To Be Carved On A Stone At Thoor Ballylee

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1. 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 place In Coole demesne, and there to finish up Spread to a lake and drop into a hole. What’s water but […]...
2. Black Stone on Top of a White Stone I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm, On a day I already remember. I shall die in Paris it does not bother me Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn. It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday As I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders To the evil. Never […]...
3. To The Stone-Cutters Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down, The square-limbed Roman letters Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly; For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun Die blind and […]...
4. The Loveable Characters I long for the streets but the Lord knoweth best, For there I am never a saint; There are lovable characters out in the West, With humour heroic and quaint; And, be it Up Country, or be it Out Back, When I shall have gone to my Home, I trust to be buried ‘twixt River […]...
5. The Old Man's Comforts and how he gained them You are old, Father William, the young man cried, The few locks which are left you are grey; You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man, Now tell me the reason I pray. In the days of my youth, Father William replied, I remember’d that youth would fly fast, And abused not my health […]...
6. The Old Stone Cross A statesman is an easy man, He tells his lies by rote; A journalist makes up his lies And takes you by the throat; So stay at home’ and drink your beer And let the neighbours’ vote, Said the man in the golden breastplate Under the old stone Cross. Because this age and the next […]...
7. The Kiss Returned AS WILLIAM walking with his wife was seen, A man of rank admired her lovely mien. Who gave you such a charming fair? he cried, May I presume to kiss your beauteous bride? With all my heart, replied the humble swain, You’re welcome, sir: I beg you’ll not refrain; She’s at your service: take the […]...
8. Crazy Jane On God That lover of a night Came when he would, Went in the dawning light Whether I would or no; Men come, men go; All things remain in God. Banners choke the sky; Men-at-arms tread; Armoured horses neigh In the narrow pass: All things remain in God. Before their eyes a house That from childhood stood […]...
9. A Stone Is Nobody's A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner. Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the Rest of his life. His mother asked why. He said, because it’s held captive, because it is Captured. Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know Whether it’s […]...
10. Stone Breaking March wind rough Clashed the trees, Flung the snow; Breaking stones, In the cold, Germans slow Toiled and toiled; Arrowy sun Glanced and sprang, One right blithe German sang: Songs of home, Fatherland: Syenite hard, Weary lot, Callous hand, All forgot: Hammers pound, Ringing round; Rise the heaps, To his voice, Bounds and leaps Toise […]...
11. Stone Villages The stone-built villages of England. A cathedral bottled in a pub window. Cows dispersed across fields. Monuments to kings. A man in a moth-eaten suit Sees a train off, heading, like everything here, for the sea, Smiles at his daughter, leaving for the East. A whistle blows. And the endless sky over the tiles Grows […]...
12. Suicide's Stone Peace is the heir of dead desire, Whether abundance killed the cormorant In a happy hour, or sleep or death Drowned him deep in dreamy waters, Peace is the ashes of that fire, The heir of that king, the inn of that journey. This last and best and goal: we dead Hold it so tight […]...
13. On Building With Stone To be an ape in little of the mountain-making mother Like swarthy Cheops, but my own hands For only slaves, is a far sweeter toil than to cut Passions in verse for a sick people. I’d liefer bed one boulder in the house-wall than be the time’s Archilochus: we name not Homer: who now Can […]...
14. Stone Shadows For an entire year she dressed in all the shades Of ash – the gray of old paper; the deeper, Almost auburn ash of pencil boxes; the dark, nearly Black marl of oak beds pulled from burning houses. That year, even her hair itself was woven With an ashen white, just single threads here & […]...
15. Black Stone On Top Of Nothing Still sober, César Vallejo comes home and finds a black ribbon Around the apartment building covering the front door. He puts down his cane, removes his greasy fedora, and begins To untangle the mess. His neighbors line up behind him Wondering what’s going on. A middle-aged woman carrying A loaf of fresh bread asks him […]...
16. How happy is the little Stone How happy is the little Stone That rambles in the Road alone, And doesn’t care about Careers And Exigencies never fears Whose Coat of elemental Brown A passing Universe put on, And independent as the Sun Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute Decree In casual simplicity...
17. The Hearth-Stone The leaves are sick and jaundiced, they Drift down the air; December’s sky is sodden grey, Dark with despair; A bleary dawn will light anon A world of care. My name is cut into a stone, No care have I; The letters drool, as I alone Forgotten lie: With weed my grave is overgrown, None […]...
18. A Rolling Stone There’s sunshine in the heart of me, My blood sings in the breeze; The mountains are a part of me, I’m fellow to the trees. My golden youth I’m squandering, Sun-libertine am I; A-wandering, a-wandering, Until the day I die. I was once, I declare, a Stone-Age man, And I roomed in the cool of […]...
