Irish Poetry

[Niamh]

Hey Everyone!
I decided i wanted to ask you all what your opinion on Irish Poets and Poetry are?
What think ye of Yeats, Heaney, Kavanagh, Colum, Synge, Kinsella, Moore and all the rest?
Who is your favourite poet and what your favourite poem is! Even post the poem so we can all read it and decide if we also like it!
Heres one of my favourites by Yeats

THE STOLEN CHILD
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's morefully of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,.
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For to world's morefully of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
from a world more full of weeping than you can understand.

[Uncle Lar]

Hello!

I love William Butler Yeats and The Wandering Aengus.

Wandering Aengus Mac Og

"While lying asleep one evening Angus was visited by a fair maiden of the Faery named Caer Ibormeith. So taken with her beauty was he that when she disappeared as he woke he could think of no other, the thought of being without her caused him to fall ill, in essence...Love Sick.

"Angus enlisted the help of Bodb and together they managed to track her to a Loch where she was living with 149 other maidens each in the form of a swan. Each Swan Maiden was bound by a silver chain, which as in all good tales could only be released by true love.

"To gain her love Angus transformed himself into a Swan upon which the chain that held his love broke in two therefore freeing her. Reunited with Caer Ibormeith, the lovers flew around Loch Bel Dracon three times singing a song so sweet all who heard it fell asleep for three days.

"Angus is known in Celtic Lore as a God of Love and with his Swan Maiden they are said to have returned to Bruig na Boinne, otherwise known as New Grange. The tale of Angus and his search for Caer Ibormeith is recorded below in the poem by W.B. Yeats.


The Song of Wandering Aengus

"I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."

(William Butler Yeats)

Sláinte!

Sincerely,

Uncle Lar

[Niamh]

That is a really good poem Uncle Lar! I remember using that poem in a project on mythologies and legends back when i was in secondary school.
You can never beat a good auld bit o' Yeats!:D

Slainte!

[Niamh]

I'm amazed nobody else wants to contrabute! And so many people have Yeats in there Sigs!:(

[barbara0207]

This is one of my favourites because I like the fiddler's outlook on life:

The Fiddler of Dooney

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Mocharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance;

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With "Here is the fiddler of Dooney!"
And dance like the wave of the sea.

[Bii]

Yeats is absolutely fab! Just posted 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" on another thread ('cos that's my favourite) so I'll add "When you are Old"

When you are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Yeats poetry has such a soft, dreamlike quality to it, and that's why I like it.

[Niamh]

this is one of my favourite peoms by little known Irish poet Padraic Colum.
It is also a very famous trad song.

She Moved Through The Fair
by Padraic Colum
My young love said to me,
My mother won't mind
And my father won't slight you
For your lack of kind"
And she stepped away from me
And this she did say:
It will not be long, love,
Till our wedding day"

As she stepped away from me
And she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her
Move here and move there
And then she turned homeward
With one star awake
Like the swan in the evening
Moves over the lake

The people were saying,
No two e'er were wed
But one had a sorrow
That never was said
And I smiled as she passed
With her goods and her gear,
And that was the last
That I saw of my dear.

Last night she came to me,
My dead love came in
So softly she came
That her feet made no din
As she laid her hand on me
And this she did say
It will not be long, love,
'Til our wedding day

[Niamh]

this is a poem that i grew up with as a kid. We learned it in school at a young age and it got permanently stuck in my head.

The Fairies
by William Allingham

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We dare 't go a-hunting
For fear of little men.

Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!

down along the rocky shore
Some make their home --
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;

Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

high on the hilltop
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray,
He's nigh lost his wits.

With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;

Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow;
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.

They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hillside,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees,
For pleasure here and there.

Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We dare 't go a-hunting
For fear of little men.

Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!

[ennison]

The Blackbird of Derrycairn

Stop, stop and listen for the bough top
Is whistling and the sun is brighter
Than God's own shadow in the cup now!
Forget the hour-bell. Mournful matins
Will sound, Padraic, as well at nightfall.

