Two Songs Rewritten For The Tune's Sake

William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)



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

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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