Analysis of The Rune-Master
Padraic Colum 1881 (County Longford) – 1972 (Enfield)
ARCH-SCHOLAR they'll call you,
Kuno Mayer,
Who know the word
Behind the word
The men of learning . . .
But who will tell them
Of the blackbird
That your heart held?
On an old thorn-tree
By an ancient rath
You heard him sing,
And with runes you charmed him
Till he stayed with you,
Giving clear song.
He sang o'er all
That Maravaun
Told King Guire;
And he told you how
Bran heard the singing
Of a lovely woman
And sailed for Faerie;
And of how slain princes
Kept tryst with women
Loved beyond
The pain of death,
In days when still
The boat of Mananaun
Bore towards Eirinn!
Arch-scholar they'll call you
Nay, Rune-master!
You read in texts
Not words only,
But runes of old time;
And when you spoke them
A curlew cried
Over grass-waste Tara,
And a cuckoo called
From the height of Cashel,
And an eagle flew
From Emain Macha!
Ochone, ochone!
That we'll see no more
In the Eastern or
The Western World
Your great head over
The lectern bending,
Nor hear your lore
By a pleasant fireside.
But the runes you've read
Have given us more
Than the sword might win us:
May kind saints of Eirinn
Be beside you
Where birds on the Living
Tree sing the Hours!
Scheme | Abccdecx fxdxax ghxxdhbxhxxxhh Abxfxeijxgaj hkkxbdki xkxhadx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (36%) |
Metre | 110111 110 1101 0101 01110 11111 1010 1111 11111 11101 1111 011111 11111 1011 11101 11 111 01111 11010 101010 0111 011110 11110 101 0111 0111 0111 1011 110111 1110 1101 1110 11111 01111 011 101110 0011 10111 01101 1110 11 11111 00101 0101 11110 01010 1111 101010 10111 11011 101111 11111 1011 111010 11010 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,096 |
Words | 215 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6, 14, 12, 8, 7 |
Lines Amount | 55 |
Letters per line (avg) | 16 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 149 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 66 Views
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