Saint Patrick / Edwin Markham

St. Brendan's Cathedral, Galway.

CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Saint Patrick

    I

Wandered from the Antrim hills,
Wandered from Killala's rills,
Patrick heard upon the breeze
Voices from the Irish seas.
Folk of Fochlad called to him
From their forest deep and dim;
And in vision little hands
Beckoned from the Irish lands.
Where the western billows spoke
With the Druid groves of oak.
Evermore their cry did seem
Calling, calling, through his dream:
"Hasten with the flower of truth.
Walk among us, holy youth!"

Mary Immaculate of Lourdes

 Churc, Newton, MA 

CC BY-SA 4,0, Wikimedia Commons

    II

When he spread his dauntless sail
To the gladness of the gale,
Glowering demons, mile on mile,
Stood in league around the Isle,
Laughing out their crackling rage,
At the young, unfearing sage.
There with lifted cross he came,
Breathing low the Sacred Name,
And the demons, form by form,
Fled in fury down the storm.
Over the Isle his spirit went
Like fire across the firmament.
Kings at Tara caught the word. 

Churl and kern and chieftain heard.
Lo, the Druid's mystic rod
Fell down withered before God!

With the frost he kindled fire;
Drove the snakes from brake and briar,
Hurling out the writhing brood
With the lightning of his rood.
Once he stooped, and with his hand
Traced a cross upon the sand;
Then a wonder — from the ground
Sprang a stream with silver sound;
And a blind man kneeling there
Laved his eyelids, whispering prayer.
Then on his relighted eyes
Rushed the splendor of the skies —
Flashed the water's glancing bubble —
Gleamed the gold across the stubble —
Shined the roads that have no ends —
Smiled the faces of old friends.


    Ill

Holy Cross Chapel, Salt Lake City.

CC By-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

And when Patrick fell on sleep,
Twelve the days were, still and deep —
Twelve the days, with never a night,
Never a cloud across the light.
Angels chanted out the hours
Leaning from their sky-hung towers;
Like a garden blown to bloom
Was the sweetness round his tomb. . . .

Fable, legend, all are true:
More than these did Patrick do!
For he cleared the serpent den,
Hiding in the hearts of men;
Letting Love's bright fountain spring
Into sweetest murmuring.
Yes, the wise, heroic breed
Bring us miracle indeed.
On the dark he left God's smile,
Lighting up Ierne's Isle;
And forever lives his name
As the rose upon her fame.

~~

Edwin Markham (1852-1940)
from The Shoes of Happiness, and other poems, 1915

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Edwin Markham biography

Memory of My Father / Patrick Kavanagh

Memory of My Father

Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.

That man I saw in Gardner Street
Stumbled on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.

And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London,
He too set me the riddle.

Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me:
"I was once your father."

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from A Soul for Sale, 1947

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"Memory of My Father" read by Declan O'Connor.

Courtesy Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation.

Waiting for the May / Denis MacCarthy

Waiting for the May (Summer Longings)

                Las mananas floridas de Abril y Mayo. – Calderon

Michael Martin, May Morning, 2014. 

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

    Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
        Waiting for the May –
Waiting for the pleasant rambles,
Where the fragrant hawthorn brambles,
    With the woodbine alternating,
        Scent the dewy way.
    Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
        Waiting for the May.

    Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
        Longing for the May –
Longing to escape from study,
To the young face fair and ruddy,
    And the thousand charms belonging
        To the summer's day.
    Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
        Longing for the May.

    Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
        Sighing for the May –
Sighing for their sure returning,
When the summer beams are burning,
    Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying,
        All the winter lay.
    Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
        Sighing for the May.

    Ah! my heart is pained and throbbing,
        Throbbing for the May –
Throbbing for the sea-side billows,
Or the water-wooing willows,
    Where in laughing and in sobbing
        Glide the streams away.
    Ah! my heart is pained and throbbing,
    Throbbing for the May.

    Waiting sad, dejected, weary,
        Waiting for the May.
Spring goes by with wasted warnings,
Moon-lit evenings, sun-bright mornings;
    Summer comes, yet dark and dreary
        Life still ebbs away:
    Man is ever weary, weary,
        Waiting for the May!

