Muirneen of the Fair Hair
For a year my love lies down,In a little western town,And the sun upon the corn is not so sweet;At the chill time of the year,On the hills where roams my dear,There is honey in the traces of her feet.
If my longing I could get,I would take her in a net,And would ease my aching sorrow for a while;And though all men say me nayI shall wed her on a day,She my darling of the sweet and sunny smile.
I have finished with the plough,And must sow my seedlands now,I must labour in the face of wind and weather;But in rain and frost and snow,Always as I come and go,I am thinking she and I should be together.
O love my heart finds fair!It is little that you careThough I perish in the blackness of my grief;But may you never treadGod's Heaven overhead,If you scorn me and refuse my love relief.
I would count them little worth,All the women of the earth,And myself alone to have the choice among them;For in books I read it clear,That the beauty of my dear,It has wrestled with their beauties and has flung them.
Words in this poem
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- sunny a.
- Of or pertaining to the sun; proceeding from, or resembling the sun; hence, shining; bright; brilliant; radiant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Muirneen of the Fair Hair 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, Muirneen of the Fair Hair, in The Poem-Book of the Gael (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #46917, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hull-gael/muirneen-of-the-fair-hair.html, id L11783.
Form and metre
Muirneen of the Fair Hair is 30 lines in 5 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABCCB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 AABCCB downA · townA · sweetB · yearC · dearC · feetB
- 2 AABCCB getA · netA · whileB · nayC · dayC · smileB
- 3 AABCCB ploughA · nowA · weatherB · snowC · goC · togetherB
- 4 AABCCB fairA · careA · griefB · treadC · overheadC · reliefB
- 5 AABCCB worthA · earthA · themB · clearC · dearC · themB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| For a year my love lies down, | 7 | ······· |
| In a little western town, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| And the sun upon the corn is not so sweet; | 11 | ··········· |
| At the chill time of the year, | 7 | ······· |
| On the hills where roams my dear, | 7 | ······· |
| There is honey in the traces of her feet. | 11 | ··/˘··/˘··· |
| If my longing I could get, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| I would take her in a net, | 7 | ······· |
| And would ease my aching sorrow for a while; | 11 | ····/˘/˘··· |
| And though all men say me nay | 7 | ······· |
| I shall wed her on a day, | 7 | ······· |
| She my darling of the sweet and sunny smile. | 11 | ··/˘····/˘· |
| I have finished with the plough, | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| And must sow my seedlands now, | 7 | ······· |
| I must labour in the face of wind and weather; | 12 | ··/·······/˘ |
| But in rain and frost and snow, | 7 | ······· |
| Always as I come and go, | 7 | /······ |
| I am thinking she and I should be together. | 12 | ··/˘·····˘/˘ |
| O love my heart finds fair! | 6 | ······ |
| It is little that you care | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Though I perish in the blackness of my grief; | 11 | ··/˘··/˘··· |
| But may you never tread | 6 | ···/˘· |
| God's Heaven overhead, | 6 | ·/˘/˘/ |
| If you scorn me and refuse my love relief. | 11 | ·····˘/··˘/ |
| I would count them little worth, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| All the women of the earth, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And myself alone to have the choice among them; | 12 | ··/˘/······· |
| For in books I read it clear, | 7 | ······· |
| That the beauty of my dear, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| It has wrestled with their beauties and has flung them. | 12 | ··/˘··/˘···· |
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.