Charm Against Enemies
Three things are of the Evil One--An evil eye,An evil tongue,An evil mind;Three things are of God, and these three are what Marytold to her Son, for she heard them in heaven--The merciful word,The singing word,And the good word.May the power of these three holy things be on all themen and women of Erin for evermore.
Words in this poem
- erin n.
- An early, and now a poetic, name of Ireland. [Ir. Cf. Aryan.]
- evermore adv.
- During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Charm Against Enemies is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poem-Book of the Gael Translations from Irish Gaelic Poetry into English Prose and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #46917; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eleanor Hull, Charm Against Enemies, in The Poem-Book of the Gael (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #46917, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hull-gael/charm-against-enemies.html, id L11760.
Form and metre
Charm Against Enemies is 11 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 18% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic dimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ------AAA-- one · eye · tongue · mind · mary · heaven · wordA · wordA · wordA · the · evermore
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Three things are of the Evil One-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| An evil eye, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| An evil tongue, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| An evil mind; | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Three things are of God, and these three are what Mary | 12 | ··········/˘ |
| told to her Son, for she heard them in heaven-- | 10 | ·········/ |
| The merciful word, | 5 | ·/˘˘· |
| The singing word, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| And the good word. | 4 | ···· |
| May the power of these three holy things be on all the | 13 | ··/···/˘····· |
| men and women of Erin for evermore. | 11 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.