The Grey Rock Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFE FCGCGGHGHIFJFK FKFGCGCGCG LMLNFGFGGF F GGGGOFPFFFFFGFGF GGGGCG GCGQCQCGGGGHRHRSCSCG TGTUVUWGFGFGTGTGCGCG XGYFF IGIGCICI GGGGFGFGPoets with whom I learned my trade | A |
Companions of the Cheshire Cheese | B |
Here's an old story I've remade | A |
Imagining 'twould better please | B |
Your cars than stories now in fashion | C |
Though you may think I waste my breath | D |
Pretending that there can be passion | C |
That has more life in it than death | D |
And though at bottling of your wine | E |
Old wholesome Goban had no say | F |
The moral's yours because it's mine | E |
- | |
When cups went round at close of day | F |
Is not that how good stories run | C |
The gods were sitting at the board | G |
In their great house at Slievenamon | C |
They sang a drowsy song Or snored | G |
For all were full of wine and meat | G |
The smoky torches made a glare | H |
On metal Goban 'd hammered at | G |
On old deep silver rolling there | H |
Or on somc still unemptied cup | I |
That he when frenzy stirred his thews | F |
Had hammered out on mountain top | J |
To hold the sacred stuff he brews | F |
That only gods may buy of him | K |
- | |
Now from that juice that made them wise | F |
All those had lifted up the dim | K |
Imaginations of their eyes | F |
For one that was like woman made | G |
Before their sleepy eyelids ran | C |
And trembling with her passion said | G |
'Come out and dig for a dead man | C |
Who's burrowing Somewhere in the ground | G |
And mock him to his face and then | C |
Hollo him on with horse and hound | G |
For he is the worst of all dead men ' | - |
- | |
We should be dazed and terror struck | L |
If we but saw in dreams that room | M |
Those wine drenched eyes and curse our luck | L |
That empticd all our days to come | N |
I knew a woman none could please | F |
Because she dreamed when but a child | G |
Of men and women made like these | F |
And after when her blood ran wild | G |
Had ravelled her own story out | G |
And said 'In two or in three years | F |
I needs must marry some poor lout ' | - |
And having said it burst in tears | F |
- | |
Since tavern comrades you have died | G |
Maybe your images have stood | G |
Mere bone and muscle thrown aside | G |
Before that roomful or as good | G |
You had to face your ends when young | O |
'Twas wine or women or some curse | F |
But never made a poorer song | P |
That you might have a heavier purse | F |
Nor gave loud service to a cause | F |
That you might have a troop of friends | F |
You kept the Muses' sterner laws | F |
And unrepenting faced your ends | F |
And therefore earned the right and yet | G |
Dowson and Johnson most I praise | F |
To troop with those the world's forgot | G |
And copy their proud steady gaze | F |
- | |
'The Danish troop was driven out | G |
Between the dawn and dusk ' she said | G |
'Although the event was long in doubt | G |
Although the King of Ireland's dead | G |
And half the kings before sundown | C |
All was accomplished | G |
- | |
'When this day | G |
Murrough the King of Ireland's son | C |
Foot after foot was giving way | G |
He and his best troops back to back | Q |
Had perished there but the Danes ran | C |
Stricken with panic from the attack | Q |
The shouting of an unseen man | C |
And being thankful Murrough found | G |
Led by a footsole dipped in blood | G |
That had made prints upon the ground | G |
Where by old thorn trees that man stood | G |
And though when he gazed here and there | H |
He had but gazed on thorn trees spoke | R |
Who is the friend that seems but air | H |
And yet could give so fine a stroke | R |
Thereon a young man met his eye | S |
Who said Because she held me in | C |
Her love and would not have me die | S |
Rock nurtured Aoife took a pin | C |
And pushing it into my shirt | G |
Promised that for a pin's sake | T |
No man should see to do me hurt | G |
But there it's gone I will not take | T |
The fortune that had been my shame | U |
Seeing King's son what wounds you have | V |
'Twas roundly spoke but when night came | U |
He had betrayed me to his grave | W |
For he and the King's son were dead | G |
I'd promised him two hundred years | F |
And when for all I'd done or said | G |
And these immortal eyes shed tears | F |
He claimed his country's need was most | G |
I'd saved his life yet for the sake | T |
Of a new friend he has turned a ghost | G |
What does he cate if my heart break | T |
I call for spade and horse and hound | G |
That we may harry him ' Thereon | C |
She cast herself upon the ground | G |
And rent her clothes and made her moan | C |
'Why are they faithless when their might | G |
Is from the holy shades that rove | X |
The grey rock and the windy light | G |
Why should the faithfullest heart most love | Y |
The bitter sweetness of false faces | F |
Why must the lasting love what passes | F |
Why are the gods by men betrayed ' | - |
- | |
But thereon every god stood up | I |
With a slow smile and without sound | G |
And Stretching forth his arm and cup | I |
To where she moaned upon the ground | G |
Suddenly drenched her to the skin | C |
And she with Goban's wine adrip | I |
No more remembering what had been | C |
Stared at the gods with laughing lip | I |
- | |
I have kept my faith though faith was tried | G |
To that rock born rock wandering foot | G |
And thc world's altered since you died | G |
And I am in no good repute | G |
With the loud host before the sea | F |
That think sword strokes were better meant | G |
Than lover's music let that be | F |
So that the wandering foot's content | G |
William Butler Yeats
(1)
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