We've Had One, Yes, But What About SECOND Midterm? (ENGL 3730, Irish Literature, Dr. Moloney, Weber State University)

TRANSLATIONS Translations is a three-act play set in the tumultuous nineteenth century country of Ireland. The action takes place in a hedge-school where students are faced with the invasion of English speaking soldiers. One of these soldiers falls in love with an Irish girl and then mysteriously goes missing. The son of the master of the hedge-school is forced to go into hiding to keep from being condemned for the crime, although he is not responsible for the soldier's disappearance. Translations is a play about love, tradition, and the circumstances that force the break with these traditions. The first half of Act one sets up the atmosphere of the city of Baile Beag and introduces the main characters. Midway through this act Owen, one of the head master's sons, returns from Dublin. Much to his brother and father's dismay Owen is employed by the British army to help make a new map of Ireland. It is Owen's job to translate conversations between the English speaking soldiers and Irish speaking citizens of the town. Unfortunately, Owen does not do a very adequate job of translating Lancey's words. He does not tell the students this map making project is a military operation. In the second act of the play Owen and Yolland begin to realize how difficult their project of translating all the Irish place names into their English equivalents will be. Owen is unsentimental about the project and sees it only as another job while Yolland actually develops a deep love for the Irish language, culture and country. Yolland also falls in love with Maire, a girl who attends the hedge-school. Up to this point it had been understood that Maire and Manus would get married. When Manus sees Maire and Yolland embracing after a dance he goes after Yolland with a stick. Although Manus does not injure Yolland, Yolland goes missing the next day. Manus runs away because he is afraid he will be arrested in connection with Yolland's disappearance. In the final act of the play Captain Lancey issues a warning to all the citizens in Baile Beag that the entire city will be destroyed if Yolland is not found. It appears Doalty plans to help organize some type of uprising against the English army with the help of the Donnelly twins. The play ends with an atmosphere of uncertainty. Yolland has not been located and no one seems to have information about where he might be. The futures of the various characters included in the play are also unclear. The play closes with Hugh attempting to quote from Greek mythology, an attempt at which he fails. (http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-translations/#gsc.tab=0)

Brian Friel

SAINT JOAN Joan, a teenage country girl, shows up at the castle of Vaucouleurs. She's determined to kick the English out of France and to crown the Dauphin (that's a title for the oldest son of a king of France), Charles, as King. Joan has heard voices from God telling her that this is her destiny. Through sheer confidence and natural charisma, she manages to sway the skeptical Captain Robert de Baudricourt. He gives her soldier's clothes, armor, and other supplies to assist in getting to the Dauphin. Upon arriving at Charles's court, Joan wins over most everybody. First, she's able to pick Charles out of a crowd, which some view as a miracle. Her humility and reverence for the Church get the Archbishop on her side. Then of course, there's the Dauphin himself. It takes a little doing, but after a good old fashioned pep talk she convinces him to stop messing around and stand up for France and himself. Charles grants her control of the army. She's off to Orleans, a town under siege by the English. Joan meets Dunois, the leader of the French troops at Orleans. He has been waiting for a while for the wind to change. It's the only way he can sail his soldiers up the river and launch a sneak attack on the English. When the wind switches directions upon Joan's arrival, Dunois is convinced that Joan has been sent by God. They march off together, to liberate Orleans. Meanwhile, Joan's enemies are plotting against her. The Earl of Warwick and the Chaplain de Stogumber, both Englishmen, meet with Peter Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais. Warwick wants Cauchon to try Joan for heresy. The angry little Chaplain just wants her to die and die painfully. Cauchon agrees to try Joan, but refuses to be a political tool of the English. He says that he will do his best to save her soul. Joan and company have been busy little bees. They've liberated Orleans, won a bunch of other battles, and have just crowned Charles as King in Rheims Cathedral. Joan, however, is unsatisfied. A good chunk of the country, including Paris, is still not under French control. She urges Charles, the Archbishop, and Dunois to press on and liberate the capital city. When they refuse she says she'll just do it without them. They tell her that, if she gets captured, they'll do nothing to help her escape. Joan gets captured and put on trial for heresy. Sure enough, her "friends" do nothing to rescue her. The Bishop Cauchon, true to his word, does everything he can to try and save her. He's helped in this effort by the Inquisitor. It proves to be impossible, though, because Joan's personal beliefs just don't jibe with the Church's. She thinks God's messengers speak to her directly. They think God's voice on Earth is the Church and the Church alone, meaning the voices she hears must be demons. They also just can't handle with her wearing men's clothes. She absolutely refuses to dress like a woman as long as she's a soldier. In the end, they're forced to condemn her to death. Twenty-five years later King Charles has a dream, in which Joan and good number of the other characters show up to have a chat in his royal bedroom. We learn the fate of everybody and, more importantly, we learn of Joan's legacy. King Charles now rules all of France. He set up a hearing to have her name cleared. We also learn from a time-traveling cleric that, many years afterward, Joan was made a saint by the Catholic Church. Everybody tells Joan how awesome she is and how they're sorry that they sold her out. Joan says, great, now can I come back to Earth as living person again? No way, says everybody and they all make excuses to exit the dream. At the end of the play, Joan is left alone in a pool of light. She asks God when the world will be ready to accept saints like her. (All text from http://www.shmoop.com/saint-joan/summary.html)