Faintly through mist of broken water
Fionn heard my melody in Norway.
He found the forest track, he brought back
This beak to gild the branch and tell, there,
Why men must welcome in the daylight.

He loved the breeze that warns the black grouse,
The shouts of gillies in the morning
When packs are counted and the swans cloud
Loch Erne, but more than all those voices
My throat rejoicing from the hawthorn.

In little cells behind a cashel,
Padraic, no handbell gives a glad sound.
But knowledge is found among the branches.
Listen! That song that shakes my feathers
Will thong the leather of your satchels.

AUSTIN CLARKE

I like the poems above, posted by Niamh. I think Clarke had a special ability and while I don't always agree with his trenchantly expressed ideas, he almost seduces me here with how well he has used the traditional idioms of Gaidhlig poetry in this modernised version of an old poem.

[lavendar1]

Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy gifts, fading away!
Thou wouldst still be ador'd, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And, around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still!

It is not, while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan'd by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
No, the heart that has truly lov'd, never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn'd when he rose!

-- Thomas Moore

Enduring themes: Love is not time's fool...
When time permits, I'll post a poem (song?) by Samuel Lover called "The Angel's Whisper." Good thread, Niamh!

[Schokokeks]

Oh no, I only saw this just now, and I've lately become such an ardent admirer of Heaney.
Here's my favourite of his:


Oysters

Our shells clacked on the plates.
My tongue was a filling estuary,
My palate hung with starlight:
As I tasted the salty Pleiades
Orion dipped his foot into the water.

Alive and violated,
They lay on their bed of ice:
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean
Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.

We had driven to that coast
Through flowers and limestone
And there we were, toasting friendship,
Laying down a perfect memory
In the cool of thatch and crockery.

Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,
The Romans hauled their oysters south of Rome:
I saw damp panniers disgorge
The frond-lipped, brine-stung
Glut of privilege

And was angry that my trust could not repose
In the clear light, like poetry or freedom
Leaning in from sea. I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.

[ShoutGrace]

In Memory of My Mother

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily

Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday--
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle--'
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life--
And I see us meeting at the end of a town

On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us -- eternally.

Patrick Kavanagh

[Schokokeks]

That was a nice one :nod:.
Here's another favourite by



The Skunk

Up, black, striped and damasked like the chasuble
At a funeral Mass, the skunk's tail
Paraded the skunk. Night after night
I expected her like a visitor.

The refrigerator whinnied into silence.
My desk light softened beyond the verandah.
Small oranges loomed in the orange tree.
I began to be tense as a voyeur.

After eleven years I was composing
Love-letters again, broaching the word 'wife'
Like a stored cask, as if its slender vowel
Had mutated into the night earth and air

Of California. The beautiful, useless
Tang of eucalyptus spelt your absence.
The aftermath of a mouthful of wine
Was like inhaling you off a cold pillow.

And there she was, the intent and glamorous,
Ordinary, mysterious skunk,
Mythologized, demythologized,
Snuffing the boards five feet beyond me.

It all came back to me last night, stirred
By the sootfall of your things at bedtime,
Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer
For the black plunge-line nightdress.

[Niamh]

you really are liking Heaney!

Heres one of my favourite Heaney poems

Personal Helicon

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.


One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.


A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.


Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.


Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

[Virgil]

I can spend an eternity reading Yeats. Here's another to the collection:


Sailing To Byzantium
by William Butler Yeats.
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
--Those dying generations--at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

[Schokokeks]

you really are liking Heaney!
I am :).
Personal Helicon was going to be my new favourite from the last collection I read :nod:. I read one of his poems (in English) to my mother (who doesn't speak English) on the phone and she called it "very melodious" :D.

