Spelling mnemonic

I before E,
Except after C,
Or when sounded as A
As in “neighbor” and “weigh”;
Or in “counterfeit”, or in
A word such as “foreign”;
Or when rhyming with “iced tea”
In words such as “feisty”;
Or things found in a bean
Like “protein” and “caffeine”;
Or in names from Westmeath
Such as “Deirdre” and “Keith”;
Or in “leisure”, to keep us from taking a breather,
And lest we forget about “either” and “neither”;
Or in words that describe something that might be feared,
Such as “kaleidoscopic”, “heinous” and “weird”;
Or borrowings got from the land of the Rhine,
Like “gesundheit” and “leitmotif”, “zeitgeist” and “stein”;
Or in “sheik”, “vein”, “reveille”, “heifer”, or “seize”;
But, apart from these few, put your I’s before E’s.