Patrick Kavanagh ( ) ON RAGLAN ROAD

Transcription

1 Patrick Kavanagh ( ) ON RAGLAN ROAD On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue; I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way, And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day. On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge Of a deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge, The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay O I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away. I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret signs that's known To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone And words and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May. On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay When the angel woos the clay he d lose his wings at the dawn of day. 1946

2 Edward Walsh ( ) THE DAWNING OF THE DAY At early dawn I once had been Where Lene s blue waters flow, When summer bid the groves he green, The lamp of light to glow. As on by bower, and town, and tower, And widespread fields I stray, I meet a maid in the greenwood shade At the dawning of the day. Her feet and beauteous head were bare, No mantle fair she wore; But down her waist fell golden hair, That swept the tall grass o er. With milking-pail she sought the vale, And bright her charms display; Outshining far the morning star At the dawning of the day. Beside me sat that maid divine Where grassy banks outspread. Oh, let me call thee ever mine, Dear maid, I sportive said. False man, for shame, why bring me blame. She cried, and burst away The sun s first light pursued her flight At the dawning of the day.

3 Louis MacNeice ( ) CARRICKFERGUS I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams: Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams The little boats beneath the Norman castle, The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt; The Scotch Quarter was a line of residential houses But the Irish Quarter was a slum for the blind and halt. The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine, The yarn-milled called its funeral cry at noon; Our lights looked over the Lough to the lights of Bangor Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon. The Norman walled this town against the country To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting The List of Christ on the cross, in the angle of the nave. I was the rector's son, born to the Anglican order, Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor; The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure. The war came and a huge camp of soldiers Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice And the sentry's challenge echoing all day long; A Yorkshire terrier ran in and out by the gate-lodge Barred to civilians, yapping as if taking affront: Marching at ease and singing Who Killed Cock Robin? The troops went out by the lodge and off to the Front. The steamer was camouflaged that took me to England Sweat and khaki in the Carlisle train; I thought that the war would last for ever and sugar Be always rationed and that never again

4 Would the weekly papers not have photos of sandbags And my governess not make bandages from moss And people not have maps above the fireplace With flags on pins moving across and across Across the hawthorn hedge the noise of bugles, Flares across the night, Somewhere on the lough was a prison ship for Germans, A cage across their sight. I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents Contracted into a puppet world of sons Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt mines And the soldiers with their guns. 1937

5 CARRICKFERGUS (Trad.) I wish I was in Carrickfergus, only for nights in Ballygran I would swim over the deepest ocean, the deepest ocean for my love to find But the sea is wide and I cannot swim over and neither have I wings to fly If I could find me a handsome boatman to ferry me over to my love and die My childhood days bring back sad reflections of happy times I spent so long ago My boyhood friends and my own relations have all passed on now like melting snow But I'll spend my days in endless roaming soft is the grass my bed is free Ah to be back in Carrickfergus on that long road down to the sea And in Kilkenny it is reported there are marble stones as black as ink With gold and silver I would support her, but I'll sing no more now till I get a drink I'm drunk today and I'm seldom sober, a handsome rover from town to town Ah, but I'm sick now, my days are numbered so come all ye young men and lay me down

6 THE WATER IS WIDE (Trad.) The water is wide, I cannot get over Neither have I wings to fly Give me a boat that can carry two And both shall row, my love and I A ship there is and she sails the sea She's loaded deep as deep can be But not so deep as the love I'm in I know not if I sink or swim I leaned my back against an oak Thinking it was a trusty tree But first it bent and then it broke So did my love prove false to me I reached my finger into some soft bush Thinking the fairest flower to find I pricked my finger to the bone And left the fairest flower behind Oh love be handsome and love be kind Gay as a jewel when first it is new But love grows old and waxes cold And fades away like the morning dew Must I go bound while you go free Must I love a man who doesn't love me Must I be born with so little art As to love a man who'll break my heart When cockle shells turn silver bells Then will my love come back to me When roses bloom in winter's gloom Then will my love return to me