Hail Mystick Art! which Men, like Angels, taught, To speak to Eyes, and paint unbody’d Thought! Though Deaf, and Dumb; blest Skill, reliev’d by Thee, We make one Sense perform the Task of Three. We see, we hear, we touch the Head and Heart, And take, or give, what each but yields in part. With the hard Laws of Distance we dispence, And, without Sound, apart, commune in Sense; View, though confin’d; nay, rule this Earthly Ball, And travel o’er the wide expanded all. Dead Letters, thus with Living Notions fraught, Prove to the Soul the Telescopes of Thought; To Mortal Life a deathless Witness give; And bid all Deeds and Titles last, and live In scanty Life, eternity we taste; View the First Ages, and inform the Last. Arts, Hist’ry, Laws, we purchase with a Look, And keep, like Fate, all Nature in a book.
We present this work in honor of the 175th anniversary of the poet’s death.
James Clarence Mangan Irish 1803 – 1849
I see black dragons mount the sky, I see earth yawn beneath my feet — I feel within the asp, the worm That will not sleep and cannot die, Fair though may show the winding-sheet! I hear all night as through a storm Hoarse voices calling, calling My name upon the wind— All omens monstrous and appalling Affright my guilty mind.
I exult alone in one wild hour — That hour in which the red cup drowns The memories it anon renews In ghastlier guise, in fiercer power — Then Fancy brings me golden crowns, And visions of all brilliant hues Lap my lost soul in gladness, Until I awake again, And the dark lava-fires of madness Once more sweep through my brain.
We present this work in honor of the 165th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Sydney, Lady Morgan Irish 1781 – 1859
I.
And must I, ghastly guest of this dark dwelling, Pale, senseless tenant must I come to this; And shall this heart congeal, now warmly swelling To woe’s soft langour, rapture’s melting bliss!
II.
And must this pulse that beats to joy’s gay measure, Throbbing with bloomy health, this pulse lie still; And must each sense alive to guileless pleasure, Torpid resist the touch of transport’s thrill?
III.
And must each sensate feeling too decay, (Each feeling anguished by another’s sorrow,) This from that blushes youth and health to-day, Lie cold and senseless thus, like thee, to-morrow?
IV.
Terrific Death! to shun thy dreaded pow’r, Who would not brave existence’ direst strife? But that beyond thy dark shade’s gloomy low’r, Faith points her vista to eternal life!
We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Austin Clarke Irish 1896 – 1974
Stop, stop and listen for the bough top Is whistling and the sun is brighter Than God’s own shadow in the cup now! Forget the hour-bell. Mournful matins Will sound, Patric, as well at nightfall.
Faintly through mist of broken water Fionn heard my melody in Norway. He found the forest track, he brought back This beak to gild the branch and tell, there, Why men must welcome in the daylight.
He loved the breeze that warns the black grouse, The shouts of gillies in the morning When packs are counted and the swans cloud Loch Erne, but more than all those voices My throat rejoicing from the hawthorn.
In little cells behind a cashel, Patric, no handbell gives a glad sound. But knowledge is found among the branches. Listen! That song that shakes my feathers Will thong the leather of your satchels.
We present this work in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
Ellen Mary Patrick Downing Irish 1828 – 1869
My own dear native river, how fondly dost thou flow, By many a fair and sunny scene where I can never go, Thy waves are free to wander, and quickly on they wind, Till thou hast left the crowded streets and city far behind; Beyond I may not follow; thy haunts are not for me; Yet I love to think on the pleasant track of my own sweet river Lee
The spring-tide now is breathing—when they waters glance along, Full many a bird salutes thee with bright and cheering song; Full many a sunbeam falleth upon thy bosom fair, And every nook thou sleekest hath welcome smiling there. Glide on, thou blessed river! nor pause to think of me, Who only in my longing heart can tread that track with thee!
Yet when thy waters wander, where, haughty in decay, Some grand old Irish castle looks frowning on thy way; Oh! speak aloud, bold river! how I have wept with pride To read of those past ages, ere all our glory died, And wish for one short moment I had been there to see Such relic of the by-gone day upon thy banks, fair Lee!
