The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,A parrot sways upon a tree,Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.Here we will moor our lonely shipAnd wander ever with woven hands,Murmuring softly lip to lip,Along the grass, along the sands,Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:How we alone of mortals areHid under quiet boughs…
That come into my soul and escapeConfusion of the bed,Or those begotten or unbegottenPerning in a band,I bend my body to the spadeOr grope with a dirty hand.Or those begotten or unbegotten,For I would not recallSome that being unbegottenAre not individual,But copy some one action,Moulding it of dust or sand,I bend my body to the…
‘What change has put my thoughts astrayAnd eyes that had so keen a sight?What has turned to smoking wickNature’s pure unchanging light?‘Huddon and Duddon and Daniel O’Leary.Holy Joe, the beggar-man,Wenching, drinking, still remainOr sing a penance on the road;Something made these eyeballs wearyThat blinked and saw them in a shroud.‘Whatever stands in field or flood,Bird,…
Edit and annotate the linesThat young men, tossing on their beds,Rhymed out in love’s despairTo flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.All shuffle there; all cough in ink;All wear the carpet with their shoes;All think what other people think;All know the man their neighbour knows.Lord, what would they sayDid their Catullus walk that way?
In country shawl or Paris cloak, had put my wits astray,And what’s the good of women, for all that they can sayIs fol de rol de rolly O.Round Lough Derg’s holy island I went upon the stones,I prayed at all the Stations upon my matrow-bones,And there I found an old man, and though, I prayed…
In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cartThat carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,When…
From any brazen throat,For how can you compete,Being honour bred, with oneWho, were it proved he lies,Were neither shamed in his ownNor in his neighbours’ eyes?Bred to a harder thingThan Triumph, turn awayAnd like a laughing stringWhereon mad fingers playAmid a place of stone,Be secret and exult,Because of all things knownThat is most difficult.
Peleus on Thetis stares.Her limbs are delicate as an eyelid,Love has blinded him with tears;But Thetis’ belly listens.Down the mountain wallsFrom where pan’s cavern isIntolerable music falls.Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear,Belly, shoulder, bum,Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrsCopulate in the foam.
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,Upon the breathless starlit air,‘Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;Fix every wandering thought uponThat quarter where all thought is done:Who can distinguish darkness from the soulMy Self. The consecretes blade upon my kneesIs Sato’s ancient blade, still as it was,Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glassUnspotted by the centuries;That flowering,…
And bid them wander obeying your will,Flame under flame, till Time be no more;Have you not heard that our hearts are old,That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.
