Two Songs Rewritten For The Tune's Sake



I
My Paistin Finn is my sole desire,
And I am shrunken to skin and bone,
For all my heart has had for its hire
Is what I can whistle alone and alone.
Oro, oro.!
Tomorrow night I will break down the door.
What is the good of a man and he
Alone and alone, with a speckled shin?
I would that I drank with my love on my knee
Between two barrels at the inn.
Oro, oro.!

To-morrow night I will break down the door.
Alone and alone nine nights I lay
Between two bushes under the rain;
I thought to have whistled her down that
I whistled and whistled and whistled in vain.
Oro, oro!
To-morrow night I will break down the door.

II
I would that I were an old beggar
Rolling a blind pearl eye,
For he cannot see my lady
Go gallivanting by;
A dreary, dreepy beggar
Without a friend on the earth
But a thieving rascally cur --
O a beggar blind from his birth;
Or anything else but a rhymer
Without a thing in his head
But rhymes for a beautiful lady,
He rhyming alone in his bed.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

59 sec read
72

Quick analysis:

Scheme abcbcDefgfgD ExhxhDE abafabibibjfj
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 942
Words 197
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 12, 7, 13

William Butler Yeats

 · 1865 · Sandymount

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. more…

All William Butler Yeats poems | William Butler Yeats Books

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