His Answer When Some Stranger Asked Who He Was

I am Raftery the poet, full of hope and love; my eyes without light, my gentleness without misery. Going west on my journey with the light of my heart; weak and tired to the end of my road.

I am now, and my back to a wall, playing music to empty pockets.

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Irish dramatist, folklorist, and theatre manager. She co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre and wrote numerous short works for both companies. She was a central figure in the Irish Literary Revival and notably a mentor and friend to prominent Irish writers such as W. B. Yeats. Her collected writings include plays, folklore collections, and many translations of Irish language dramas. Her works remain significant in the context of early 20th-century Irish literature.

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

He Cries Out Against Love

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory, Simple Poetry

A Poem Written In Time Of Trouble By An Irish Priest Who Had Taken Orders In France

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory, Simple Poetry

The Hag Of Beare

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory, Simple Poetry

Raftery's Praise Of Mary Hynes

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Grief Of A Girl's Heart

O Donall og, if you go across the sea, bring myself with you and do not forget    it; and you will have a sweetheart for fair days and market days, and the daughter of the King of Greece beside you at night. It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you, and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not p...

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

Oisin After The Fenians

Now my strength is gone from me, I that was adviser to the Fenians, my whole body is tired to-night, my hands, my feet, and my head; tired, tired, tired.

It is bad the way I am after Finn of the Fenians; since he is gone away, every good is behind me.

Without great people, without mannerly ways; it is sorrowful I am after our king that is gone.

I am a shaking tree, my leaves gone from me; an empty nut, a horse without a bridle; a people without a dwelling-place, I Oisin, son of Finn.

It is long the clouds are over me to-night! it is long last night was; although this day is long, yesterday was longer again to me; every day that comes is long to me.

That is not the way I used to be, without fighting, without battles, without learning feats, without young girls, without music, without h...

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

The Irish Emigrant. 1880.

Look not for me at eventide,
I cannot come when work is done;
I go to wander far and wide,
For 'tis not here that gold is won.
Perchance where'er I go, these hands
May find me what I need to live;
Whate'er they win, if house, or lands,
I'd yield for what they cannot give.

For who can turn away his face
From home and kin and be at rest?
What country e'er can take the place
That Ireland fills within my breast?
More kindly smile the distant skies,
They say, beyond yon angry sea;
I know not what they mean, mine eyes
Have never seen these frown on me.

To me these hills beside the wave
With every year have dearer grown;
Is it so great a thing to crave
To call my native land, mine own?
But why these useless plaints renew?
Farewell...

John Campbell

The Hag Of Beare

It is of Corca Dubhne she was, and she had her youth seven times over, and every man that had lived with her died of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races. And through a hundred years she wore upon her head the veil Cuimire had blessed. Then age and weakness came upon her and it is what she said:

Ebb-tide to me as to the sea; old age brings me reproach; I used to wear a shift that was always new; to-day, I have not even a cast one.

It is riches you are loving, it is not men; it was men we loved in the time we were living.

There were dear men on whose plains we used to be driving; it is good the time we passed with them; it is little we were broken afterwards.

When my arms are seen it is long and thin they are; once they used to be fondling, they used to be around g...

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

The People

What have I earned for all that work, I said,
For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defamed,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning. I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall should have lit
In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;
Or climbed among the images of the past
The unperturbed and courtly images
Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino
To where the duchess and her people talked
The stately midnight through until they stood
In their great window looking at the dawn;
I might have had no friend that could not mix
Courtesy and passion into one like those
That saw the wicks grow...

William Butler Yeats

Far West Emigrant.

I.

Mine eye is weary of the plains
    Of verdure vast and wide
That stretch around me - lovely, calm,
    From morn till even-tide;
And I recall with aching heart
    My childhood's village home;
Its cottage roofs and garden plots,
    Its brooks of silver foam.


II.

True glowing verdure smiles around,
    And this rich virgin soil
Gives stores of wealth in quick return
    For hours of careless toil;
But oh! the reaper's joyous song
    Ne'er mounts to Heaven's dome,
For unknown is the mirth and joy
    Of the merry "Harvest Home."


III.

The solemn trackless woods are fair,
    And bright their summer dress;
But their still hush - their whisprings vague,
    My heart seem to oppress;
...

Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon