A Book of Irish Verse / Selected from modern writers, with an introduction and notes by W. B. Yeats

by Unknown

Revised Edition

W.H. WHITE AND CO. LTD.
RIVERSIDE PRESS, EDINBURGH

TO THE MEMBERS
OF
THE NATIONAL LITERARY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN
AND THE
IRISH LITERARY SOCIETY OF LONDON

CONTENTS

		PAGE
Preface		[xiii]
Modern Irish Poetry		[xvii]
Old Age	Oliver Goldsmith (1725-1774)	[1]
The Village Preacher	Oliver Goldsmith (1725-1774)	[2]
The Deserter's Meditation	John Philpot Curran (1750—1817)	[3]
'Thou canst not boast'	Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)	[4]
Kathleen O'More	James Nugent Reynolds ( -1802)	[5]
The Groves of Blarney	Richard Alfred Milliken (1767-1815)	[6]
The Light of other Days	Thomas Moore (1779-1852)	[10]
'At the Mid Hour of Night'	Thomas Moore (1779-1852)	[11]
The Burial of Sir John Moore	Rev. Charles Wolfe (1791-1823)	[12]
The Convict of Clonmel	Jeremiah Joseph Callanan (1795-1839)	[14]
The Outlaw of Loch Lene	Jeremiah Joseph Callanan (1795-1839)	[16]
Dirge of O'Sullivan Bear	Jeremiah Joseph Callanan (1795-1839)	[17]
Love Song	George Darley (1795-1846)	[20]
The Whistlin' Thief	Samuel Lover (1797-1868)	[22]
Soggarth Aroon	John Banim (1798-1842)	[24]
Dark Rosaleen	James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849)	[27]
Lament for the Princes
of Tyrone and Tyrconnell	James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849)	[31]
A Lamentation for the
Death of Sir Maurice
Fitzgerald	James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849)	[41]
The Woman of Three Cows	James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849)	[43]
Prince Alfrid's Itinerary
through Ireland	James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849)	[47]
O'Hussey's Ode to The
Maguire	James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849)	[50]
The Nameless One	James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849)	[55]
Siberia	James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849)	[57]
Hy-Brasail	Gerald Griffin (1803-1840)	[59]
Mo Craoibhin Cno	Edward Walsh (1805-1850)	[61]
Mairgréad Ni Chealleadh	Edward Walsh (1805-1850)	[63]
From the Cold Sod
that's o'er you	Edward Walsh (1805-1850)	[65]
The Fairy Nurse	Edward Walsh (1805-1850)	[67]
A cuisle geal mo chroidhe	Michael Doheny (1805-1863)	[69]
Lament of the Irish
Emigrant	Lady Dufferin (1807-1867)	[71]
The Welshmen of
Tirawley	Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886)	[74]
Aideen's Grave	Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886)	[91]
Deirdre's Lament for
the Sons of Usnach	Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886)	[99]
The Fair Hills of Ireland	Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886)	[102]
Lament over the Ruins
of the Abbey of Timoleague	Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886)	[104]
The Fairy Well of Lagnanay	Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886)	[107]
On the Death of Thomas
Davis	Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886)	[111]
The County of Mayo	George Fox	[115]
The Wedding of the
Clans	Aubrey de Vere (1814)	[117]
The Little Black Rose	Aubrey de Vere (1814)	[119]
Song	Aubrey de Vere (1814)	[120]
The Bard Ethell	Aubrey de Vere (1814)	[121]
Lament for the Death
of Eoghan Ruadh
O'Neill	Thomas Davis (1814-1845)	[135]
Maire Bhan Astór	Thomas Davis (1814-1845)	[138]
O! the Marriage	Thomas Davis (1814-1845)	[140]
A Plea for Love	Thomas Davis (1814-1845)	[142]
Remembrance	Emily Brontë (1818-1848)	[143]
A Fragment from 'The
Prisoner: a Fragment'	Emily Brontë (1818-1848)	[145]
Last Lines	Emily Brontë (1818-1848)	[147]
The Memory of the Dead	John Kells Ingram (? 1820)	[148]
The Winding Banks of
Erne	William Allingham (1824-1889)	[150]
The Fairies	William Allingham (1824-1889)	[157]
The Abbot of Inisfālen.	William Allingham (1824-1889)	[160]
Twilight Voices	William Allingham (1824-1889)	[164]
'Four Ducks on a Pond'	William Allingham (1824-1889)	[166]
The Lover and Birds	William Allingham (1824-1889)	[167]
The Celts	Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825-1868)	[169]
Salutation to the Celts	Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825-1868)	[172]
The Gobban Saor	Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825-1868)	[174]
Patrick Sheehan	Charles J. Kickham (1825-1882)	[176]
The Irish Peasant Girl	Charles J. Kickham (1825-1882)	[180]
To God and Ireland True	Ellen O'Leary (1831-1889)	[182]
The Banshee	John Todhunter (1836)	[183]
Aghadoe	John Todhunter (1836)	[186]
A Mad Song	Hester Sigerson	[188]
Lady Margaret's Song	Edward Dowden (1843)	[188]
Song	Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844-1881)	[189]
Father O'Flynn	Alfred Perceval Graves (1846)	[191]
Song	Rosa Gilbert	[192]
Requiescat	Oscar Wilde (1855)	[193]
The Lament of Queen
Maev	Thomas William Rolleston (1857)	[195]
The Dead at Clonmacnois	Thomas William Rolleston (1857)	[197]
The Spell-struck	Thomas William Rolleston (1857)	[198]
'Were you on the
Mountain?'	Douglas Hyde	[199]
'My Grief on the Sea'	Douglas Hyde	[200]
My Love, O, she is my
Love	Douglas Hyde	[201]
I shall not die for thee	Douglas Hyde	[204]
Riddles	Douglas Hyde	[205]
Lough Bray	Rose Kavanagh (1861-1891)	[206]
The Children of Lir	Katharine Tynan Hinkson	[209]
St. Francis to the Birds	Katharine Tynan Hinkson	[212]
Sheep and Lambs	Katharine Tynan Hinkson	[215]
The Gardener Sage	Katharine Tynan Hinkson	[216]
The Dark Man	Nora Hopper	[218]
The Fairy Fiddler	Nora Hopper	[219]
Our Thrones Decay	A.E.	[220]
Immortality	A.E.	[221]
The Great Breath	A.E.	[221]
Sung on a By-way	A.E.	[222]
Dream Love	A.E.	[223]
Illusion	A.E.	[223]
Janus	A.E.	[224]
Connla's Well	A.E.	[225]A
Names	John Eglinton	[226]A
That	Charles Weekes	[227]A
Think	Charles Weekes	[227]A
Te Martyrum Candidatus	Lionel Johnson	[228]A
The Church of a Dream	Lionel Johnson	[229]A
Ways of War	Lionel Johnson	[230]A
The Red Wind	Lionel Johnson	[231]A
Celtic Speech	Lionel Johnson	[232]A
To Morfydd	Lionel Johnson	[225]
Can Doov Deelish	Dora Sigerson	[226]
	ANONYMOUS
Shule Aroon		[231]
The Shan Van Vocht		[232]
The Wearing of the Green		[235]
The Rakes of Mallow		[237]
Johnny, I hardly knew ye		[238]
Kitty of Coleraine		[241]
Lament of Morian Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke		[242]
The Geraldine's Daughter		[246]
By Memory Inspired		[247]
A Folk Verse		[249]
Notes		[250]