~~

Denis Florence MacCarthy (1817-1882)

from Poems, 1882

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Denis MacCarthy biography

"Summer Longings" sung for Verse and Melody.

Lament of the Irish Emigrant / Helen Selina Dufferin

 

Lament of the Irish Emigrant

I’m sittin’ on the stile, Mary,
    Where we sat side by side,
On a bright May mornin’ long ago,
    When first you were my bride:
The corn was springin’ fresh and green,
    And the lark sang loud and high —
And the red was on your lip, Mary,
    And the love-light in your eye.

The place is little changed, Mary,
    The day is bright as then,
The lark’s loud song is in my ear,
    And the corn is green again;
But I miss the soft clasp of your hand,
    And your breath, warm on my cheek,
And I still keep list’nin’ for the words
    You never more may speak.

’Tis but a step down yonder lane,
    And the little church stands near,
The church where we were wed, Mary,
    I see the spire from here;
But the grave-yard lies between, Mary,
    And my step might break your rest —
For I’ve laid you, darling! down to sleep
    With your baby on your breast.

I’m very lonely now, Mary,
    For the poor make no new friends,
    But, oh! they love the better still,
    The few our Father sends!
And you were all I had, Mary,
    My blessin’ and my pride;
There’s nothin’ left to care for now,
    Since my poor Mary died.

Yours was the good brave heart, Mary,
    That still kept hoping on,
When the trust in God had left my soul,
    And my arms’ young strength was gone;
There was comfort ever on your lip,
    And the kind look on your brow —
I bless you, Mary, for that same,
    Though you cannot hear me now.

I thank you for the patient smile
    When your heart was fit to break,
When the hunger-pain was gnawin’ there,
    And you hid it, for my sake!
I bless you for the pleasant word,
    When your heart was sad and sore —
Oh! I’m thankful you are gone, Mary,
    Where grief can’t reach you more!

I’m biddin’ you a long farewell,
    My Mary — kind and true!
But I’ll not forget you, darling!
    In the land I’m goin’ to;—
They say there’s bread and work for all,
    And the sun shines always there,—
But I’ll not forget old Ireland,
    Were it fifty times as fair!

And often in those grand old woods
    I’ll sit, and shut my eyes,
And my heart will travel back again
    To the place where Mary lies,—
And I’ll think I see the little stile
    Where we sat side by side,
And the springin’ corn, and the bright May morn,
    When first you were my bride!

~~
Helen Selina Dufferin (1807-1867)
from The Keepsake, 1840

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Selina Dufferin biography

"Lament of the Irish Emigrant" sung by Tom Blackwood.

March / Patrick Kavanagh

March

There's a wind blowing
Cold through the corridors,
A ghost-wind,
The flapping of defeated wings,
A hell-fantasy
From meadows damned
To eternal April

And listening, listening
To the wind
I hear
The throat-rattle of dying men,
From whose ears oozes
Foamy blood,
Throttled in a brothel.

I see brightly
In the wind vacancies
Saint Thomas Aquinas
And
Poetry blossoms
Excitingly
As the first flower of truth.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Ploughman, and other poems, 1936

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

Peieris, photo of Kavanagh monument, Dublin, 2012. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

St. Patrick's Day / Jean Blewett

"St. Patrick's Day in the Morning" greeting card, 1906; Wikimedia Commons.

St. Patrick's Day

There’s an Isle, a green Isle, set in the sea,
    Here’s to the Saint that blessed it!
And here’s to the billows wild and free
    That for centuries have caressed it!

Here’s to the day when the men that roam
    Send longing eyes o’er the water!
Here’s to the land that still spells home
    To each loyal son and daughter!

Here’s to old Ireland — fair, I ween,
    With the blue skies stretched above her!
Here’s to her shamrock warm and green,
    And here’s to the hearts that love her!

~~
Jean Blewett (1872-1954)
from The Cornflower, and other poems, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Jean Blewett biography

"St. Patrick's Day" read by Jean Aked. Courtesy jeanakedpoetry.

Advent / Patrick Kavanagh

Advent

We have tested and tasted too much, lover –
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning –
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and please
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour –
And Christ comes with a January flower.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from A Soul for Sale, 1947

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"Advent" read by The Passionate Transitory.

