이 논문은 시의 후렴을 예이츠가 어떻게 사용하는지 보기 위해 전반적 이고 개별적인 가까이 읽기를 한다. 요약, 강조, 및 전후 연결도구로서 구어시에서 생긴 것이 후렴이다. 예이츠는 이 구어시의 기법을 평생 사용하는데, 시의 모티브와 주제를 강하게 표현하는 방법으로 반복을 사용한다. 그는 초기시와 말기시에서 이 후렴 을 집중적으로 사용한다. 자유시가 범람하는 당대의 시에서, 오랜 시의 전통에서 얻은 예이츠의 예는 좋은 모델이 된다. ｢긴 다리 소금쟁이｣같은 시들의 면밀한 분석은 예이츠가 후렴을 사용하여 얻는 미묘하고 강렬한 의미 만들기의 예를 잘 보여준다.

As a genre of folk song, the ballad is impersonal in that it often depicts something beyond the personal attitude or emotion of a poet. Yeats, to simplify the diction of his poetry, tried to use the metaphor of ballad, which is a material appropriate to human experience and instinct. As an important device of the ballads, the ‘refrain’ of his poetry is especially marked. The refrain (that is, verbal repetitions) may be a word or a line or groups of words or lines, and appears at the end of each stanza. In addition, Yeats’s use of the refrain is remarkable in his later poetry, particularly in The Winding Stair. The refrain may be without meanings, serving for some musical effect, as in some poems of the Elizabethan Age but it may give life to the language as Friedrich Schiller points out. This essay tries to divide the function of refrain into four types, despite the danger of making Yeats’s poetic range look limited. All the poems are not ruled by only one function but, in part, some poems appear to be with mixed functions. First, the refrain emphasizes poet’s theme through ironic meaning, as in the poems of ‘September 1913,’ and ‘‘The Curse of Cromwell’ and ‘The Three Bushes.’ Secondly, the refrain brings about mystery by the images of silent stillness, as in the poem of ‘Long-legged Fly’ and ‘The Apparitions.’ Thirdly, the refrain may give life to the language in conversion of the meaning, as in the poem of ‘What then?’ Fourthly, the refrain shows nonsense or meaningfulness, as in the poem of ‘The Pilgrim.’ This ‘nonsense’ speaks for his view of life in his later period, and reveals his willing acception of tragic nihilism.