‘Another and another and another …’
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN (1803–49)
The Young Parson’s Dream
‘My heart is a monk’
Relic of Prince Bayazeed, Son of Suleiman (d.1561)
Twenty Golden Years Ago
The Ride Round the Parapet
Khidder
Siberia
Dark Rosaleen
The Nameless One
SAMUEL FERGUSON (1810–86)
The Forging of the Anchor
Lament for Thomas Davis
The Burial of King Cormac
Deirdre’s Lament for the Sons of Usnach
Willy Gilliland: An Ulster Ballad
AUBREY DE VERE (1814–1902)
The Little Black Rose
SHERIDAN LE FANU (1814–73)
from The Legend of the Glaive
‘Through the woods of Morrua and over its root-knotted flooring …’
THOMAS DAVIS (1814–45)
Fontenoy, 1745
O’Connell’s Statue
JAMES MCCARROLL (1814–91)
The Irish Wolf
MOTHER OF DIARMAID MAC CÁRTHAIGH (fl. 1850)
A Lament for Diarmaid Mac Cárthaigh of Ráth Dubháin, Who Was a Butter-Merchant in Cork
MORIAN SHEHONE (fl. c.1850?)
Lament of Morian Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM (1824–89)
from Invitation to a Painter (Sent from the West of Ireland)
I: ‘Flee from London, good my Walter! …’
V: ‘Now I’ve thought of something! …’
VI: ‘Ere we part at winter’s portal, I shall row you of a night …’
The Abbot of Inisfalen (A Killarney Legend)
from Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland
from Chapter II: Neighbouring Landlords
‘Unlike this careful management …’
from Chapter V: Ballytullagh
‘Old Father Flynn and his plain chapel walls …’
from Chapter VII: Tenants at Will
‘But Pigot’s ruddy cheek and sharp black eye …’
from Chapter IX: The Fair
‘Crowds push through Lisnamoy, shop, street, and lane …’
In Snow
from Blackberries
‘Not men and women in an Irish street …’
‘The Poet launched a stately fleet: it sank …’
JANE FRANCESCA ELGEE (LADY WILDE) (1826–96)
A Supplication
JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY (1844–90)
A White Rose
VI: REVIVAL: 1881–1921 SAMUEL FERGUSON
At the Polo-Ground
JOHN TODHUNTER (1839–1916)
Under the Whiteboy Acts, 1800: An Old Rector’s Story
EMILY LAWLESS (1845–1913)
Clare Coast
A Retort
WILLIAM LARMINIE (1849–1900)
from Fand
‘Heed her not, O Cuhoolin, husband mine …’
THOMAS GIVEN (1850–1917)
A Song for February
OSCAR WILDE (1854–1900)
from Poems in Prose
The Artist
The Disciple
T. W. ROLLESTON (1857–1920)
The Dead at Clonmacnois
KATHARINE TYNAN (1861–1931)
Sheep and Lambs
Waiting
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865–1939)
The Madness of King Goll
Fergus and the Druid
The Man who Dreamed of Faeryland
The Song of Wandering Aengus
Adam’s Curse
A Drinking Song
Introductory Rhymes to Responsibilities
Her Praise
Easter 1916
Reprisals
JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE (1871–1909)
Queens
Patch-Shaneen
In Kerry
THOMAS MACDONAGH (1878–1916)
Dublin Tramcars
The Night Hunt
The Man Upright
JOSEPH CAMPBELL (1879–1944)
The Newspaper-Seller
Raven’s Rock
JAMES STEPHENS (1880?–1950)
The Red-haired Man’s Wife
The Street Behind Yours
O Bruadair
PADRAIC COLUM (1881–1972)
A Drover
The Poor Girl’s Meditation
The Poet
JAMES JOYCE (1882–1941)
from Chamber Music