George Bernard Shaw

JULIA CAHILL'S CURSE "Julia Cahill's Curse" is a slight piece, but a fairly clear example of Moore's effort to use the folk tale mode as a means to understand social reality. The basic situation is that of a story being told by a driver to the first-person narrator, who hearing the name, Julia Cahill, urges the driver to tell him her story. The story, which indeed constitutes the bulk of "Julia Cahill's Curse," is of an event that took place twenty years previous when the Priest Father Madden had Julia put out of the parish, and consequently Julia put a curse on the parish that every year a roof would fall in and a family would go to America. The basic conflict in the tale is between Julia, who in her dancing and courting, represents free pagan values, and the Priest, who, in his desire to restrain Julia, represents church control of such freedom. After preaching in church that Julia is the evil spirit that makes men mad, Father Madden threatens to change Julia's father into a rabbit if he does not turn her out. The teller of the tale has no verification of the Priest's words, since all those who were in church that day have either died or gone to America, nor does he have anything more than hearsay that Julia was seen raising her arms to the sky to curse the village; however, as the teller and listener near the village itself and the listener sees the ruins of the houses, the listener reflects, "I could see he believed the story, and for the moment I, too, believed in an outcast Venus becoming the evil spirit of a village that would not accept her as divine." The conflict between Julia and the priest is clear enough; however it is the relationship between the teller and the listener that constitutes the structural interest of the story, for what the tale is really about is the nature of story used to understand social reality. What we have here is an actual event of social reality that has been mythicized by the teller and thus by the village folk both to explain and to justify the breakdown of Irish parish life in the late nineteenth century. The teller of the tale believes that the desertion of the parish is due to Julia's curse. The listener of the tale does not believe in the curse in this literal way but, as he says, for the moment he too believes it, at least in some way that is not made explicit. It is the nature of the belief that constitutes the difference and thus the significance of the story. Whereas the folk may believe such a tale literally, the modern listener believes it in a symbolic way. And indeed, what Moore does here is to present a story that is responded to within the story itself in both the old way and the new way, that is, as a literal story of magic and as a symbolic story to account for the breakdown of the parish life--the tension between pagan freedom and Church control. Thus, "Julia Cahill's Curse" is a clear example of Moore's use of story to understand social reality. (All text from http://may-on-the-short-story.blogspot.com/2015/05/short-story-month-2015-george-moore.html)

George Moore

RISING OF THE MOON This is a play about a poor Irish police sergeant who is with his subordinates looking for an escaped Irish political prisoner down by the docks. The two speculate that anyone who captures the guy could collect a significant amount of money, but that it would cause turmoil: the fugitive is well-loved by the Irish populace, and they would likely be seen as traitors to their homeland by bringing him in. However, they also owe the country their due diligence in maintaining law and order-something that this prisoner is hell-bent on eliminating because, well, the law and order that the British have subjected them to is oppressive and denies them rights. At this point, the sergeant sends off his subordinates, and is alone, but not for long: a "raggedy man" approaches him and says that he's a bard (remember that bards are well-respected in Ireland, even among the police). The sergeant complains about how hard it is to be a policeman, and the raggedy man reminds him of all the patriotic Irish ballads that he used to sing as a kid, and that he used to be with the Irish patriots, not the long arm of the English law. The sergeant doesn't like that, saying that he's just doing his duty. A boat comes, and the sergeant, realizing who the raggedy man is, unmasks him and says that he will arrest him. The man pleads with the officer to not arrest him, but to let him go. The sergeant's subordinates draw near, and he sends them away. The raggedy man, who is hiding behind some barrels, thanks the sergeant and asks for him disguise back. The raggedy man tells the sergeant that someday the two will switch places, and he won't forget his kindness. The sergeant is left wondering if he has been a fool for letting all that reward money go. The rising of the moon is a symbol of Irish independence. https://casenglishdepartment.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/the-rising-of-the-moon-lady-gregory/

