#1933 #IrishWriters #TheWindingStairAndOtherPoems
Once, when midnight smote the air, Eunuchs ran through Hell and met From thoroughfare to thoroughfare, While that great Juan galloped by… And like these to rail and sweat
I FASTED for some forty days on… For passing round the bottle with… In country shawl or Paris cloak,… And what’s the good of women, for… Is fol de rol de rolly O.
O women, kneeling by your altar-ra… When songs I wove for my beloved… And smoke from this dead heart dri… And covers away the smoke of myrrh… Bend down and pray for all that si…
Come round me, little childer; There, don’t fling stones at me Because I mutter as I go; But pity Moll Magee. My man was a poor fisher
I dreamed as in my bed I lay, All night’s fathomless wisdom come… That I had shorn my locks away And laid them on Love’s lettered… But something bore them out of sig…
Swear by what the sages spoke Round the Mareotic Lake That the Witch of Atlas knew, Spoke and set the cocks a-crow. Swear by those horsemen, by those…
WHEN have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long… Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most n… For all their broom-sticks and the…
He. Dear, I must be gone While night Shuts the eyes Of the household spies; That song announces dawn. She. No, night’s bird and love’s
Fasten your hair with a golden pin… And bind up every wandering tress; I bade my heart build these poor r… It worked at them, day out, day in… Building a sorrowful loveliness
O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed… The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze And by the unlabouring brood of th…
I lived among great houses, Riches drove out rank, Base drove out the better blood, And mind and body shrank. No Oscar ruled the table,
Where, where but here have pride a… That long to give themselves for w… To shake their wicked sides at you… Restraining reckless middle-age?
‘CALL down the hawk from the air… Let him be hooded or caged Till the yellow eye has grown mild… For larder and spit are bare, The old cook enraged,
SHE might, so noble from head To great shapely knees, The long flowing line, Have walked to the altar Through the holy images
‘She will change,’ I cried. ‘Into a withered crone.’ The heart in my side, That so still had lain, In noble rage replied