thought upon | E |
| That quarter where all thought is done | F |
| Who can distinguish darkness from the soul | D |
| - | |
| My Self The consecretes blade upon my knees | G |
| Is Sato's ancient blade still as it was | H |
| Still razor keen still like a looking glass | I |
| Unspotted by the centuries | G |
| That flowering silken old embroidery torn | J |
| From some court lady's dress and round | K |
| The wodden scabbard bound and wound | K |
| Can tattered still protect faded adorn | J |
| - | |
| My Soul Why should the imagination of a man | L |
| Long past his prime remember things that are | M |
| Emblematical of love and war | N |
| Think of ancestral night that can | L |
| If but imagination scorn the earth | O |
| And intellect is wandering | P |
| To this and that and t'other thing | P |
| Deliver from the crime of death and birth | O |
| - | |
| My Self Montashigi third of his family fashioned it | Q |
| Five hundred years ago about it lie | R |
| Flowers from I know not what embroidery | S |
| Heart's purple and all these I set | T |
| For emblems of the day against the tower | U |
| Emblematical of the night | V |
| And claim as by a soldier's right | V |
| A charter to commit the crime once more | N |
| - | |
| My Soul Such fullness in that quarter overflows | W |
| And falls into the basin of the mind | X |
| That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind | X |
| For intellect no longer knows | W |
| Is from the Ought or knower from the Known | Y |
| That is to say ascends to Heaven | F |
| Only the dead can be forgiven | F |
| But when I think of that my tongue's a stone | Y |
| - | |
| II | - |
| - | |
| My Self A living man is blind and drinks his drop | Z |
| What matter if the ditches are impure | A2 |
| What matter if I live it all once more | N |
| Endure that toil of growing up | B2 |
| The ignominy of boyhood the distress | C2 |
| Of boyhood changing into man | L |
| The unfinished man and his pain | D2 |
| Brought face to face with his own clumsiness | E2 |
| - | |
| The finished man among his enemies | G |
| How in the name of Heaven can he escape | F2 |
| That defiling and disfigured shape | F2 |
| The mirror of malicious eyes | G2 |
| Casts upon his eyes until at last | H2 |
| He thinks that shape must be his shape | F2 |
| And what's the good of an escape | F2 |
| If honour find him in the wintry blast | H2 |
| - | |
| I am content to live it all again | I2 |
| And yet again if it be life to pitch | J2 |
| Into the frog spawn of a blind man's ditch | J2 |
| A blind man battering blind men | I2 |
| Or into that most fecund ditch of all | K2 |
| The folly that man does | L2 |
| Or must suffer if he woos | M2 |
| A proud woman not kindred of his soul | D |
| - | |
| I am content to follow to its source | N2 |
| Every event in action or in thought | O2 |
| Measure the lot forgive myself the lot | P2 |
| When such as I cast out remorse | N2 |
| So great a sweetness flows into the breast | Q2 |
| We must laugh and we must sing | P |
| We are blest by everything | P |
| Everything we look upon is blest | Q2 |
William Butler Yeats
(1)
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About The Winding Stair
The Winding Stair is a poem by William Butler Yeats. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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