#1933 #IrishWriters #TheWindingStairAndOtherPoems
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
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cl… Enwrought with golden and silver l… The blue and the dim and the dark… Of night and light and the half—li… I would spread the cloths under yo…
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…
‘THOUGH logic choppers rule the… And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,’ Or so did Tom O’Roughley say
Who talks of Plato’s spindle; What set it whirling round? Eternity may dwindle, Time is unwound, Dan and Jerry Lout
These are the clouds about the fal… The majesty that shuts his burning… The weak lay hand on what the stro… Till that be tumbled that was lift… And discord follow upon unison,
Laughter not time destroyed my voi… And put that crack in it, And when the moon’s pot-bellied I get a laughing fit, For that old Madge comes down the…
I HAVE heard the pigeons of the… Make their faint thunder, and the… Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and… The unavailing outcries and the ol… That empty the heart. I have forg…
Shy one, shy one, Shy one of my heart, She moves in the firelight Pensively apart. She carries in the dishes,
Come, let me sing into your ear; Those dancing days are gone, All that silk and satin gear; Crouch upon a stone, Wrapping that foul body up
O curlew, cry no more in the air, Or only to the water in the West; Because your crying brings to my m… passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy… That was shaken out over my breast…
THE old brown thorn-trees break i… Under a bitter black wind that blo… Our courage breaks like an old tre… But we have hidden in our hearts t… Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houl…
I went out alone To sing a song or two, My fancy on a man, And you know who. Another came in sight
Good Father John O’Hart In penal days rode out To a Shoneen who had free lands And his own snipe and trout. In trust took he John’s lands;
THE Colonel went out sailing, He spoke with Turk and Jew, With Christian and with Infidel, For all tongues he knew. 'O what’s a wifeless man?' said he…