Good poems
/ page 270 of 545 /
Sacrifices
© Richard Jones
All winter the fire devoured everything --
tear-stained elegies, old letters, diaries, dead flowers.
When April finally arrived,
I opened the woodstove one last time
The Two Kings
© William Butler Yeats
King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood
Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen
He had outridden his war-wasted men
That with empounded cattle trod the mire,
To Some I Have Talked With By The Fire
© William Butler Yeats
While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Meeting
© William Butler Yeats
Hidden by old age awhile
In masker's cloak and hood,
Each hating what the other loved,
Face to face we stood:
'That I have met with such,' said he,
'Bodes me little good.'
The Double Vision Of Michael Robartes
© William Butler Yeats
On the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye
Has called up the cold spirits that are born
When the old moon is vanished from the sky
And the new still hides her horn.
Shepherd And Goatherd
© William Butler Yeats
Shepherd. He that was best in every country sport
And every country craft, and of us all
Most courteous to slow age and hasty youth,
Is dead.
The Grey Rock
© William Butler Yeats
'The Danish troop was driven out
Between the dawn and dusk,' she said;
'Although the event was long in doubt.
Although the King of Ireland's dead
And half the kings, before sundown
All was accomplished.
Under The Round Tower
© William Butler Yeats
'Although I'd lie lapped up in linen
A deal I'd sweat and little earn
If I should live as live the neighbours,'
Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne;
'Stretch bones till the daylight come
On great-grandfather's battered tomb.'
Model For The Laureate
© William Butler Yeats
On thrones from China to Peru
All sorts of kings have sat
That men and women of all sorts
proclaimed both good and great;
King And No King
© William Butler Yeats
'Would it were anything but merely voice!'
The No King cried who after that was King,
Because he had not heard of anything
That balanced with a word is more than noise;
Roger Casement
© William Butler Yeats
I say that Roger Casement
Did what he had to do.
He died upon the gallows,
But that is nothing new.
The Three Bushes
© William Butler Yeats
An incident from the `Historia mei Temporis'
of the Abbe Michel de BourdeilleSaid lady once to lover,
'None can rely upon
A love that lacks its proper food;
The O'Rahilly
© William Butler Yeats
Sing of the O'Rahilly,
Do not deny his right;
Sing a 'the' before his name;
Allow that he, despite
That The Night Come
© William Butler Yeats
She lived in storm and strife,
Her soul had such desire
For what proud death may bring
That it could not endure
A Man Young And Old: XI. From Oedipus At Colonus
© William Butler Yeats
Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span;
Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;
Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.
Baile And Aillinn
© William Butler Yeats
ARGUMENT. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the
Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land
among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so
that their hearts were broken and they died.
Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites
© William Butler Yeats
Come gather round me, Parnellites,
And praise our chosen man;
Stand upright on your legs awhile,
Stand upright while you can,
The Hour Before Dawn
© William Butler Yeats
And I will talk before I sleep
And drink before I talk.'
And he
Had dipped the wooden ladle deep
Into the sleeper's tub of beer
Had not the sleeper started up.
The Ballad Of Father O'Hart
© William Butler Yeats
Good Father John O'Hart
In penal days rode out
To a Shoneen who had free lands
And his own snipe and trout.
Three Marching Songs
© William Butler Yeats
Remember all those renowned generations,
They left their bodies to fatten the wolves,
They left their homesteads to fatten the foxes,
Fled to far countries, or sheltered themselves
In cavern, crevice, or hole,
Defending Ireland's soul.
