While I, that reed-throated whisperer

First was muttering a prayer,Second rummaged for a flea;On a windy stone, the third,Giddy with his hundredth year,Sang unnoticed like a bird:‘Though the Door of Death is nearAnd what waits behind the door,Three times in a single dayI, though upright on the shore,Fall asleep when I should pray.’So the first, but now the second:‘We’re but…

I took no trouble to convince,Or seem plausible to a man of sense.Distrustful of thar popular eyeWhether it be bold or sly.Fifteen apparitions have I seen;The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.I have found nothing half so goodAs my long-planned half solitude,Where I can sit up half the nightWith some friend that has the witNot…

protected from the circle of the moonThat pitches common things about. There stoodAmid the ornamental bronze and stoneAn ancient image made of olive wood —And gone are phidias’ famous ivoriesAnd all the golden grasshoppers and bees.We too had many pretty toys when young:A law indifferent to blame or praise,To bribe or threat; habits that made…

Have known three centuries, poets sing,Of dalliance with a demon thing.Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,The swift innumerable spears,The horsemen with their floating hair,And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,Those merry couples dancing in tune,And the white body that lay by mine;But the tale, though words be lighter than air.Must live to be old…

Had trod the uneven road. Their hoots were soiled,Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape;They had kept a steady pace as though their beds,Despite a dwindling and late-risen moon,Were distant still. An old man cocked his ear.Aherne. What made that Sound?Robartes. A rat or water-henSplashed, or an otter slid into the stream.We are on the…

Under broken stone I haltAt the bottom of a pitThat broad noon has never lit,And shout a secret to the stone.All that I have said and done,Now that I am old and ill,Turns into a question tillI lie awake night after nightAnd never get the answers right.Did that play of mine send outCertain men the…