XXXVI: I hear an army charging upon the land
Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba
FRANCIS LEDWIDGE (1887–1917)
The Death of Ailill
The Wife of Llew
Thomas MacDonagh
The Blackbirds
VII: THE SEA OF DISAPPOINTMENT: 1922–70 WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Meditations in Time of Civil War
In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz
Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931
from Words for Music Perhaps
VI: Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop
XX: ‘I am of Ireland’
Lapis Lazuli
High Talk
Cuchulain Comforted
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
from Prison Poems
Chesspieces
New Year, 1923
Country Sorrow
Ad Limina
BLANAID SALKELD (1880–1959)
Role
Art
JAMES JOYCE
Buy a book in brown paper
from Finnegans Wake
The Ondt and the Gracehoper
AUSTIN CLARKE (1896–1974)
The Lost Heifer
The Planter’s Daughter
The Straying Student
Penal Law
Martha Blake at Fifty-one
A Strong Wind
New Liberty Hall
F. R. HIGGINS (1896–1941)
Song for the Clatter-bones
PATRICK MACDONOGH (1902–61)
No Mean City
O, Come to the Land
PATRICK KAVANAGH (1904–67)
Inniskeen Road: July Evening
A Christmas Childhood
from The Great Hunger
I: ‘Clay is the word and clay is the flesh …’
II: ‘Maguire was faithful to death …’
XIII: ‘The world looks on …’
XIV: ‘We may come out into the October reality, Imagination …’
Threshing Morning
Kerr’s Ass
Innocence
Come Dance with Kitty Stobling
The Hospital
The One
PADRAIC FALLON (1905–74)
A Flask of Brandy
SAMUEL BECKETT (1906–89)
from Six Poèmes 1947–1949
‘my way is in the sand flowing …’
‘what would I do without this world faceless incurious …’
‘I would like my love to die …’
JOHN HEWITT (1907–87)
The Colony
LOUIS MACNEICE (1907–63)
A Cataract Conceived as the March of Corpses
Valediction
from Autumn Journal
IX: ‘Now we are back to normal …’
Autobiography
Neutrality
Soap Suds
The Taxis
Charon
The Introduction
W. R. RODGERS (1909–69)
The Net
MÁIRTÍN Ó DIREÁIN (1910–88)
End of an Era
Sunday Memory
Strong Beams
SEÁN Ó RÍORDÁIN (1917–77)
Switch
Despair
Claustrophobia
Fever
MÁIRE MHAC AN TSAOI (b.1922)
Mary Hogan’s Quatrains
PEARSE HUTCHINSON (b.1927)
Petition to Release
RICHARD
MURPHY (b.1927)
Sailing to an Island
Girl at the Seaside
THOMAS KINSELLA (b.1928)
Chrysalides
First Light
from Nightwalker
2: ‘The human taste grows faint …’
5: ‘A pulse hisses in my ear …’
JOHN MONTAGUE (b.1929)
The Trout
All Legendary Obstacles
What a View
SEAMUS HEANEY (b.1939)
Death of a Naturalist
The Peninsula
Requiem for the Croppies
Bogland
MICHAEL LONGLEY (b.1939)
In Memoriam
MICHAEL HARTNETT (1941–99)
For My Grandmother, Bridget Halpin
Bread
from Notes on My Contemporaries
1: The Poet Down
DEREK MAHON (b.1941)
Glengormley
Ecclesiastes
EAVAN BOLAND (b.1944)
From the Painting Back from Market by Chardin
VIII: TRANSFORMATIONS: 1971–2009 AUSTIN CLARKE
from Tiresias
from II: ‘ “Strolling one day, beyond the Kalends, on Mount Cyllene …” ’
RICHARD MURPHY
Seals at High Island
Stormpetrel
Morning Call
THOMAS KINSELLA
38 Phoenix Street
His Father’s Hands
