Sorry if I've bored you Steve. I love dissecting songs and forget that others may be squeamish :-) My apologies. May I humbly suggest you just skip right over my ramblings (easy to spot, they're the long ones!)?

And sorry for not posting the whole poem earlier Charley. I was assuming that everyone here knew it from the threads above (where others have made similar points to mine in the past). An error on my part.

But now we have it to hand, may I just point out the internal rhyming scheme - which I think undermines the suggestion that PK had DotD (or indeed any other tune) in mind when he wrote it?

Some lines don't comform at all, and I'm sure if he was humming DotD along, or anything like, he'd have written the beginning of verse three very differently. But if you don't try to put it in the metre of the song, the internal rhymes work perfectly, and the lack of them in some lines is not an issue at all. Nor are the stresses of the verse.

(I do find myself wondering if he changed the street to RR from ''Something' Way' perhaps, as he's worked so hard at most of the other internal rhymes, and not many writers would break their own system in the very first line, as it sets people off down the wrong road)!

Thereafter we have this pattern most of the time, (but not always on the beats where the phrases break in DotD):
AAB
CCB
DDE
FFE

On Raglan ROAD on an autumn DAY I met her first and knew (no internal rhyme)
That her dark HAIR would weave a SNARE that I might one day rue;
I saw the DANGER, yet I WALKED Along the enchanted way, (not a proper rhyme, might he have considered 'strayed' at some point? anyway it works fine on the page)
And I said, let GRIEF be a fallen LEAF at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton STREET in November WE Tripped lightly along the ledge (I like it sung like this, but it's not commonly done)
Of the deep raVINE where can be SEEN the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of HEARTS still making TARTS and I not making hay - (see what I mean about the humour? You almost need to wink at this point)
O I loved too MUCH and by such and SUCH is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the MIND I gave her the secret SIGN that's known (try singing this to DotD as it's written, fitting the rhymes into the tune where the other lines have them, then stretching 'that's known' over 8 beats - eeek!)
To the artists WHO have known the TRUE gods of sound and stone (again, try singing it like this aaaaagh!)
And word and TINT. I did not STINT for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name THERE and her own dark HAIR like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet STREET where old ghosts MEET I see her walking now
Away from ME so hurriedLY my reason must allow
That I had WOOED not as I SHOULD a creature made of clay - (it's a shame so many change it to 'loved' when 'wooed' rhymes)
When the angel WOOS the clay he'd LOSE his wings at the dawn of day.

Given the syllable count between all these rhymes (and the normal ones at the end of the lines), could PK really have had any tune in mind? Or was he writing free poetry? I think he was - because it's beautiful and unfettered on the page.

I also agree entirely about a sense of absurdity, of self-depricating irony and wry humour, which doesn't come over in the DotD song because the tune imposes a tragic mood on the words. The tune, while beautiful, is ponderous, and I don't think the poem is.

Anyway I've taken up enough of your time. Thanks for having me!

Tom