Under The Round Tower
‘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
The Grey Rock
Poets with whom I learned my trade. Companions of the Cheshire Cheese, Here’s an old story I’ve remade, Imagining ‘twould better please Your cars than stories now in fashion, Though you may think I
Politics
‘In our time the destiny of man prevents its meanings In political terms.’ Thomas Mann. How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics?
A Man Young And Old: XI. From Oedipus At Colonus
Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain. Even from that delight memory
He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge
I wander by the edge Of this desolate lake Where wind cries in the sedge: Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round, And hands hurl in the deep The banners
The Sorrow Of Love
The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves, The brilliant moon and all the milky sky, And all that famous harmony of leaves, Had blotted out man’s image and his cry. A girl arose
Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists
There was a green branch hung with many a bell When her own people ruled this tragic Eire; And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery, A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell. It
For Anne Gregory
‘Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.’ ‘But I can get a hair-dye And set
Song For The Severed Head In 'The King Of The Great Clock Tower'
Saddle and ride, I heard a man say, Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea, What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower? All those tragic characters ride But turn from Rosses’ crawling tide,
Coole Park And Ballylee, 1931
Under my window-ledge the waters race, Otters below and moor-hens on the top, Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven’s face Then darkening through ‘dark’ Raftery’s ‘cellar’ drop, Run underground, rise in a rocky
An Image From A Past Life
He. Never until this night have I been stirred. The elaborate starlight throws a reflection On the dark stream, Till all the eddies gleam; And thereupon there comes that scream From terrified, invisible beast
The Three Hermits
Three old hermits took the air By a cold and desolate sea, First was muttering a prayer, Second rummaged for a flea; On a windy stone, the third, Giddy with his hundredth year, Sang
The White Birds
I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea! We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee; And the flame of the
The Chambermaid's First Song
How came this ranger Now sunk in rest, Stranger with strangcr. On my cold breast? What’s left to Sigh for? Strange night has come; God’s love has hidden him Out of all harm, Pleasure
The Scholars
Would I could cast a sad on the water Where many a king has gone And many a king’s daughter, And alight at the comely trees and the lawn, The playing upon pipes and