May Day / Thomas MacDonagh

May Day

I wish I were to-day on the hill behind the wood,–
My eyes on the brown bog there and the Shannon river,–
Behind the wood at home, a quickened solitude
When the winds from Slieve Bloom set the branches there a-quiver.

The winds are there now and the green of May
On every feathery tree-bough, tender on every hedge:
Over the bog-fields there larks carol to-day,
And a cuckoo is mocking them out of the woodland's edge.

Here a country warmth is quiet on the rocks
That alone make never a change when the May is duly come;
Here sings no lark, and to-day no cuckoo mocks:
Over the wide hill a hawk floats, and the leaves are dumb.

~~
Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
from Poetical Works, 1916

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomas MacDonagh biography

Oliver Dixon, River Shannon at Bellantra Bridge, May 2008. 

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Wet Evening in April / Patrick Kavanagh

Wet Evening in April

The birds sang in the wet trees
And as I listened to them it was a hundred years from now
And I was dead and someone else was listening to them.
But I was glad I had recorded for him
the melancholy.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Kavanagh's Weekly, April 1952

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

Christian Volmer, Birds on Tree in Winter, 2022 (detail). CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Mother Ireland / Arthur Stringer

Mother Ireland

A true and dark-eyed Mother Land, ye've mourned thim day be day,
The childer' av your achin' breast who've fared a world away!
Be moorland and be lough and whin, ye've mourned for all your lost,
But still ye've smiled and still ye've watched and counted not the cost!

And dark, in faith, the ould hours fell and cold the ashes grew,
But Ireland, Mother Ireland, still ye've waited fond and thrue;
And now the Night has vanished, wid the sorrows it has known,
We'll hear the call av Ireland, lads, av Ireland to her own!

~~
Arthur Stringer (1874-1950)
from Irish poems, 1911

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Arthur Stringer biography

Peter Benton, Ireland from Northern Ireland, 2004. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

A Christmas Childhood / Patrick Kavanagh

A Christmas Childhood

One side of the potato-pits was white with frost –
How wonderful that was, how wonderful!
And when we put our ears to the paling-post
The music that came out was magical.

The light between the ricks of hay and straw
Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree
With its December-glinting fruit we saw –
O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me.

To eat the knowledge that grew in clay
And death the germ within it! Now and then
I can remember something of the gay
Garden that was childhood’s. Again.

The tracks of cattle to a drinking-place,
A green stone lying sideways in a ditch,
Or any common sight, the transfigured face
Of a beauty that the world did not touch.

My father played the melodion
Outside at our gate;
There were stars in the morning east
And they danced to his music.

Across the wild bogs his melodion called
To Lennons and Callans.
As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry
I knew some strange thing had happened.

Outside in the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking;
The light of her stable-lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass-going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.

My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.

Cassiopeia was over
Cassidy’s hanging hill,
I looked and three whin bushes rode across
The horizon — the Three Wise Kings.

And old man passing said:
‘Can’t he make it talk –
The melodion.’ I hid in the doorway
And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.

I nicked six nicks on the door-post
With my penknife’s big blade –
there was a little one for cutting tobacco.
And I was six Christmases of age.

My father played the melodion,
My mother milked the cows,
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from A Soul for Sale, 1947

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"A Christmas Childhood" read by Stephen Rea. Courtesy Stephen Rea Way.

October / Patrick Kavanagh

October

O leafy yellowness you create for me
A world that was and now is poised above time,
I do not need to puzzle out Eternity
As I walk this arboreal street on the edge of a town.
The breeze too, even the temperature
And pattern of movement is precisely the same
As broke my heart for youth passing. Now I am sure
Of something. Something will be mine wherever I am.
I want to throw myself on the public street without caring
For anything but the prayering that the earth offers.
It is October over all my life and the light is staring
As it caught me once in a plantation by the fox coverts.
A man is ploughing the ground for winter wheat
And my nineteen years weigh heavily on my feet.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Come Dance with Kitty Stobling, and other poems, 1960

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"October" read by Patrick Kavanagh. Courtesy Patrick Kavanagh - Topic.

Raglan Road / Patrick Kavanagh

Raglan Road

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion’s pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay
O I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that’s known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say,
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May.