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

THE DEAD Summary At the annual dance and dinner party held by Kate and Julia Morkan and their young niece, Mary Jane Morkan, the housemaid Lily frantically greets guests. Set at or just before the feast of the Epiphany on January 6, which celebrates the manifestation of Christ's divinity to the Magi, the party draws together a variety of relatives and friends. Kate and Julia particularly await the arrival of their favorite nephew, Gabriel Conroy, and his wife, Gretta. When they arrive, Gabriel attempts to chat with Lily as she takes his coat, but she snaps in reply to his question about her love life. Gabriel ends the uncomfortable exchange by giving Lily a generous tip, but the experience makes him anxious. He relaxes when he joins his aunts and Gretta, though Gretta's good-natured teasing about his dedication to galoshes irritates him. They discuss their decision to stay at a hotel that evening rather than make the long trip home. The arrival of another guest, the always-drunk Freddy Malins, disrupts the conversation. Gabriel makes sure that Freddy is fit to join the party while the guests chat over drinks in between taking breaks from the dancing. An older gentleman, Mr. Browne, flirts with some young girls, who dodge his advances. Gabriel steers a drunken Freddy toward the drawing room to get help from Mr. Browne, who attempts to sober Freddy up. The party continues with a piano performance by Mary Jane. More dancing follows, which finds Gabriel paired up with Miss Ivors, a fellow university instructor. A fervent supporter of Irish culture, Miss Ivors embarrasses Gabriel by labeling him a "West Briton" for writing literary reviews for a conservative newspaper. Gabriel dismisses the accusation, but Miss Ivors pushes the point by inviting Gabriel to visit the Aran Isles, where Irish is spoken, during the summer. When Gabriel declines, explaining that he has arranged a cycling trip on the continent, Miss Ivors corners him about his lack of interest in his own country. Gabriel exclaims that he is sick of Ireland. After the dance, he flees to a corner and engages in a few more conversations, but he cannot forget the interlude with Miss Ivors. Just before dinner, Julia sings a song for the guests. Miss Ivors makes her exit to the surprise of Mary Jane and Gretta, and to the relief of Gabriel. Finally, dinner is ready, and Gabriel assumes his place at the head of the table to carve the goose. After much fussing, everyone eats, and finally Gabriel delivers his speech, in which he praises Kate, Julia, and Mary Jane for their hospitality. Framing this quality as an Irish strength, Gabriel laments the present age in which such hospitality is undervalued. Nevertheless, he insists, people must not linger on the past and the dead, but live and rejoice in the present with the living. The table breaks into a loud applause for Gabriel's speech, and the entire party toasts their three hostesses. Later, guests begin to leave, and Gabriel recounts a story about his grandfather and his horse, which forever walked in circles even when taken out of the mill where it worked. After finishing the anecdote, Gabriel realizes that Gretta stands transfixed by the song that Mr. Bartell D'Arcy sings in the drawing room. When the music stops and the rest of the party guests assemble before the door to leave, Gretta remains detached and thoughtful. Gabriel is enamored with and preoccupied by his wife's mysterious mood and recalls their courtship as they walk from the house and catch a cab into Dublin. At the hotel, Gabriel grows irritated by Gretta's behavior. She does not seem to share his romantic inclinations, and in fact bursts into tears. Gretta confesses that she has been thinking of the song from the party because a former lover had sung it to her in her youth in Galway. Gretta recounts the sad story of this boy, Michael Furey, who died after waiting outside of her window in the cold. Gretta later falls asleep, but Gabriel remains awake, disturbed by Gretta's new information. He curls up on the bed, contemplating his own mortality. Seeing the snow at the window, he envisions it blanketing the graveyard where Michael Furey rests, as well as all of Ireland. Analysis In "The Dead," Gabriel Conroy's restrained behavior and his reputation with his aunts as the nephew who takes care of everything mark him as a man of authority and caution, but two encounters with women at the party challenge his confidence. First, Gabriel clumsily provokes a defensive statement from the overworked Lily when he asks her about her love life. Instead of apologizing or explaining what he meant, Gabriel quickly ends the conversation by giving Lily a holiday tip. He blames his prestigious education for his inability to relate to servants like Lily, but his willingness to let money speak for him suggests that he relies on the comforts of his class to maintain distance. The