Well for Thee
Well for thee, unsighted bard,Not half so hard thy plight as mine;Hadst thou seen her for whom I pine,Sickness like mine were thy reward.
O would to God I had been blindOr e'er her twined locks caught my eye,Her backward glance as she passed by--Then had my fate been less unkind.
Till my grief outgrew all griefs,I had pitied sightless men;Now hold I them happy and envy them--In the snare of her smile ensnared I lie.
Oh! woe that ever her face was seen!And woe that I see her not every day!Woe to him who is knotted to her alway,Woe to him who is loosed from the knot, I ween.
Woe to him when she comes, woe to him when she goes,To the lover who wins her, his love is but pain;To the lover she flies who would call her again,To him and to me, it is woe of all woes!
Words in this poem
- unsighted a.
- Not sighted, or seen. Suckling.
- plight v. t.
- To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait. [OE. pliten; probably through Old French, fr. LL. plectare, L. plectere. See Plait, Ply.]
- unkind a.
- Having no race or kindred; childless. [See Kin kindred.]
- sightless a.
- Wanting sight; without sight; blind.
- ween v. i.
- To think; to imagine; to fancy. [OE. wenen, AS. w, fr. w hope, expectation, opinion; akin to D. waan, OFries. w, OS. & OHG. wan, G. wahn delusion, Icel. van hope, expectation, Goth. w, and D. w]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Well for Thee 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, Well for Thee, in The Poem-Book of the Gael (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #46917, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hull-gael/well-for-thee.html, id L11794.
Form and metre
Well for Thee is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The commonest rhyme scheme is ABBA, in 2 of the 5 stanzas; the rest vary or could not be confirmed. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 5% 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 -AA- bard · mineA · pineA · reward
- 2 ABBA blindA · eyeB · byB · unkindA
- 4 A--A seenA · day · alway · weenA
- 5 ABBA goesA · painB · againB · woesA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Well for thee, unsighted bard, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Not half so hard thy plight as mine; | 8 | ········ |
| Hadst thou seen her for whom I pine, | 8 | ········ |
| Sickness like mine were thy reward. | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| O would to God I had been blind | 8 | ········ |
| Or e'er her twined locks caught my eye, | 8 | ········ |
| Her backward glance as she passed by-- | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Then had my fate been less unkind. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Till my grief outgrew all griefs, | 7 | ····/·· |
| I had pitied sightless men; | 7 | ··/·/˘· |
| Now hold I them happy and envy them-- | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| In the snare of her smile ensnared I lie. | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Oh! woe that ever her face was seen! | 8 | ···/···· |
| And woe that I see her not every day! | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Woe to him who is knotted to her alway, | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| Woe to him who is loosed from the knot, I ween. | 11 | ··········· |
| Woe to him when she comes, woe to him when she goes, | 12 | ············ |
| To the lover who wins her, his love is but pain; | 12 | ··/˘········ |
| To the lover she flies who would call her again, | 12 | ··/˘······˘/ |
| To him and to me, it is woe of all woes! | 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.