Tao and Unfitness at Inistiogue on the River Nore
At the Western Ocean’s Edge
The Design
JOHN MONTAGUE
Windharp
Herbert Street Revisited
Mount Eagle
She Cries
BRENDAN KENNELLY (b.1936)
from The Book of Judas
prades
from The Man Made of Rain
21: ‘There’s no edge, only a new place with …’
SEAMUS HEANEY
Broagh
The Tollund Man
The Strand at Lough Beg
Song
The Harvest Bow
from Sweeney Redivivus
The Cleric
The Scribes
Hailstones
from Settings
XIV: ‘One afternoon I was seraph on gold leaf …’
XV: ‘And strike this scene in gold too, in relief …’
A Sofa in the Forties
Postscript
Perch
The Blackbird of Glanmore
MICHAEL LONGLEY
Wounds
The Linen Industry
Between Hovers
The Butchers
Form
The Campfires
Ceasefire
The Evening Star
Overhead
Above Dooaghtry
Sleep & Death
Whalsay
MICHAEL HARTNETT
Lament for Tadhg Cronin’s Children
from Inchicore Haiku
8: ‘My English dam bursts …’
18: ‘I push in a plug …’
37: ‘What do bishops take …’
78: ‘On Tyrconnell Road …’
EAMON GRENNAN (b.1941)
from The Quick of It
‘ because the body stops here because you can only reach out so far …’
‘When I see the quick ripple of a groundhog’s back above the grass …’
‘Casual, prodigal, these piss-poor opportunists, the weeds …’
‘Even under the rain that casts a fine white blanket over mountain and lake …’
DEREK MAHON
An Image from Beckett
A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford
Courtyards in Delft
from The Yellow Book
VII: An Bonnán Buí
‘Things’
Biographia Literaria
EILÉAN NÍ CHUILLEANÁIN (b.1942)
Deaths and Engines
MacMoransbridge
Fireman’s Lift
The Real Thing
A Capitulary
Gloss/Clós/Glas
DOROTHY MOLLOY (1942–2004)
Ghost Train
Gethsemane Day
JOHN F. DEANE (b.1943)
The Instruments of Art
EAVAN BOLAND
Mise Eire
PAUL DURCAN (b.1944)
Ireland 1972
Ireland 1977
Give Him Bondi
Ireland 2001
Ireland 2002
BERNARD O’DONOGHUE (b.1945)
Casement on Banna
Ter Conatus
TREVOR JOYCE (b.1947)
all that is the case
now then
FRANK ORMSBY (b.1947)
The Gate
The Whooper Swan
CIARAN CARSON (b.1948)
Dresden
A Date Called Eat Me
from The Twelfth of Never
The Rising Sun
from Breaking News
Trap
Wake
from For All We Know
from Part One: The Fetch
from Part Two: The Fetch
TOM PAULIN (b.1949)
A Written Answer
The Road to Inver
MEDBH MCGUCKIAN (b.1950)
The Seed-Picture
The Sitting
Monody for Aghas
She is in the Past, She has this Grace
PETER FALLON (b.1951)
The Company of Horses
PAUL MULDOON (b.1951)
The Electric Orchard
Cuba
Anseo
from Immram
‘I was just about getting things into perspective …’
Aisling
They that Wash on Thursday
Third Epistle to Timothy
The Breather
Turkey Buzzards
KERRY HARDIE (b.1951)
Ship of Death
Seal Morning
NUALA NÍ DHOMHNAILL (b.1952)
The Shannon Estuary Welcomes the Fish
The Language Issue
My Father’s People
The Hair Market
Mermaid with Parish Priest
MAURICE SCULLY (b.1952)
from Over & Through
Sound
Liking the Big Wheelbarrow
from DEF
Lullaby
MAURICE RIORDAN (b.1953)
The Sloe
from The Idylls
2: ‘Another day when they were sitting on the headland …’
DENNIS O’DRISCOLL (b.1954)
from Churchyard View: The New Estate
‘Taking it all with us …’