encounter with Lily shows that Gabriel, like his aunts, cannot tolerate a "back answer," but he is unable to avoid such challenges as the party continues. During his dance with Miss Ivors, he faces a barrage of questions about his nonexistent nationalist sympathies, which he doesn't know how to answer appropriately. Unable to compose a full response, Gabriel blurts out that he is sick of his own country, surprising Miss Ivors and himself with his unmeasured response and his loss of control. Gabriel's unease culminates in his tense night with Gretta, and his final encounter with her ultimately forces him to confront his stony view of the world. When he sees Gretta transfixed by the music at the end of the party, Gabriel yearns intensely to have control of her strange feelings. Though Gabriel remembers their romantic courtship and is overcome with attraction for Gretta, this attraction is rooted not in love but in his desire to control her. At the hotel, when Gretta confesses to Gabriel that she was thinking of her first love, he becomes furious at her and himself, realizing that he has no claim on her and will never be "master." After Gretta falls asleep, Gabriel softens. Now that he knows that another man preceded him in Gretta's life, he feels not jealousy, but sadness that Michael Furey once felt an aching love that he himself has never known. Reflecting on his own controlled, passionless life, he realizes that life is short, and those who leave the world like Michael Furey, with great passion, in fact live more fully than people like himself. The holiday setting of Epiphany emphasizes the profoundness of Gabriel's difficult awakening that concludes the story and the collection. Gabriel experiences an inward change that makes him examine his own life and human life in general. While many characters in Dubliners suddenly stop pursuing what they desire without explanation, this story offers more specific articulation for Gabriel's actions. Gabriel sees himself as a shadow of a person, flickering in a world in which the living and the dead meet. Though in his speech at the dinner he insisted on the division between the past of the dead and the present of the living, Gabriel now recognizes, after hearing that Michael Furey's memory lives on, that such division is false. As he looks out of his hotel window, he sees the falling snow, and he imagines it covering Michael Furey's grave just as it covers those people still living, as well as the entire country of Ireland. The story leaves open the possibility that Gabriel might change his attitude and embrace life, even though his somber dwelling on the darkness of Ireland closes Dubliners with morose acceptance. He will eventually join the dead and will not be remembered. The Morkans' party consists of the kind of deadening routines that make existence so lifeless in Dubliners. The events of the party repeat each year: Gabriel gives a speech, Freddy Malins arrives drunk, everyone dances the same memorized steps, everyone eats. Like the horse that circles around and around the mill in Gabriel's anecdote, these Dubliners settle into an expected routine at this party. Such tedium fixes the characters in a state of paralysis. They are unable to break from the activities that they know, so they live life without new experiences, numb to the world. Even the food on the table evokes death. The life-giving substance appears at "rival ends" of the table that is lined with parallel rows of various dishes, divided in the middle by "sentries" of fruit and watched from afar by "three squads of bottles." The military language transforms a table set for a communal feast into a battlefield, reeking with danger and death. "The Dead" encapsulates the themes developed in the entire collection and serves as a balance to the first story, "The Sisters." Both stories piercingly explore the intersection of life and death and cast a shadow over the other stories. More than any other story, however, "The Dead" squarely addresses the state of Ireland in this respect. In his speech, Gabriel claims to lament the present age in which hospitality like that of the Morkan family is undervalued, but at the same time he insists that people must not linger on the past, but embrace the present. Gabriel's words betray him, and he ultimately encourages a tribute to the past, the past of hospitality, that lives on in the present party. His later thoughts reveal this attachment to the past when he envisions snow as "general all over Ireland." In every corner of the country, snow touches both the dead and the living, uniting them in frozen paralysis. However, Gabriel's thoughts in the final lines of Dubliners suggest that the living might in fact be able to free themselves and live unfettered by deadening routines and the past. Even in January, snow is unusual in Ireland and cannot last forever. (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dubliners/section15/page/2/)

