Irish Love Poetry

DENIS DEVLIN

Renewal By Her Element


The hawthorn morning moving
Above the battlements,
Breast from breast of lover
Tears, reminds of difference
And body's raggedness.

Immune from resolution
Into common clay
Because I have not known you;
Self-content as birdsong
Scornful at night-breakage
You seem to me. I am
Fresh from a long absence.

O suave through surf lifting
My smile upon your mouth;
Limbs according to rhythm
Separating, closing;
Scarcely using my name,
Traveller through troubling gestures,
Only for rare embraces
Of prepared texture.
Your lips amused harden
My arms round you defiant,
You shirk my enwreathing
Language, and your smile,
Turning aside my hand
Through your breath's light leafage,
Preferring yourself reflected
In my body to me,
Preferring my image of you
To you whom I achieved.
Noise is curbed attentive,
The sea hangs on your lips:
What would I do less?

It is over now but once
Our fees were nothing more,
Each for use of the other
In mortgage, than a glance.
I knew the secret movements
Of the blood under your throat
And when we lay love-proven
Whispering legends to sleep
Braceleted in embrace
Your hands pouring on me
Fresh water of their caresses,
Breasts, nests of my tenderness,
All night was laced with praise.

Now my image faded
In the lucid fields
Of your eyes. Never again
Surprise for years, years.

My landscape in grey rain
Aslant on bent seas.st shout in the night,
An eternity. But the weeks go by
Like birds; and the years, the years
Fly past anti-clockwise
Like clock hands in a bar mirror.



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Kathleen Mavourneen

http://www.fastdesign.com/music/irish/mavourn.htm


Kathleen Mavourneen
Traditional Irish



Kathleen Mavourneen! the grey dawn is breaking
The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill
The lark from her light wing the bright dew is shaking
Kathleen Mavourneen! What, slumbering still!
O hast thou forgotten how soon we must sever?
O hast thou forgotten this day we must part?
It may be for years, and it may be forever
Oh, why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
It may be for years, and it may be forever
Then why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?

Kathleen Mavourneen! Awake from thy slumbers
The blue mountains glow in the sun's golden light
Ah! Where is the spell that once hung on my numbers?
Arise in thy beauty, thou star of my night.

Mavourneen, mavourneen, my sad tears are falling
To think that from Erin and thee I must part.
It may be for years, and it may be forever
Oh, why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
It may be for years, and it may be forever
Then why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?

Duh, New Haven, I posted this same thing. I was intrigued by it, because I didn't quite understand Kathleen Mavourneen.

And here is a sad and beautiful Irish ballad'

The pale moon was rising above the green mountains,
The sun was declining beneath the blue sea;
When I strayed with my love by the pure crystal fountain,
That stands in the beautiful Vale of Tralee.
She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
that made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

The cool shades of evening their mantle were spreading,
And Mary all smiling was listening to me;
The moon through the valley her pale rays was shedding,
When I won the heart of the Rose of Tralee.
Though lovely and fair as the Rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
that made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

'Oh William it's the most beautiful song I've ever heard in my life,' she said at length, 'It's so beautiful that somehow - somehow-,'
'Somehow what my dearest?' he asked.
'It somehow makes me afraid,' she replied.
'Afraid?' he inquired.
'Yes;have you forgotten that music for us, the O'Connor's, is an ill omen? it haunts us like a ghost. That night my grandfather lay dying ghostly music filled the air. 'Twas the same when his father died!'
'Of all the nonsense I've ever listened to that beats it,' blurted out an exasperated William. 'Listen, will you marry me?' he continued.
'I'll give you my answer tomorrow evening after the counselors's meeting,' she replied.



She died, New Haven. Ah, the beautiful tragedy that the Irish so love.

This one is definitely a tear jerker ... and besides that, my dad's name was Danny:

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

The Kiss
"THE KISS" Thomas Moore {1779 ~ 1852}


Give me, my love, that billing kiss
I taught you on delicious night,
When, turning epicures in bliss,
We tried inventions of delight.

Come, gently steal my lips along,
And let you lips in murmurs move ~
Ah, no! ~ again ~ that kiss was wrong ~
How can you be so dull, my love?

'Cease, cease!' The blushing girl replied ~
And in her milky arms she caught me ~
'How can you thus your pupil chide;
You know 'twas in the dark you taught me!'

Down by The Salley Gardens


Down by the salley gardens
My love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
With little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
As the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish
with her did not agree.

In a field down by the river
My love and I did stand
And on my leaning shoulder
She laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
As the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish
And now am full of tears.


W. B . Yeats