All Poems
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More Than Suspect
© Eavan Boland
The oaks are stricken by a serious illness
They dry up after having let go
Into the glow of a sump at sunset
A whole throng of generals' heads
That the Science of Cartography Is Limited
© Eavan Boland
and not simply by the fact that this shading of
forest cannot show the fragrance of balsam,
the gloom of cypresses,
is what I wish to prove.
Quarantine
© Eavan Boland
In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.
Outside History
© Eavan Boland
These are outsiders, always. These stars
these iron inklings of an Irish January,
whose light happened
thousands of years before
The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me
© Eavan Boland
It was the first gift he ever gave her,
buying it for five five francs in the Galeries
in pre-war Paris. It was stifling.
A starless drought made the nights stormy.
My Country in Darkness
© Eavan Boland
This is a man
on the road from Youghal to Cahirmoyle.
He has no comfort, no food and no future.
He has no fire to recite his friendless measures by.
His riddles and flatteries will have no reward.
His patrons sheath their swords in Flanders and Madrid.
Winter Nightfall
© Robert Seymour Bridges
The day begins to droop,--
Its course is done:
But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.
While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry
© Robert Seymour Bridges
While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry
And blackening east that so embitters March,
Well-housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch,
And driven dust and withering snowflake fly;
When Death to Either shall come
© Robert Seymour Bridges
When Death to either shall come,
I pray it be first to me,
Be happy as ever at home,
If so, as I wish, it be.
To Thos. Floyd
© Robert Seymour Bridges
How fares it, friend, since I by Fate annoy'd
Left the old home in need of livelier play
For body and mind? How fare, this many a day,
The stubborn thews and ageless heart of Floyd?
To the United States of America
© Robert Seymour Bridges
Sure is our hope since he who led your nation
Spake for mankind, and ye arose in awe
Of that high call to work the world's salvation;
Clearing your minds of all estrangling blindness
In the vision of Beauty and the Spirit's law,
Freedom and Honour and sweet Lovingkindness.
To the President of Magdalen College, Oxford
© Robert Seymour Bridges
Since now from woodland mist and flooded clay
I am fled beside the steep Devonian shore,
Nor stand for welcome at your gothic door,
'Neath the fair tower of Magdalen and May,
To Joseph Joachim
© Robert Seymour Bridges
Belov'd of all to whom that Muse is dear
Who hid her spirit of rapture from the Greek,
Whereby our art excelleth the antique,
Perfecting formal beauty to the ear;
The Growth of Love
© Robert Seymour Bridges
So in despite of sorrow lately learn'd
I still hold true to truth since thou art true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue
To my life's need more splendid and unearn'd
Than hath thy gift outmatch'd desire and due.
Spirits
© Robert Seymour Bridges
Angel spirits of sleep,
White-robed, with silver hair,
In your meadows fair,
Where the willows weep,
So sweet love seemed that April morn
© Robert Seymour Bridges
So sweet love seemed that April morn,
When first we kissed beside the thorn,
So strangely sweet, it was not strange
We thought that love could never change.
Pater Filio
© Robert Seymour Bridges
Sense with keenest edge unusèd,
Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire;
Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd
On the ways of dark desire;
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
O'er the wilderness defiling!
On a Dead Child
© Robert Seymour Bridges
Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
Though cold and stark and bare,
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.
Nimium Fortunatus
© Robert Seymour Bridges
I have lain in the sun
I have toil'd as I might,
I have thought as I would,
And now it is night.