JAMES JOYCE

ARABY Summary A young boy who is similar in age and temperament to those in "The Sisters" and "An Encounter" develops a crush on Mangan's sister, a girl who lives across the street. One evening she asks him if he plans to go to a bazaar (a fair organized, probably by a church, to raise money for charity) called Araby. The girl will be away on a retreat when the bazaar is held and therefore unable to attend. The boy promises that if he goes he will bring her something from Araby. The boy requests and receives permission to attend the bazaar on Saturday night. When Saturday night comes, however, his uncle returns home late, possibly having visited a pub after work. After much anguished waiting, the boy receives money for the bazaar, but by the time he arrives at Araby, it is too late. The event is shutting down for the night, and he does not have enough money to buy something nice for Mangan's sister anyway. The boy cries in frustration. Analysis Like the two previous stories, "The Sisters" and "An Encounter," "Araby" is about a somewhat introverted boy fumbling toward adulthood with little in the way of guidance from family or community. The truants in "An Encounter" managed to play hooky from school without any major consequences; no one prevented them from journeying across town on a weekday or even asked the boys where they were going. Similarly, the young protagonist of this story leaves his house after nine o'clock at night, when "people are in bed and after their first sleep," and travels through the city in darkness with the assent of his guardians. Like the main character in "The Sisters," this boy lives not with his parents but with an aunt and uncle, the latter of whom is certainly good-natured but seems to have a drinking problem. When the man returns home, he is talking to himself and he almost knocks over the coat rack. He has forgotten about his promise to the boy, and when reminded of it — twice — he becomes distracted by the connection between the name of the bazaar and the title of a poem he knows. The boy's aunt is so passive that her presence proves inconsequential. Like "An Encounter," "Araby" takes the form of a quest — a journey in search of something precious or even sacred. Once again, the quest is ultimately in vain. In "An Encounter," the Pigeon House was the object of the search; here, it is Araby. Note the sense of something passionately sought, against the odds: "We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers . . . . These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes." Although the boy ultimately reaches the bazaar, he arrives too late to buy Mangan's sister a decent gift there, and thus he may as well have stayed home: paralysis. Like the narrator of "An Encounter," this protagonist knows that "real adventures . . . must be sought abroad." And yet, having set his sights on something exotic or at least exotic sounding ("Araby" means Arabia, and the bazaar features a French-style café), the boy cannot get there in time for his experience to be worth anything. Why? Because his uncle, who holds the money that will make the excursion possible, has been out drinking. Some critics have suggested that Mangan's sister represents Ireland itself, and that therefore the boy's quest is made on behalf of his native country. Certainly, the bazaar seems to combine elements of the Catholic Church and England (the two entities that Joyce blamed most for his country's paralysis), just as Father Flynn's death did in "The Sisters." As the church has hypnotized its adherents, Araby has "cast an Eastern enchantment" over the boy. Moreover, it is "not some Freemason [Protestant] affair." Church parishes often organized bazaars to raise money for charity. When the boy reaches the object of his quest, however, Araby (the church) is empty — except for a woman and two men who speak with English accents. The woman speaks to the story's main character in a manner that is "not encouraging" and is clearly doing so "out of a sense of duty." Thus, a mission on behalf of an idealized homeland (the boy does not actually know Mangan's sister — she is more or less a fantasy to him) is thwarted in turn by the Irish themselves (the charming uncle and his propensity to drink), the church, and England. In addition to being an artist of the highest order, Joyce was also a consummate craftsman. He guides his readers through the story itself, thereby seducing them into considering his themes. First, he offers a main character who elicits sympathy because of his sensitivity and loneliness. Joyce then provides that protagonist with a specific, dramatic conflict (the need to impress Mangan's sister with a gift from Araby). Though apparently minor, this desire is compelling because it is so intensely felt by him. He cares, so the reader cares. Then the writer puts roadblocks in the way of the boy and the reader: the wait for Saturday itself, and then for the uncle's return from work. Joyce expands time, stretches it out, by piling on the trivial details that torture the boy as he waits: the ticking of the clock, the cries of the protagonist's playmates outside, the gossiping of Mrs. Mercer, the scratching of the uncle's key in the lock, and the rocking of the hallstand. Then the uncle must eat dinner and be reminded twice of Araby, after which begins the agonizingly slow journey itself, which seems to take place in slow motion, like a nightmare. When the protagonist finally arrives at the bazaar, too late, the reader wants so badly for the boy to buy something, anything, for Mangan's sister that when he says "No, thank you" to the Englishwoman who speaks to him, it is heartbreaking. "Gazing up into the darkness," the narrator says, "I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." The eyes of Joyce's readers burn, too, as they read this. One final point: Though all are written from the first-person point-of-view, or perspective, in none of the first three stories in Dubliners is the young protagonist himself telling the story, exactly. It is instead the grown-up version of each boy who recounts "The Sisters," "An Encounter," and "Araby." This is shown by the language used and the insights included in these stories. A young boy would never have the wisdom or the vocabulary to say "I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity." The man that the boy grew into, however, is fully capable of recognizing and expressing such a sentiment. Joyce's point-of-view strategy thereby allows the reader to examine the feelings of his young protagonists while experiencing those feelings in all their immediate, overwhelming pain. (https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/d/dubliners/summary-and-analysis/araby)