Aw, I'm so excited ! In two weeks time, I'll be doing an extra weekend course on Yeats only, including the Irish revolution background, biography and his works, of course. Reading poetry in university from 10am-4pm on a Saturday ... I must be mad :D.

[billeh]

My favourite Irish poet is Yeats. I'm studying him for my Leaving cert. Most Irish students hate him.
Favourite poem is:


In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams -
Some vague Utopia - and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful.
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know.
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.

[Niamh]

My favourite Irish poet is Yeats. I'm studying him for my Leaving cert. Most Irish students hate him.
Favourite poem is:


In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams -
Some vague Utopia - and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful.
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know.
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.

Welcome to Litnet! It good to see another Irish person here! When i did my leaving cert we didnt have that poem. But then again i was the last year of the old leaving cert back in 2000. I also liked Yeats and found that many people didnt like him.

[Mrs. Dalloway]

My favorite is Yeats. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", "When you are old", "The Stolen Child", "He wishes for the cloths of heaven" are my favorite poems. But I think they are in this post so, I put another one which I also like a lot:

MEMORY

ONE had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.


:D

[Mrs. Dalloway]

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

--

HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN



Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


--

:D

[Xtian]

There's a
Graveyard up in Derry
High above the river
You'll find them resting
In in rich peat of Republican soil

Kneel then, to carefully listen
Gently bow your head,
Hear the whispered wishes
Of the martyred dead

Just look around this hallowed ground
And count these graves
Those of us who sleep within
No longer British slaves

We were murdered
By rifle, fire, or rope,
Some here
Died from hunger,

But none here died
Of lack of hope.

The only words they've understood
For centuries unbroken,
Are not the words at table said
But when the rifle's word was spoken

We pray this war is over soon
Hope the cease-fire holds
When no more soldiers will be added to our rolls

Our banner has now passed
Take care to guard it well
We know the fight you will sustain
From home or prison cell

We know the victory you'll attain
We, dead, know the price you'll pay
But you'll make our people free again
Come back to us that day

Come back to this graveyard in Derry.
Come back with our flag in your hand.
Tell us the Tri-Color is flying
Free and clear above both skies of Erie

There's a graveyard up in Derry
High above the river
And it's there you'll find them resting
In Republican soil
If you kneel and listen carefully
Gently bow your head
You will hear the whispered wishes
Of the martyred Irish dead

[Niamh]

nice poem, but you havent mentioned who its by.

[FrozenDuchess]

I love Yeats and Swinburne.

Yeats I think I can relate to more, he is more in our time and even though I love Irish Myth I do not think I understand it well enough (yet), so i struggle with Swinburne.

My all time favorite Yeats poems include 'The Sorrow of Love', 'These are the Clouds' and 'Lapis Lazuli'- the latter too long to type but I love the closing lines:

'There on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.' (CP:250)

[Nossa]

I studied one of W.B.Yeats works in my freshmen year..and I just LOVED his poetry...he's one of my favorite poets actually.
Here's my favorite one:
Easter 1916
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse.
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vain-glorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it
Where long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call.
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead.
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse --
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

[quasimodo1]

We live in deeds . . .

WE live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest:
Lives in one hour more than in years do some
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins.
Life's but a means unto an end; that end,
Beginning, mean, and end to all things -- God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.

Philip James Bailey

[quasimodo1]

Celtic poetry:#40

Reincarnation's another odd,
hope-for-fee attributed to God.
But what mysterious urge could make us
want a great surge of last year's dried pod

and leaf occupying space when new
buds want to bloom. Young, stout, sprouting yew
wants space in the garden of time to live,
to breathe, to mime the great show -- its due --

and leave. Let go, let go humankind!
once is enough, unless you're quite blind
to what comes and goes, what remains, what fruits
what flowers, what sustains, what has twined

all around old growth blocking the light.
Content yourself with atomic flight.
Do not cling, do not sigh, fume or berate.
Sorrow will plume as stars of the night.

Jan Haag 2-8-98