19. For Siggy & Bill I awoke with two poets in my bed, Books I chose from the library, possibly Intent on a swift read while schmoosing For poetic leads. My motives are appallingly Plain, a head bereft of fine ideas although Biographies are not an easy reading. I picked Siegfried Sassoon instinctively (not For any cogent reasons, I liked […]...
20. An Address to Shakespeare Immortal! William Shakespeare, there’s none can you excel, You have drawn out your characters remarkably well, Which is delightful for to see enacted upon the stage For instance, the love-sick Romeo, or Othello, in a rage; His writings are a treasure, which the world cannot repay, He was the greatest poet of the past or […]...
21. Twenty-Pound Stone It nests in the hollow of my pelvis, I carry it with both hands, as if offering my stomach, as if it were pulling me forward. At night the sun leaks from it, it turns cold, I sleep with it beside my head, I breath for it. Sometimes I dream of hammers. I am hammering […]...
22. Easter Week (In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett) (“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”) William Butler Yeats. “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.” Then, Yeats, what gave that Easter dawn A hue so radiantly brave? There was a rain of blood that day, Red rain in gay […]...
23. Troll Sat Alone on His Seat of Stone Troll sat alone on his seat of stone, And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; For many a year he had gnawed it near, For meat was hard to come by. Done by! Gum by! In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone, And meat was hard to come by. Up came Tom […]...
24. It was a Grave, yet bore no Stone It was a Grave, yet bore no Stone Enclosed ’twas not of Rail A Consciousness its Acre, and It held a Human Soul. Entombed by whom, for what offence If Home or Foreign born Had I the curiosity ‘Twere not appeased of men Till Resurrection, I must guess Denied the small desire A Rose upon […]...
25. Salvage GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year Between Brussels and Paris. And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on The great arches and naves and little whimsical Corners of the Churches of Northern France Brr-rr! I’m glad you’re a dead man, William Morris, I’m glad You’re down in the damp […]...
26. Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor […]...
27. At the grave of Anastasia Baluk – Cross Stone Anastasia And the sad snow falling A toiling sky And a long white line of hills A distant birthplace Short span and early dying Pain from what heaven Sorrowed your slope of life? Through valley’s throat Run double veins of water Feverish river Somnolent canal – the vein of the metal rail And the trundling […]...
28. Dream Song 88: Op. posth. no. 11 In slack times visit I the violent dead And pick their awful brains. Most seem to feel Nothing is secret more To my disdain I find, when we who fled Cherish the knowings of both worlds, conceal More, beat on the floor, Where Bhain is stagnant, dear of Henry’s friends, Yellow with cancer, paper-thin, & […]...
29. An Acre Of Grass Picture and book remain, An acre of green grass For air and exercise, Now strength of body goes; Midnight, an old house Where nothing stirs but a mouse. My temptation is quiet. Here at life’s end Neither loose imagination, Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bonc, Can make the truth known. […]...
30. Aspens All day and night, save winter, every weather, Above the inn, the smithy and the shop, The aspens at the cross-roads talk together Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top. Out of the blacksmith’s cavern comes the ringing Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn The clink, the hum, the […]...
31. Intramuros She lies in her well-kept apartment Above the spick and span cathedral In the heart of the walled city Above Manila Bay and she dreams Of the great, ruined cities of Europe: Vienna crumbling into the ocean, Warsaw in a plague of frogs and flies And London, where all the black men Have learned to […]...
32. To E. T I slumbered with your poems on my breast Spread open as I dropped them half-read through Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb To see, if in a dream they brought of you, I might not have the chance I missed in life Through some delay, and call you to your face First […]...
33. Haunted House Here was a place where none would ever come For shelter, save as we did from the rain. We saw no ghost, yet once outside again Each wondered why the other should be so dumb; And ruin, and to our vision it was plain Where thrift, outshivering fear, had let remain Some chairs that were […]...
34. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
35. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
36. Coming To This We have done what we wanted. We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry Of each other, and we have welcomed grief And called ruin the impossible habit to break. And now we are here. The dinner is ready and we cannot eat. The meat sits in the white lake of its dish. The wine […]...
37. In Youth Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair, That brow untouched by one faint line of care, To mar its openness, we seem to trace The front of the first lord of the human race, Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair, Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed […]...
38. At Wilfred Owen's Grave A week before the Armistice, you died. They did not keep your heart like Livingstone’s, Then plant your bones near Shakespeare’s. So you lie Between two privates, sacrificed like Christ To politics, your poetry unknown Except for that brief flurry’s: thirteen months With Gaukroger beside you in the trench, Dismembered, as you babbled, as the […]...
39. Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings […]...
40. To the dead poet of obscurity (In honor of the dead unpublished poet) Well done! You have won! You should not feel sorry. Your unpublished poems -always remember- Have not been buried, Haven’t bent Under the strength of time. Like gold Inside the soil They remain, They never melt. They may be late But they will be given To their people […]...