James Joyce

"RIDERS TO THE SEA": The Colonial Image Refuted Riders to the Sea is a tragedy portraying the sort of poor Irish peasant family which had previously supplied material for comedies on London stages. Though set in contemporary Ireland, the play provides a window into the life of the people in ancient times: the life of the Aran community is archaic: untouched by modern life, untouched by colonialism. The power of the sea is the main theme of the play: it is both provider and destroyer; it provides life, connection with the mainland, but it takes life. The dramatic structure of the play centres around the sea: in the beginning there is suspense as to whether the sea has given back the dead body of the young man it has taken. At the end there is suspense as to whether the last remaining son will survive the storm. The power of the elements is demonstrated to the audience in the opening scene as the wind tears open the door of the cottage. The main epic speech describes the destruction of the men of the family. As the old woman tells of past tragedies, the next and last one is re-enacted. This shows the audience that her presentiments and fears were justified; it demonstrates the struggle with the elements and the cycle of death; the ancient ritual of the community in the face of death; the stoic resignation and strength of the old woman. Many elements of the play remind one of the classical tragedies of antiquity: the compelling structure, the foreshadowing of the tragedy and its inevitability, the element of guilt which is not personal guilt, the stoic acceptance of fate, the great simplicity and dignity of the main character. The play is not a political parable, but it had a significant political impact. It counteracted the colonial view of the Irish as a rather savage, primitive uncultured people. It shows a family struggling against overwhelming odds to survive, and maintaining dignity in defeat. It shows that poverty does not of necessity mean poverty of spirit. The richness and spirit of the Irish language is recreated in English modelled on Gaelic speech patterns. The play reduces the colonial period to an episode in the history of the Irish, as it provides a picture of how the people lived down the centuries. It could have given the audience a sense of hope: if a people survived thousands of years battling against the elements, then surely a struggle against mere human unreason could ultimately be successful. NOTES ON SYNGE'S "RIDERS TO THE SEA" 1. The life of the Islanders: A subsistence life: tiny cottage, no windows, they have what they can make - make their own clothes from their own wool; live on fish and potatoes; they buy only flour and tea from money made selling a horse or a pig; they burn turf they cut themselves; make their own fertilizer from seaweed. They live very isolated lives: if a stranger comes by, they remember not only what they bought from him, but exactly what he said. Their contact with and knowledge of the world, and indeed of Ireland, is very limited: it is the traveller who tells them how far away County Donegal is - distance is measured in the time needed to walk it. There is a strict divison of labour between men and women: women do not fish or sell; they farm, mind animals and house, prepare food and clothes. 2. The dominance of the sea: The sea is both provider and destroyer: provides life, connection with the mainland, but it takes life. Its power is the main theme of the play: illustrated for the audience by the tearing open of the door at the beginning, and by the descriptions given by the girls. Their sense of time, of direction is determined by the sea. The fishermen struggle to get a living out of the sea in tiny, frail boats made of tarred canvas, which they make themselves. The dramatic structure of the play centres around the sea: in the beginning there is suspense as to whether the sea has given back the dead body of the young man it has taken. At the end there is suspense as to whether the last remaining son will survive the storm. The main epic speech (Maurya's) describes the destruction of the men of the family. As the old woman tells of past tragedies, the next and last one is re-enacted. This shows the audience that her presentiments and fears were justified; it shows the struggle with the elements and the cycle of death most dramatically; it presents the ancient ritual of the community in the face of death; it shows the stoic resignation and dignity of the old woman. The type of English used is modelled on Gaelic speech and demonstrates the richness and poetry of Irish. The life of the people is presented as being archaic in many respects. It is true that the characters are shown to be Catholics, but the beliefs of ancient times are seen to be very much alive: black hags and spirits haunt the seas; Maurya sees the ghost of her dead son, and all interpret this as a sign that the last son is doomed. The dead man takes the last remaining son with him. (This ancient belief in the malevolence of the dead and the threat they constitute to the living led to the placing of heavy stones on graves in the hope that the spirit of the dead would not be able to get out and haunt the living.) The priest is almost pitied by Maurya as a young man who doesn't really know what he is talking about and who can offer neither sound advice nor comfort, though he tries his best. There is a great sense of the world of the spiritual, Catholic and older elements intermingling without conflict. Many elements of the play remind one of the classical tragedies of antiquity: the compelling structure, the foreshadowing of the tragedy and its inevitability, the element of guilt which is no personal guilt, the stoic acceptance of fate, the great simplicity and dignity of the main character. (All text from http://www.unibielefeld.de/lili/personen/fleischmann/archsuse03/notesirl6onsynge.htm)

John Millington Synge

THE LITTLE BLACK ROSE SHALL BE RED AT LAST Because we share our sorrows and our joys And all your dear and intimate thoughts are mine We shall not fear the trumpets and the noise Of battle, for we know our dreams divine, And when my heart is pillowed on your heart And ebb and flowing of their passionate flood Shall beat in concord love through every part Of brain and body—when at last the blood O'erleaps the final barrier to find Only one source wherein to spend its strength And we two lovers, long but one in mind And soul, are made one only flesh at length; Praise God if this my blood fulfils the doom When you, dark rose, shall redden into bloom.

