Lament for the Poets: 1916

I heard the Poor Old Woman say:

"At break of day the fowler came,

And took my blackbirds from their songs

Who loved me well thro' shame and blame

No more from lovely distances

Their songs shall bless me mile by mile,

Nor to white Ashbourne call me down

To wear my crown another while.

With bended flowers the angels mark

For the skylark the place they lie,

From there its little family

Shall dip their wings first in the sky.

And when the first suprise of flight

Sweet songs excite, from the far dawn

Shall there come blackbirds loud with love,

Sweet echoesmof the singers gone.

But in the lovely hush of eve

Weeping I grieve the silent bills"

I heard the Poor Old Woman say

In Derry of the little hills

- Francis Ledwidge

An Anthology of Irish Verse: The Poetry of Ireland from Mythological Times to the Present, Edited by Padraic Colum

Copyright, 1948, LiveRight Publishing Corporation

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