Analysis of The O'Rahilly
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
SING of the O'Rahilly,
Do not deny his right;
Sing a 'the' before his name;
Allow that he, despite
All those learned historians,
Established it for good;
He wrote out that word himself,
He christened himself with blood.
How goes the weather?
Sing of the O'Rahilly
That had such little sense
He told Pearse and Connolly
He'd gone to great expense
Keeping all the Kerry men
Out of that crazy fight;
That he might be there himself
Had travelled half the night.
How goes the weather?
'Am I such a craven that
I should not get the word
But for what some travelling man
Had heard I had not heard?'
Then on pearse and Connolly
He fixed a bitter look:
'Because I helped to wind the clock
I come to hear it strike.'
How goes the weather?
What remains to sing about
But of the death he met
Stretched under a doorway
Somewhere off Henry Street;
They that found him found upon
The door above his head
'Here died the O'Rahilly.
R.I.P.' writ in blood.
How goes the weather.?
Scheme | AbxbxxcdE AfafxbcbE xgxgaxxxE xxxxxxadE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101100 110111 1000111 011101 1110100 010111 1111101 1100111 11010 1101100 111101 1110100 111101 1010101 111101 1111101 110101 11010 1110101 111101 11111001 111111 1110100 110101 01111101 111111 11010 1011101 110111 11001 11101 1111101 010111 1101100 1101 11010 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 933 |
Words | 186 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 9, 9, 9 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 187 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 10, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 132 Views
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"The O'Rahilly" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39521/the-o%27rahilly>.
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