Joseph Mary Plunkett

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Welcome to Wilde's wild world. Things move fast here, so be prepared to catch all the banter. Ready? Algernon Moncrieff welcomes his friend Ernest Worthing in for a visit. Through an incident with a cigarette case and an unlucky inscription, Ernest is forced to confess that his name is really Jack. The story goes like this: in the country, Jack must lead the boring life of responsible guardian for his pretty, young ward Cecily. So he made up a seedy younger brother named Ernest, who is an urban socialite. Cecily, we learn, is a bit too interested in Ernest for her own good. Whenever Jack feels like it, he visits London on the pretense that he's cleaning up Ernest's messes. After all, as the older brother he must be responsible for getting his younger brother out of trouble. Instead, Jack takes on the name Ernest and goes partying around town. Algernon is amused by this discovery and reveals that he has a similar nonexistent friend. Algernon's friend is a perpetual invalid named Bunbury, who allows Algernon to visit the country whenever he likes. We learn that Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, who is Algernon's cousin and coincidentally scheduled to visit that day. (Both Algernon and Gwendolen think that Jack's name is Ernest.) Jack cuts a deal with Algernon: if Algernon can get Gwendolen's mother, Lady Bracknell, out of the room, then Jack can propose to Gwendolen. In return, Jack will dine with Algernon tonight so that Algernon can avoid dining with his Aunt Augusta (a.k.a. Lady Bracknell). The plan works. We learn that Gwendolen is smitten by the name Ernest. She is just accepting Ernest's proposal when Lady Bracknell re-enters the room, discovers them, and furiously sends Gwendolen down to the carriage. Lady Bracknell gives Ernest a chance to prove his worthiness by interviewing him. Once she decides that he is not fit for her daughter, she makes it clear that Gwendolen is not engaged to Ernest. Although Ernest is rich, has a good reputation around town, and seems to be perfectly suitable for Gwendolen, Lady Bracknell doesn't approve of the engagement because of one thing: he's an orphan, abandoned at birth for unknown reasons and found in a handbag at Victoria train station. This doesn't fly with Lady Bracknell, who tells him to find his parents ASAP and then dismisses him. Furious, Jack and Algernon concoct a scheme for getting rid of Ernest. They decide that he'll die in Paris of a severe chill. In the meantime, Gwendolen has found an opportunity to slip back into the room and confess her undying love for Ernest. Having heard her mother's furious remarks, she's fascinated about his mysterious background and asks for his country address. As Ernest gives it, Algernon discreetly copies it down and later announces to his servant that he's going Bunburying tomorrow. At Jack's country estate, young Cecily does everything she can to avoid studying her German grammar. She lies to get her governess, Miss Prism, to take a break. Miss Prism allows this only because she's distracted by Dr. Chasuble, the local reverend. Just as Miss Prism leaves, the arrival of Ernest Worthing is announced. It turns out to be Algernon. Algernon and Cecily flirt outrageously. Cecily reveals that she's been fantasizing about Earnest for quite some time, and has even imagined that she's engaged to him. She invites him in for dinner. At that moment, Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble return from their walk, only to meet Jack dressed in black mourning clothes. He's come home early to announce that his brother, Ernest, has died tragically in Paris, of a severe chill. Right on cue, Cecily comes out to tell her Uncle Jack that Ernest has come to visit. When Jack sees it's Algernon, he is furious and arranges for Ernest to leave via the dog-cart. When the cart comes, Algernon promptly sends it away. Cecily pays Algernon a visit and they engage in more flirtation, where we learn that Cecily is obsessed with the name "Ernest." When Algernon leaves (to arrange a baptism), Gwendolen arrives. Cecily entertains her. When each lady learns that the other is supposedly engaged to Ernest Worthing, they immediately start fighting. Luckily, both Jack and Algernon show up in time to clear up any doubt. Their true identities are revealed, as well as the fact that there is no Ernest. The women, realizing they've been tricked, suddenly become as close as sisters and go up to the house arm-in-arm, turning their backs on the men. Meanwhile, the men take out their frustration on the remaining tea items, fighting over the muffins while they figure out what to do. Eventually, they enter the house and confess to the women. The Ernest business, they say, was done only so that they could see their beloved ladies as often as possible. The women forgive them. But their joy is interrupted by the arrival of Lady Bracknell. She has come to bring Gwendolen home. When she sees Cecily holding Algernon's hand, she gives her an icy glare, but politely asks Jack how big this girl's inheritance is. When she finds out that the girl is extremely wealthy, Lady Bracknell's attitude toward Cecily changes and she gives consent for her and Algernon to marry. But Jack, as Cecily's guardian, refuses to give his consent unless Lady Bracknell allows him to marry Gwendolen. Lady Bracknell wants nothing to do with it. Dr. Chasuble shows up to tell Jack and Algernon that everything is ready for their baptisms and happens to mention Miss Prism. Lady Bracknell's ears prick up at the name. Miss Prism is brought before her and shamefacedly confesses the truth: she was once Lady Bracknell's servant and was in charge of a certain child. One day, she took the baby out in his stroller for a walk and brought along some leisure reading—a three-volume novel that she had written and kept in a handbag. Distracted, she switched the two—putting the novel in the stroller and the baby into the handbag. She dropped the handbag off at Victoria train station. At this discovery, Jack freaks out and runs upstairs to find something. When he comes back down, he's holding the handbag (remember, Jack is an orphan who was found in a handbag). Jack mistakenly thinks Miss Prism is his mother, but is corrected by Lady Bracknell, who tells him that a Mrs. Moncrieff is his mother. That makes Jack Algernon's older brother. Then, they all wonder what Jack's real name is. Remember, Gwendolen will only love him if his name is Ernest. Lady Bracknell tells Jack he was named after his father, but nobody can remember what the General's name was. Jack looks up "Moncrieff" in his book of Army Lists. The results? His father's name was Ernest. So he's been telling the truth all along. His name really is Ernest. And now he can marry Gwendolen. There's general rejoicing. Gwendolen hugs Ernest. Cecily hugs Algernon. Miss Prism hugs Dr. Chasuble. And Ernest closes the play by insisting that he's now learned the "importance of being earnest." (All quoted from http://www.shmoop.com/importance-of-being-earnest/summary.html)

