Writing Craft
Your Verbs Aren’t Lifting Enough: How to Write Like Yeats
Make your adjectives more epic, too
You are what you eat, and you write what you read. Though there have been fair questions about who gets to decide what is canon, some writers survive the test of time for a reason.
Yeats is one of those titans. The poet was a master of his craft. Below I’ll show two poems, and we’ll walk through a simple exercise. It’s best if you print this out and use different colored pens or pencils so that you can see it for yourself. First circle or highlight the verbs, then the adjectives and adverbs, then the nouns.
Notice any themes within each part of speech. What you’ll find is that William Butler Yeats was very particular about choosing specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives and adverbs that 1) fit a certain theme, and 2) enhanced the theme of the overall poem.
Here is the first poem, “He bids his Beloved be at Peace”:
I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.
Here is the second poem, “He Gives his Beloved certain Rhymes”:
Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,
And bind up your long hair and sigh;
And all men’s hearts must burn and beat;
And candle-like foam on the dim sand,
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.
Again, if you can, pause here print the poems and do the exercise mentioned above. If you can’t print or mark up a screenshot, try at least noting with your eyes where the verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and nouns are.
Analyzing “He bids his Beloved be at Peace”
For a poem that wishes peace, it’s actually quite dark. Some of the imagery is even sinister. This irony between the poem’s pleasant title and its troubled contents is constructed with careful word choices.
Verbs
Here are the verbs:
I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.
Note how the verbs are heavy and negative (passing away, is pouring, weeps, plunge). Even the verbs in the lines where Yeats describes intimate touch are heavy and negative, conveying a sense of ending and of closing off (close, beat, fall, drowning, hiding). Since verbs are the active part of speech, this evokes a sense of moving towards negative, dark places.
Adjectives and Adverbs
Here are the adjectives and adverbs:
I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.
Notice how the adjectives speak to a sense of impending disaster. There’s a sense of uneasy movement (tumultuous), especially using verbs-as-adjectives (tossing, a-shake, glimmering). It’s not enough that it’s twilight, it’s “deep “twilight. “Heavy,” “hidden,” and “lonely” contribute to the dark, oppressive atmosphere.
Though we will discuss “Shadowy Horses” in the nouns sections (since the capitalization suggests the entire phrase is a proper noun), it’s worth noting Yeats did not describe the horses as magnificent or proud, but as shadowy. This further enhances a sense of foreboding and unease.
Notes:
- I am assuming “glimmering white” is an adverb & adjective descriptor for “eyes” the way “heavy” is an adjective for “hoofs.” This assumption would lead to symmetry between the first and second parts of the second line. It could also be the case Yeats intended “glimmering” to be a verb.
- Though love is a noun, “love’s” is an adjective describing “hour” (or “lonely hour”)
Nouns
Here are the nouns:
I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.
Notice the proper nouns. Yeats uses them to transform intangibles into tangibles. Specifically, he anthropomorphizes directions (The North, The East, The West, the South) and zoomorphizes Sleep, Hope, Dream, and Desire. For the latter, even though they’re generally considered positive, he groups them as “The Horses of Disaster,” presumably the same “Shadowy Horses” he refers to in the first line. This conveys his angst around love and how it can be so powerful that it becomes destructive.
He draws parallels between the body parts of the horses (eyes, manes, hoofs), the narrator, and the “Beloved” person being addressed (eyes, hair, heart, breast). In this way, he builds a connection between the “tumultuous” “Shadowy Horses” of “Sleep, Hope, Dream, [and] endless Desire” and the two lovers. Like the Horses, the lovers are quaking and uneasy.
Notes:
- Technically “away” is a preposition, but I group it together with “passing away” since the preposition transforms the verb. “Passing away” means “to die,” which “passing” doesn’t necessarily mean on its own.
- In contrast, “pouring” is verb that can stand on its own, which is why I don’t group it together with “down,” a preposition that describes the direction of “pouring.”
- “Half” is an adverb describing the verb “close.”
Recapping the first poem
To recap, the verbs lead to a sense of disaster, the adjectives and adverbs further evoke a sense of impending disaster, and the nouns tie together contradictory images of lightness and darkness (“Hope” like a “Shadowy Horse”, the tumultuous feet and tossing manes of a horse with two lovers’ beating hearts and draping hair).
