Works

Here and there on the wings of night
A fleck of blue and purple light,
A scrap of cloud, a bird, a star,
A comet hurrying afar
On the abyss, and the moon
Standing in her silver shoon.
...

I, without bite or sup,
If thou wert fated for me,
I would up
And would go after thee
Through mountains.

A thousand thanks from me
To God have gone,...

I will sing no more songs: the pride of my country I sang
Through forty long years of good rhyme, without any avail;
And no one cared even as much as the half of a hang...

In Dublin town the people see
Gorgeous clouds sail gorgeously,
They are finer, I declare,
Than the clouds of anywhere.

A swirl of blue and red and green,
A stream of blinding gold, a sheen...

My mind is sad and weary thinking how
The griffins of the Gael went over the sea
From noble Eir', and are fighting now
In France and Flanders and in Germany.

If they, 'mid whom I sported without dread,...

Do you hate me, you!
Sitting quietly there,
With the burnished hair
That frames the two
Deep eyes of your face
In a smooth embrace.

And you say naught,
And I never speak;...

If poesy have truth at all,
If some great lion of the Gael
Shall rule the lovely land of F'l;
O yellow mast and roaring sail!
Carry the leadership for me,
Writ in this letter, o'er the sea...

As lily grows up easily,
In modest, gentle dignity
To sweet perfection,
So grew she,
As easily.

Or as the rose that takes no care
Will open out on sunny air...

Silver stars shine peacefully,
The Canal is silver, the
Poplars bear with modest grace
Gossamers of silver lace,
And the turf bank wears with glee
Black and silver filigree.

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer:
May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair,
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.
...

Pity it was that you should ever stand
In ship or boat,
Or that you went afloat
Inside that ship!

The lusty steps you took!
The ways and journeys you knew how to wend...

A small part only of my grief I write;
And if I do not give you all the tale
It is because my gloom gets some respite
By just a small bewailing: I bewail
That I with sly and stupid folk must bide...

The wind stood up and gave a shout;
He whistled on his fingers, and
Kicked the withered leaves about
And thumped the branches with his hand,
And said he'd kill, and kill, and kill,...

At the end of the bough, at the top of the tree
(As fragrant, as high, and as lovely as thou)
One sweet apple reddens which all men may see,
At the end of the bough.
...

Do not be distant with me, do not be
Angry because I drank deep of your wine,
But treat that laughing matter laughingly
Because I am a poet, and incline
By nature and by art to jollity.
...

I was hiding in the crooked apple tree,
Scouting for Indians, when a man came;
I thought it was an Indian, for he
Was running like the wind., There was a flame
Of sunlight on his hand as he drew near,...

Tree! you are years standing there,
Gripping tight to the side of the hill,
And your branches are spread on the air,
While you stand so sad and so still,
And you do not complain...

Unfortunates, on the bare tree!
I mourn for ye
That have no place to house,
But on those winter-white cold boughs
To sit,
(How far apart ye sit)
And brood
In this wide, wintry solitude...

I know a girl,
And a girl knows me,
And the owl says, what?
And the owl says, who?
But what we know
We both agree
That nobody else
Shall hear or see,
It's all between
Herself and me:...

Come from your bed my drowsy gentleman!
And you, fair lady, rise and braid your hair,
And let the children wash, if wash they can;
If not, assist you them, and make them fair...