Explore "Under the Round Tower" by W.B. Yeats on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'Although I'd lie lapped up in linen / A deal I'd sweat and little earn / If I should live as live the neighbours,' / Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne; / 'Stretch bones till the daylight come / On great-grandfather's battered tomb.'
Upon a grey old battered tombstone / In Glendalough beside the stream, / Where the O'Byrnes and Byrnes are buried, / He stretched his bones and fell in a dream / Of sun and moon that a good hour / Bellowed and pranced in the round tower; / Of golden king and silver lady, / Bellowing up and bellowing round, / Till toes mastered a sweet measure, / Mouth mastered a sweet sound, / Prancing round and prancing up / Until they pranced upon the top.
That golden king and that wild lady / Sang till stars began to fade, / Hands gripped in hands, toes close together, / Hair spread on the wind they made; / That lady and that golden king / Could like a brace of blackbirds sing.
'It's certain that my luck is broken,' / That rambling jailbird Billy said; / 'Before nightfall I'll pick a pocket / And snug it in a feather-bed, / I cannot find the peace of home / On great-grandfather's battered tomb. '