And if, in roving onward, thy gladsome waters bound Where cottage homes are smiling, and children’s voices sound; Oh! think how sweet and tranquil, beneath the loving sky, Rejoicing in some country home, my life had glided by, And grieve one little minute that I can never be A happy, happy cottager upon thy banks, fair Lee!
Now, fare thee well, glad river! peace smile upon thy way, And still may sunbeams brighten, where thy wild rimples play! Oft in that weary city these blue waves leave behind I’ll think upon the pleasant paths where thy smooth waters wind; Oh! but for one long summer day, to wander on with thee, And rove where’er thou rovest, my own sweet river Lee!
Why are we Scholars plagu’d to write, On Days devoted to Delight? In Honour of the King, I’d play Upon his Coronation Day: But as for Loyalty in Rhyme, Defer that to another Time.
Now to excuse this to my Master– (This Want of Rhyme’s a sad Disaster) Sir, we confess you take great Pains, And break your own, to mend our Brains. You strive to make us learn’d, and wise; But to what End? — We shall not rise: In vain should at Preferment aim, Whilst Strangers make their happier Claim. Why should we labour to excel, Doom’d in Obscurity to dwell? Then, since our Welfare gives you Pain, (And yet your Toil may prove in vain) I wish, for your, and for our Ease, That all were Coronation Days.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 180th birthday.
Arthur O’Shaughnessy Irish 1844 – 1881
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; — World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world’s great cities, And out of a fabulous story We fashion an empire’s glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song’s measure Can trample a kingdom down.
We, in the ages lying, In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself in our mirth; And o’erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world’s worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth.
A breath of our inspiration Is the life of each generation; A wondrous thing of our dreaming Unearthly, impossible seeming — The soldier, the king, and the peasant Are working together in one, Till our dream shall become their present, And their work in the world be done.
They had no vision amazing Of the goodly house they are raising; They had no divine foreshowing Of the land to which they are going: But on one man’s soul it hath broken, A light that doth not depart; And his look, or a word he hath spoken, Wrought flame in another man’s heart.
And therefore to-day is thrilling With a past day’s late fulfilling; And the multitudes are enlisted In the faith that their fathers resisted, And, scorning the dream of to-morrow, Are bringing to pass, as they may, In the world, for its joy or its sorrow, The dream that was scorned yesterday.
But we, with our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see, Our souls with high music ringing: O men! it must ever be That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye.
For we are afar with the dawning And the suns that are not yet high, And out of the infinite morning Intrepid you hear us cry — How, spite of your human scorning, Once more God’s future draws nigh, And already goes forth the warning That ye of the past must die.
Great hail! we cry to the comers From the dazzling unknown shore; Bring us hither your sun and your summers; And renew our world as of yore; You shall teach us your song’s new numbers, And things that we dreamed not before: Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers, And a singer who sings no more.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 70th birthday.
Dennis O’Driscoll Irish 1954 – 2012
To assume everything has meaning. To return at evening feeling you have earned a rest and put your feet up before a glowing TV set and fire. To have your favorite shows. To be married to a local whom your parents absolutely adore. To be satisfied with what you have, the neighbors, the current hemline the dual immersion, the goverment doing its best. To keep to an average size and buy clothes off the rack. To bear the kind of face that can be made-up to prettines. To head contentedly for work knowing how bored you’d be at home. To book holidays to where bodies blend, tanned like sandgrains. To be given to little excesses, Christmas hangovers, spike high heels, chocolate éclair binges, lightened hair. To postpone children until the house’s extension can be afforded and the car paid off. To see the world through double glazing and find nothing wrong. To expect to go on living like this and to look straight forward. No regret. To get up each day neither in wonder nor in fear, meeting people on the bus you recognize and who accept you, without question, for what you are.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 120th birthday.
Rhoda Coghill Irish 1903 – 2000
I walk among the straws and the twigs; I see a moss-covered twig, I see an orange stone; And my feet say to me: “Do not walk on them, But leave them, that others may see them, And know that we have seen them also.”
Poets Corner 