I'm going to regret this! mg, I DO know how it's usually sung - goodness gracious me! My capitals merely point out where Kavanagh set his rhymes (they were not all accents in his version), which do not fit the current tune, or any regular tune, because his lines and rhymes are irregular. He was careful with his words, and if he'd set himself the task or writing to a tune he'd have made them fit, that's for sure. Thus I deduce he had no tune in mind, and was writing free poetry, with a loose but important internal/external rhyming system. Changing that system was essential to make the poem into a song in the first place. But it wasn't changed within Kavanagh's terms, so it's a compromise, and at times not a good one. You object to change - but it will happen, sometimes naturally, sometimes delibrately (Kelly's changes were obviously deliberate). I don't like Lorreena's version myself much, but her changes (apard from the sx change) are a natural consequence of the flaws in that original compromise - as other people's are.

Have we met, then?