PREFACE

I HAVE not found it possible to revise this book as completely as I should have wished. I have corrected a bad mistake of a copyist, and added a few pages of new verses towards the end, and softened some phrases in the introduction which seemed a little petulant in form, and written in a few more to describe writers who have appeared during the last four years, and that is about all. I compiled it towards the end of a long indignant argument, carried on in the committee rooms of our literary societies, and in certain newspapers between a few writers of our new movement, who judged Irish literature by literary standards, and a number of people, a few of whom were writers, who judged it by its patriotism and by its political effect; and I hope my opinions may have value as part of an argument which may awaken again. The Young Ireland writers wrote to give the peasantry a literature in English in place of the literature they were losing with Gaelic, and these methods, which have shaped the literary thought of Ireland to our time, could not be the same as the methods of a movement which, so far as it is more than an instinctive expression of certain moods of the soul, endeavours to create a reading class among the more leisured classes, which will preoccupy itself with Ireland and the needs of Ireland. The peasants in eastern counties have their Young Ireland poetry, which is always good teaching and sometimes good poetry, and the peasants of the western counties have beautiful poems and stories in Gaelic, while our more leisured classes read little about any country, and nothing about Ireland. We cannot move these classes from an apathy, come from their separation from the land they live in, by writing about politics or about Gaelic, but we may move them by becoming men of letters and expressing primary emotions and truths in ways appropriate to this country. One carries on the traditions of Thomas Davis, towards whom our eyes must always turn, not less than the traditions of good literature, which are the morality of the man of letters, when one is content, like A.E. with fewer readers that one may follow a more hidden beauty; or when one endeavours, as I have endeavoured in this book, to separate what has literary value from what has only a patriotic and political value, no matter how sacred it has become to us.

The reader who would begin a serious study of modern Irish literature should do so with Mr Stopford Brooke's and Mr Rolleston's exhaustive anthology.

W.B.Y.

August 15, 1899