An Acre of Grass by W. B. Yeats: Thorough Analysis Stanzawise (line by line)/line by line explanation of "An Acre of Grass" by Yeats
An Acre of Grass by W. B. Yeats: Thorough Analysis Stanzawise (line by line)/line by line explanation of "An Acre of Grass" by Yeats William Butler Yeats was born in 1865 and he breathed his last in 1939. After his superannuation from all kinds of public activities in 1932, the poet determined to permanently settle in Riversdale. The poem An Acre of Grass , published in Yeats’ Last Poems , was composed in about 1936 to 1937. So, as we see, the poem was composed in the last phase of his life. The poem is structurally composed of four six-line stanzas. That is to say, it is written in four stanzas of six lines each. Let us now analyse the poem thoroughly below: Stanza 1 When an old man is at the last phase of his life, when he is at life’s end, when he is at the brink of death, he has to chiefly depend upon the descriptions in “Picture and book” for “An acre of green grass” to have fresh “air and exercise”. Note the poet’s expression in the very opening line of the poem: