The Fiddler of Dooney
When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,Folk dance like a wave of the sea;My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,My brother in Moharabuiee.
I passed my brother and cousin:They read in their books of prayer;I read in my book of songsI bought at the Sligo fair.
When we come at the end of time,To Peter sitting in state,He will smile on the three old spirits,But call me first through the gate;
For the good are always the merry,Save by an evil chance,And the merry love the fiddleAnd the merry love to dance:
And when the folk there spy me,They will all come up to me,With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!'And dance like a wave of the sea.
Words in this poem
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- fiddler n.
- One who plays on a fiddle or violin. [AS. fi.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Fiddler of Dooney is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Wind Among the Reeds, Project Gutenberg ebook #32233; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: W. B. Yeats, The Fiddler of Dooney, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/the-fiddler-of-dooney.html, id L04523.
Form and metre
The Fiddler of Dooney is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 4 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.
- 2 -A-A cousin · prayerA · songs · fairA
- 3 -A-A time · stateA · spirits · gateA
- 4 -A-A merry · chanceA · fiddle · danceA
- 5 AA-A meA · meA · dooney · seaA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Folk dance like a wave of the sea; | 8 | ········ |
| My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| My brother in Moharabuiee. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I passed my brother and cousin: | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| They read in their books of prayer; | 7 | ······· |
| I read in my book of songs | 7 | ······· |
| I bought at the Sligo fair. | 7 | ······· |
| When we come at the end of time, | 8 | ········ |
| To Peter sitting in state, | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
| He will smile on the three old spirits, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| But call me first through the gate; | 7 | ······· |
| For the good are always the merry, | 9 | ····/··/˘ |
| Save by an evil chance, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And the merry love the fiddle | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| And the merry love to dance: | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And when the folk there spy me, | 7 | ······· |
| They will all come up to me, | 7 | ······· |
| With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!' | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| And dance like a wave of the sea. | 8 | ········ |
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.