The Tin-Whistle Player
Padraic Colum 1881 (County Longford) – 1972 (Enfield)
'Tis long since, long since, since I heard
A tin-whistle played,
And heard the tunes, the ha'penny tunes
That nobody made!
The tunes that were before Cendfind
And Cir went Ireland's rounds
That were before the surety
That strings have given sounds!
And now is standing in the mist,
And jigging backward there,
Shrilling with fingers and with breath,
A tin-whistle player!
He has hare's eyes, a long face rimmed
Around with badger-grey;
Aimless, like cries of mountain birds
The tunes he has to play
The tunes that are for stretches bare,
And men whose lives are lone
And I had seen that face of his
Sculptured on cross of stone,
That long face, in a place of graves
With nettles overgrown.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 122 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABXB ACXC XDXX XEXE DFXFXF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 676 |
Words | 124 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 6 |
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"The Tin-Whistle Player" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/28522/the-tin-whistle-player>.
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