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay –
When the angel woos the clay he’d lose his wings at the dawn of day.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from The Irish Times, October 1946

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

On an Apple-Ripe September Morning / Patrick Kavanagh

On an Apple-Ripe September Morning

On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitch-fork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.

The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In cassidy’s haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight

To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.

As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.

And I thought of the wasps’ nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.

The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.

I’ll be carrying bags to-day, I mused
The best job at the mill
with plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill.

Maybe Mary might call round . . .
And then I came to the haggard gate
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Tarry Flynn, 1948

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"On an Apple-Ripe September Morning" read by Kevin Kennedy.

June / Francis Ledwidge

June

Broom out the floor now, lay the fender by,
And plant this bee-sucked bough of woodbine there,
And let the window down. The butterfly
Floats in upon the sunbeam, and the fair
Tanned face of June, the nomad gipsy, laughs
Above her widespread wares, the while she tells
The farmers' fortunes in the fields, and quaffs
The water from the spider-peopled wells.

The hedges are all drowned in green grass seas,
And bobbing poppies flare like Elmo's light,
While siren-like the pollen-stainèd bees
Drone in the clover depths. And up the height
The cuckoo's voice is hoarse and broke with joy.
And on the lowland crops the crows make raid,
Nor fear the clappers of the farmer's boy,
Who sleeps, like drunken Noah, in the shade.

And loop this red rose in that hazel ring
That snares your little ear, for June is short
And we must joy in it and dance and sing,
And from her bounty draw her rosy worth.
Ay! soon the swallows will be flying south,
The wind wheel north to gather in the snow,
Even the roses spilt on youth's red mouth
Will soon blow down the road all roses go.

~~
Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)
from Songs of the Fields, 1916

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Ledwidge biography

"June" read by Stephen Palmer. Courtesy Irish around the World.

The Spring in Ireland: 1916 / James Stephens

The Spring In Ireland: 1916

I

Do not forget my charge I beg of you;
That of what flow'rs you find of fairest hue
And sweetest odor you do gather those
Are best of all the best — a fragrant rose,
A tall calm lily from the waterside,
A half-blown poppy leaning at the side
Its graceful head to dream among the corn,
Forget-me-nots that seem as though the morn
Had tumbled down and grew into the clay,
And hawthorn buds that swing along the way
Easing the hearts of those who pass them by
Until they find contentment. — Do not cry,
But gather buds, and with them greenery
Of slender branches taken from a tree
Well bannered by the spring that saw them fall:
Then you, for you are cleverest of all
Who have slim fingers and are pitiful,
Brimming your lap with bloom that you may cull,
Will sit apart, and weave for every head
A garland of the flow'rs you gatherèd.


II

Be green upon their graves, O happy Spring,
For they were young and eager who are dead;
Of all things that are young and quivering
With eager life be they remembered :
They move not here, they have gone to the clay,
They cannot die again for liberty;
Be they remembered of their land for aye;
Green be their graves and green their memory.

Fragrance and beauty come in with the green,
The ragged bushes put on sweet attire,
The birds forget how chill these airs have been,
The clouds bloom out again and move in fire;
Blue is the dawn of day, calm is the lake,
And merry sounds are fitful in the morn;
In covert deep the young blackbirds awake,
They shake their wings and sing upon the morn.

At springtime of the year you came and swung
Green flags above the newly-greening earth;
Scarce were the leaves unfolded, they were young,
Nor had outgrown the wrinkles of their birth:
Comrades they thought you of their pleasant hour,
They had but glimpsed the sun when they saw you;
They heard your songs e'er birds had singing power,
And drank your blood e'er that they drank the dew.

Then you went down, and then, and as in pain,
The Spring affrighted fled her leafy ways,
The clouds came to the earth in gusty rain,
And no sun shone again for many days:
And day by day they told that one was dead,
And day by day the season mourned for you,
Until that count of woe was finished,
And Spring remembered all was yet to do.

She came with mirth of wind and eager leaf,
With scampering feet and reaching out of wings,
She laughed among the boughs and banished grief,
And cared again for all her baby things;
Leading along the joy that has to be,
Bidding her timid buds think on the May,
And told that Summer comes with victory,
And told the hope that is all creatures' stay.