THOMAS MCCARTHY (b.1954)
Ellen Tobin McCarthy
The Standing Trains
RITA ANN HIGGINS (b.1955)
Black Dog in My Docs Day
CATHAL Ó SEARCAIGH (b.1956)
A Runaway Cow
Lament
GREG DELANTY (b.1958)
The Cure
To My Mother, Eileen
PETER MCDONALD (b.1962)
The Hand
COLETTE BRYCE (b.1970)
Self-Portrait in the Dark (with Cigarette)
The Poetry Bug
DAVID WHEATLEY (b.1970)
Sonnet
Drift
SINÉAD MORRISSEY (b.1972)
Pilots
ALAN GILLIS (b.1973)
12th October, 1994
Progress
CAITRÍONA O’REILLY (b.1973)
A Lecture Upon the Bat
Heliotrope
LEONTIA FLYNN (b.1974)
By My Skin
Drive
NICK LAIRD (b.1975)
Pedigree
IX: SONGS AND BALLADS SINCE 1801 THOMAS MOORE
from Irish Melodies
War Song: Remember the Glories of Brien the Brave
The Song of Fionnuala
S
he is Far from the Land
’Tis the Last Rose of Summer
Dear Harp of My Country
Shall the Harp Then be Silent
from National Melodies
Then, Fare Thee Well
LOVE
ANONYMOUS
I Know My Love
The Dawning of the Day
The Drinan Dhun (The Sloe Tree)
The Butcher Boy
ANTOINE Ó RAIFTEIRÍ
Mary Hynes
Brídín Vesey
GERALD GRIFFIN (1803–40)
Eileen Aroon
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
Lovely Mary Donnelly
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES (1846–1931)
My Love’s an Arbutus
PERCY FRENCH (1854–1920)
McBreen’s Heifer
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Down by the Salley Gardens
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
My Lagan Love
PADRAIC COLUM
She Moved through the Fair
PATRICK KAVANAGH
On Raglan Road
DOMINIC BEHAN (1928–90)
Liverpool Lou
MACDARA WOODS (b .1942)
The Dark Sobrietee
WAR, POLITICS, PRISON
ANONYMOUS
Blarney Castle
The Relief of Derry, 1 August (old style) 1689
The Cow Ate the Piper
A Lament for Kilcash
Johnny, I Hardly Knew You
Arthur MacBride
The Peeler and the Goat
The Recruiting Sergeant
By Memory Inspired
JEREMIAH JOSEPH CALLANAN
Wellington’s Name
THOMAS DAVIS
Clare’s Dragoons
DION BOUCICAULT (1820–90)
The Wearing of the Green
‘CARROLL MALONE’ (WILLIAM MCBURNEY) (182?–92)
The Croppy Boy
JOHN KELLS INGRAM (1823–1907)
The Memory of the Dead
JOHN TODHUNTER
Aghadoe
OSCAR WILDE
from The Ballad of Reading Gaol
‘He did not wear his scarlet coat …’
CANON CHARLES O’NEILL (1887–1941)
The Foggy Dew
PATRICK MACGILL (1890–1963)
La Bassée Road
The Guns
BRENDAN BEHAN (1923–64)
from The Quare Fellow
The Ould Triangle
from The Hostage
The Captains and the Kings
DOMINIC BEHAN
The Patriot Game
SEAMUS HEANEY
Craig’s Dragoons
SOCIETY
ANONYMOUS
In Praise of the City of Mullingar
The Nightcap
Nell Flaherty’s Drake
The Galway Races
Brian O’Linn
Molly Malone
The Bag of Nails
William Bloat
Paddy on the Railway
Finnegan’s Wake
CHARLES O’FLAHERTY (c.1794–c.1828)
The Humours of Donnybrook Fair
‘FATHER PROUT’ (JOHN SYLVESTER O’MAHONY) (1804–66)
The Town of Passage
CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER (1818–95)
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Once in Royal David’s City
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES
Herring is King
JOHNNY TOM GLEESON (1853–1924)
The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 2