Except that wasn't what Kavanagh wrote.   The line in question as he wrote it is:

And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.

It can be a tricky stanza to sing, true enough. But it's perfectly singable in a way that respects the natural fall of the words and the meaning.

The assumption people often make that a tune has to be pretty well exactly the same form verse to verse can make for needless difficulties. It's a nonsense assumption, with no basis in traditional singing in Ireland or for that matter in Britain.