#IrishWriters
INDIGNANT at the fumbling wits… Of our old paudeen in his shop, I… Among the stones and thorn-trees,… Until a curlew cried and in the lu… A curlew answered; and suddenly th…
IF Michael, leader of God’s host When Heaven and Hell are met, Looked down on you from Heaven’s… He would his deeds forget. Brooding no more upon God’s wars
The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day For half his flock were in their b… Or under green sods lay. Once, while he nodded in a chair
I HAD this thought a while ago, ‘My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would d… In this blind bitter land.’ And I grew weary of the sun
O what to me the little room That was brimmed up with prayer an… He bade me out into the gloom, And my breast lies upon his breast… O what to me my mother’s care,
AN old man cocked his ear upon a… He and his friend, their faces to… Had trod the uneven road. Their b… Their Connemara cloth worn out of… They had kept a steady pace as tho…
FOR certain minutes at the least That crafty demon and that loud be… That plague me day and night Ran out of my sight; Though I had long perned in the g…
I HEARD the old, old men say, ‘Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.’ They had hands like claws, and the… Were twisted like the old thorn-tr…
Who talks of Plato’s spindle; What set it whirling round? Eternity may dwindle, Time is unwound, Dan and Jerry Lout
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth,
All things uncomely and broken, All things worn-out and old, The cry of a child by the roadway, The creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the ploughman,
The harlot sang to the beggar-man. I meet them face to face, Conall, Cuchulain, Usna’s boys, All that most ancient race; Maeve had three in an hour, they s…
IF you have revisited the town, t… Whether to look upon your monument (I wonder if the builder has been… Or happier-thoughted when the day… To drink of that salt breath out o…
A MAN I praise that once in Tar… Said to the woman on his knees, ‘… My hundredth year is at an end.… That something is about to happen,… That the adventure of old age begi…
A DOLL in the doll-maker’s house Looks at the cradle and bawls: ‘That is an insult to us.’ But the oldest of all the dolls, Who had seen, being kept for show,