Analyzing “He gives his Beloved certain Rhymes”
Let’s move on to the second poem. Right away you’ll spot this poem doesn’t have as much dark imagery as the first. There is still a sense of angst around a “Beloved” who seems unattainable, but through completely different word choices, Yeats provides a structure and light that is absent in the previous poem.
Verbs
Here are the verbs:
Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,
And bind up your long hair and sigh;
And all men’s hearts must burn and beat;
And candle-like foam on the dim sand,
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.
Right away you can see many of the verbs invoke construction (bind, build, fasten). While others are more generally kinetic (burn, beat, climbing), the construction-based verbs in particular add structure and direction to the general sense of urgency and movement.
Moreover, notice how Yeats contrasts the relatively gentle or even passive verbs that describe “Her” actions (lift, sigh) with the active, striving verbs of men who look upon “Her” (the men “burn” and “beat”). The natural elements are also in a serving nature towards “Her” (the stars “climb” to “light” her path).
Adjectives and Adverbs
Here are the adjectives and adverbs:
Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,
And bind up your long hair and sigh;
And all men’s hearts must burn and beat;
And candle-like foam on the dim sand,
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.
Notice the use of gerunds (wandering, passing). This use of verbs-as -adjectives invokes a sense of fleetingness. Her beauty is ephemeral, not only to herself (as she ages), but perhaps more importantly to the narrator: he can only capture her beauty in passing, so precious are the few moments he gets to gaze upon her.
Similar to his choice of nouns, Yeats chooses adjectives that invoke nature (dew-dropping), including rare elements (golden, pearl-pale). This strengthens the connection between her, a mere human, and awe-inspiring nature.
In contrast, the adjectives describing the men looking upon “Her” suggest either a feeble, fragile nature (candle-like, dim), or a tortured effortful struggle (sorrowful; old; day out, day in). Thus, in contrast to her effortless beauty, always in motion, men struggle to capture her, even in passing.
Note:
- Though “day” is a verb, “day out, day in” is an idiom that functions like an adverb for “worked” (in place of “day out, day in,” you can say that the heart worked tirelessly, or continuously).
Nouns
Here are the nouns:
Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,
And bind up your long hair and sigh;
And all men’s hearts must burn and beat;
And candle-like foam on the dim sand,
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.
In both the first and second stanza, Yeats references body parts (hair, hand). In the first stanza, these are offset by “battles of old times,” which seems to suggest that her beauty invokes an epic struggle. This epic scale is continued in the second stanza, where many of the nouns are elements of nature (sand, sky, stars). In this way, he draws a parallel between her beauty and nature, suggesting she is transcendental, both terrible and awe-inspiring.
Recapping the second poem
To recap, Yeats uses verbs to evoke a sense of toil and labor, he uses adjectives and adverbs to evoke the Beloved’s ethereal quality and the narrator’s melancholy. In particular, he uses gerunds — verbs ending in “ing” — to evoke a sense of the Beloved’s fleetingness. By highlighting body parts and nature in his nouns, Yeats implies the Beloved is like a force of nature. Men strive to capture her for themselves but can never contain her.
Comparing across poems
Let’s compare across poems. In the first poem, the verbs are wildly kinetic and therefore evoke a sense of impending disaster, while in the second they evoke the sweat of toil and labor. The verbs in the second poem are structured and striving towards something, unlike the chaotic, unfocused verbs in the first poem.
In the first poem, the adjectives and adverbs evoke a sense of disaster, but in the second they evoke the Beloved’s ethereal effortlessness and mercurialness. The colors in the first are dark (crimson, deep twilight) or white as if blanched by panic (glimmering white eyes, pale teardrops). In the second, the colors are iridescent and vibrant (golden, pearl-pale) except when talking about men, who are like “foam on the dim sand.”
In the first, the nouns tie together the human body and nature to imply the Beloved is like a force of nature, while in the second, Yeats uses proper nouns to imply love is like a terrible, transcendental force. The parallels to nature are generally quite terrifying in the first, while more positive in the second. The main point in both is how love and the object of our love can be awe-inspiring.
The two poems are the sum of their words, and the words are the sum of Yeat’s incredible grasp on language. Before rhythm and rhyme, why don’t you think of different themes for your verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and nouns? Even for us prose-writers, there’s something to learn from the poets. Is every word of yours lifting its weight? Does it don the same uniform as its respective part of speech, and do those parts of speech in turn weave together to form a larger theme for the poem?
Try being more thoughtful in your choice of verb, adjectives and adverbs, and nouns.
