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To Ireland in the Coming Times

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  2. To Ireland in the Coming Times

To Ireland in the Coming Times

14.11.2015 comments

TO IRELAND IN THE COMING TIMES

 

Know, that I would accounted be

True brother of a company

That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong,

Ballad and story, rann and song;

Nor be I any less of them,

Because the red-rose-bordered hem

Of her, whose history began

Before God made the angelic clan,

Trails all about the written page.

When Time began to rant and rage

The measure of her flying feet

Made Ireland's heart begin to beat;

And Time bade all his candles flare

To light a measure here and there;

And may the thoughts of Ireland brood

Upon a measured quietude.

 

Nor may I less be counted one

With Davis, Mangan, Ferguson,

Because, to him who ponders well,

My rhymes more than their rhyming tell

Of things discovered in the deep,

Where only body's laid asleep.

For the elemental creatures go

About my table to and fro,

That hurry from unmeasured mind

To rant and rage in flood and wind

Yet he who treads in measured ways

May surely barter gaze for gaze.

Man ever journeys on with them

After the red-rose-bordered hem.

Ah, faeries, dancing under the moon,

A Druid land, a Druid tune!

 

While still I may, I write for you

The love I lived, the dream I knew.

From our birthday, until we die,

Is but the winking of an eye;

And we, our singing and our love,

What measurer Time has lit above,

And all benighted things that go

About my table to and fro,

Are passing on to where may be,

In truth's consuming ecstasy,

No place for love and dream at all;

For God goes by with white footfall.

I cast my heart into my rhymes,

That you, in the dim coming times,

May know how my heart went with them

After the red-rose-bordered hem. 

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Available translations

  • All'Irlanda nei tempi che verrano (it)
  • ALL’IRLANDA NEI TEMPI A VENIRE (it)

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