The Grey Rock Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFE FCGCGGHGHIFJFK FKFGCGCGCG LMLNFGFGGF F GGGGOFPFFFFFGFGF GGGGCG GCGQCQCGGGGHRHRSCSCG TGTUVUWGFGFGTGTGCGCG XGYFF IGIGCICI GGGGFGFG| Poets 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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About The Grey Rock
The Grey Rock is a poem by William Butler Yeats. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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