Go, Winter, now, unto your own abode,
Your time is done, and Spring is conqueror.
Lift up with all your gear and take your road,
For she is here and brings the sun with her:
Now are we resurrected, now are we,
Who lay so long beneath an icy hand,
New-risen into life and liberty,
Because the Spring is come into our land.


III

In other lands they may,
With public joy or dole along the way,
With pomp and pageantry and loud lament
Of drums and trumpets, and with merriment
Of grateful hearts, lead into rest and sted
The nation's dead.

If we had drums and trumpets, if we had
Aught of heroic pitch or accent glad
To honor you as bids tradition old,
With banners flung or draped in mournful fold,
And pacing cortege; these would we not bring
For your last journeying.

We have no drums or trumpets; naught have we
But some green branches taken from a tree,
And flowers that grow at large in mead and vale;
Nothing of choice have we, or of avail
To do you honor as our honor deems,
And as your worth beseems.

Sleep, drums and trumpets, yet a little time;
All ends and all begins, and there is chime
At last where discord was, and joy at last
Where woe wept out her eyes: be not downcast,
Here is prosperity and goodly cheer,
For life does follow death, and death is here.

~~
James Stephens (1882-1950)
from Green Branches, 1916

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

James Stephens biography

Inniskeen Road: July Evening / Patrick Kavanagh

Inniskeen Road: July Evening

The bicycles go by in twos and threes –
There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn tonight,
And there's the half-talk code of mysteries
And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.
Half-past eight and there is not a spot
Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown
That might turn out a man or woman, not
A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.

I have what every poet hates in spite
Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.
Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight
Of being king and government and nation.
A road, a mile of kingdom. I am king
Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Ploughman, and other poems, 1936

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"Iniskeen Road - July Evening" read by Shanid. Courtesy Everyday - Poetry.

September 1913 / W.B. Yeats

September 1913

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save;
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry `Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son':
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.

~~
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
from Responsibilities, and other poems, 1914

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

William Butler Yeats biography

"September 1913" read for Canada the Unknown Country.

The Piping Mountainy Man / Edward J. O'Brien

The Piping Mountainy Man

To Josephine Peabody Marks.

As I came over the April hills
And over the April plain,
I saw a twinkle of white-limbed boys
In a shower of April rain.

A drift of shining fair-limbed boys
In the light of an April shower
Were dancing around a mountainy man
Like the petals of a flower.

A wind came over the April hills
And over the April rain;
The sunlight laughed from an April cloud
And the Spring laughed back again.

The mountainy man arose and piped
A skirling on the wind,
And the drift of shining white-limbed boys
Came skipping along behind.

They followed him over the meadows,
And sang by the running rills,
And danced with him in the sunlight,
And laughed with him on the hills,

Till they came to the edge of the ocean,
And ran to the end of the lea,
Where they dance on the rippling waters,
And run on the sands of the sea.

~~
Edward J. O'Brien
from White Fountain: Odes and lyrics, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Edward J. O'Brien biography

Easter Week / Joyce Kilmer

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 blue April weather.
It blessed the earth till it gave birth
    To valour thick as blooms of heather.

Romantic Ireland never dies!
    O'Leary lies in fertile ground,
And songs and spears throughout the years
    Rise up where patriot graves are found.

Immortal patriots newly dead
    And ye that bled in bygone years,
What banners rise before your eyes?
    What is the tune that greets your ears?

The young Republic's banners smile
    For many a mile where troops convene.
O'Connell street is loudly sweet
    With strains of Wearing of the Green.

The soil of Ireland throbs and glows
    With life that knows the hour is here
To strike again like Irishmen
    For that which Irishmen hold dear.

Lord Edward leaves his resting place
    And Sarsfield's face is glad and fierce.
See Emmet leap from troubled sleep
    To grasp the hand of Padraic Pearse!

There is no rope can strangle song
    And not for long death takes his toll.
No prison bars can dim the stars
    Nor quicklime eat the living soul.

Romantic Ireland is not old.
    For years untold her youth shall shine.
Her heart is fed on Heavenly bread,
    The blood of martyrs is her wine.

~~

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

from Main Street, and other poems, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

"Easter Week" read by M Power.

Joyce Kilmer biography
Joseph Mary Plunkett biography