Two Songs Rewritten for the Tune's Sake
About the text
Yeats first published this poem in 1935. It is out of copyright in Ireland and the EU, but in the United States it stays in copyright until the start of 2031, and this site is served partly from American servers. So for now we give the notes without the full text; it will appear here in 2031.
It begins: My Paistin Finn is my sole desire
In brief
SummaryTwo love-lorn folk songs of a lonely suitor and a jealous rhymer.
Two short songs in the manner of Irish folk song, reworked so they would sit better to their tunes. In the first, a lover wasting away for his Paistin Finn has nothing but whistling for his pains; alone for nine nights under the rain, he swears that tomorrow night he will break down her door. In the second, a rhymer wishes he were a blind old beggar, who at least cannot see his lady go gallivanting by, or anything at all but a poet lying alone with nothing in his head but rhymes for her.
Lines to remember
My Paistin Finn is my sole desire,
Tomorrow night I will break down the door.
Line by line
Lines 1 to 6Skin and bone
The lover has only one desire, his Paistin Finn, and has shrunk to skin and bone. All his heart has earned is a tune he whistles by himself. After the lilting "Oro" comes the refrain: tomorrow night he will break down the door.
Lines 7 to 18Nine nights in the rain
What good is a man sitting alone with a speckled shin? He would rather drink with his love on his knee between two barrels at the inn. For nine nights he lay out between two bushes in the rain, whistling for her in vain. The same wild threat closes each stanza.
Lines 19 to 26The blind beggar
The second song opens with an odd wish: to be an old beggar rolling a blind eye, because then he could not see his lady gallivanting past. He pictures the beggar in all his misery, friendless but for a thieving dog, blind from birth, and still envies him.
Lines 27 to 30Anything but a rhymer
Or anything at all, rather than a rhymer with nothing in his head but rhymes for a beautiful lady, lying alone in bed making them. The joke turns back on the poet himself.
Themes
Unrequited love
Both songs are laments of men who love and are ignored. The first lover wastes away and whistles in vain; the second would rather be blind than watch his lady go by. The mood is comic as much as sad, with the threat to break down the door and the absurd envy of a beggar giving the pain a folk-song swagger.
Song and the poet
Whistling and rhyming are all these lovers have. The first earns nothing but a tune for his heart's hire; the second is a rhymer who can only make rhymes, alone. Yeats, who reworked these lines for the sake of their tunes, gently mocks the poet whose love goes into verse and nowhere else.
Context
The songs were collected in A Full Moon in March (Macmillan, 1935). As the title says, Yeats rewrote both songs so the words would fit their tunes. The first reworks a song from his early comic play The Pot of Broth, sung by a tramp to the old Irish air "Paistin Fionn". Yeats cared a great deal in these years about poems being sung, and several of his late poems are ballads and songs for music.
Form
The first song has three six-line stanzas: four long, swinging lines rhyming ABAB, then the refrain "Oro, oro" and the line about breaking down the door. The second has three quatrains of short three-beat lines, rhyming on the second and fourth lines. Both are built to be sung.
