Works

Pacing slowly down the road
Black horses go, with load on load
Of Dublin people dead, and they
Will be covered up in clay.

Ere their friends go home, each man
Will shake his head, and drain a can...

Here in a distant place I hold my tongue;
I am O'Rahilly:
When I was young,
Who now am young no more,
I did not eat things picked up from the shore.
The periwinkle, and the tough dogfish...

Be kind unto these three, O King!
For they were fragrant-skinned, cheerful and giving;
Three stainless pearls, three of mild, winning ways,
Three candles sending forth three pleasant rays,...

Poor, frightened, fluttered, silent one!
If we had seen your nest of clay
We would have passed it by, and gone,
Nor frightened you away.

For there are others guard a nest...

O woman full of wiliness!
Although for love of me you pine,
Withhold your hand adventurous,
It holdeth nothing holding mine.

Look on my head, how it is grey!
My body's weakness doth appear;...

Listen! if but women were
Half as kind as they are fair,
There would be an end to all
Miseries that do befall.

Cloud and wind would run together
In a dance of sunny weather,...

At four o'clock, in dainty talk,
Lords and lovely ladies walk,
With a gentle dignity,
From the Green to Trinity.

And at five o'clock they take,
In a Caf', tea and cake,...

Through the air,
Everywhere, the rain is falling;
Brawling on house and tree:
On every place that you can see
The rain drops go;
The roofs are wet, the walls, the ground below.
...

In bloom and bud the bees are busily
Storing against the winter their sweet hoard
That shall be rifled ere the autumn be
Past, or the winter comes with silver sword
To fright the bees, until the merry round...

Now may we turn aside and dry our tears,
And comfort us, and lay aside our fears,
For all is gone, all comely quality,
All gentleness and hospitality,
All courtesy and merriment is gone;...

I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear
A sound, a little sound? My curious ear
Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree
Goes, whisper, whisper, whisper silently...

There was a giant by the Orchard Wall
Peeping about on this side and on that,
And feeling in the trees: he was as tall
As the big apple tree, and twice as fat:...

Mad Patsy said, he said to me,
That every morning he could see
An angel walking on the sky;
Across the sunny skies of morn
He threw great handfuls far and nigh
Of poppy seed among the corn;...

Play to the tender stops, though cheerily:
Gently, my soul, my song: let no one hear:
Sing to thyself alone; thine ecstasy
Rising in silence to the inward ear
That is attuned to silence: do not tell...

The hill is bare: I only find
The grass, the sky, and one small tree
Tossing wildly on the wind;
And that is all there is to see:
A tree, a hill, a wind, a sky
Where nothing ever passes by.

She is the sky of the sun,
She is the dart
Of love,
She is the love of my heart,
She is a rune,
She is above
The women of the race of Eve
As the sun is above the moon.
...

The sky-like girl whom we knew!
She dressed herself to go to the fair
In a dress of white and blue;
A white lace cap, and ribbons white
She wore in her hair;
She does not hear in the night...

Grey clouds on the tinted sky,
A drifting moon, a quiet breeze
Drooping mournfully to cry
In the branches of the trees.

The crying wind, the sighing trees,
The ruffled stars, the darkness falling...

And then I wakened up in such a fright;
I thought I heard a movement in the room
But did not dare to look; I snuggled right
Down underneath the bedclothes, then the boom...

While I sit beside the window
I can hear the pigeons coo,
That the air is warm and blue,
And how well the young bird flew -
Then I fold my arms and scold the heart
That thought the pigeons knew.
...