Oscar Wilde

I AM IRELAND Anonymous I am Ireland: I am older than the old woman* of Beare. Great my glory: I who bore Cuchulainn, the brave. Great my shame: My own children who sold their mother. Great my pain: My irreconcilable enemy who harrasses me continually... Great my sorrow That crowd, in whom I placed my trust, died. I am Ireland: I am lonelier than the old woman* of Beare.

Padraig Pearse

IDEAL NAKED I saw thee, O beauty of beauty! And I blinded my eyes For fear I should flinch. I heard thy music, 5 O sweetness of sweetness! And I shut my ears For fear I should fail. I kissed thy lips O sweetness of sweetness! 10 And I hardened my heart For fear of my ruin. I blinded my eyes And my ears I shut, I hardened my heart 15 And my love I quenched. I turned my back On the dream I had shaped, And to this road before me My face I turned. 20 I set my face To the road here before me, To the work that I see, To the death that I shall meet.

Padraig Pearse

THE REBEL I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow; Who have no treasure but hope, No riches laid up but a memory of an ancient glory My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born, I am of the blood of serfs; The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters, and though gentle, have served churls. The hands that have touched mine, the dear hands whose touch Is familiar to me Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles, have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers. I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone I that have never submitted; I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people's masters, I that have vision and prophecy, and the gift of fiery speech, I that have spoken with God on the top of his holy hill. And because I am of the people, I understand the people, I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire; My heart is heavy with the grief of mothers, My eyes have been wet with the tears of children, I have yearned with old wistful men, And laughed and cursed with young men; Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full, Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and their jailors. With their Writs of Summons and their handcuffs, Men mean and cruel. I could have borne stripes on my body Rather than this shame of my people. And now I speak, being full of vision: I speak to my people, and I speak in my people's name to The masters of my people: I say to my people that they are holy, That they are august despite their chains. That they are greater than those that hold them And stronger and purer, That they have but need of courage, and to call on the name of their God, God the unforgetting, the dear God who loves the people For whom he died naked, suffering shame. And I say to my people's masters: Beware Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people Who shall take what ye would not give. Did ye think to conquer the people, or that law is stronger than life, And than men's desire to be free? We will try it out with you ye that have harried and held, Ye that have bullied and bribed. Tyrants... hypocrites... liars!

Padraig Pearse

TO DEATH I have not gathered gold; The fame that I won perished; In love I found but sorrow, That withered my life. Of wealth or of glory I shall leave nothing behind me (I think it, O God, enough!) But my name in the heart of a child.

Padraig Pearse

THE SKUNK Up, black, striped and demasked like the chasuble At a funeral mass, the skunk's tail Paraded the skunk. Night after night I expected her like a visitor. The refrigerator whinnied into silence. My desk light softened beyond the verandah. Small oranges loomed in the orange tree. I began to be tense as a voyeur. After eleven years i was composing Love-letters again, broaching the 'wife' Like a stored cask, as if its slender vowel Had mutated into the night earth and air Of California. The beautiful, useless Tang of eucalyptus spelt your absense. The aftermath of a mouthful of wine Was like inhaling you off a cold pillow. And there she was, the intent and glamorous, Ordinary, mysterious skunk, Mythologized, demythologized, Snuffing the boards five feet beyond me. It all came back to me last night, stirred By the sootfall of your things at bedtime, Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer For the black plunge-line nightdress.

SEAMUS HEANEY

BOG QUEEN I lay waiting between turf-face and demesne wall, between heathery levels and glass-toothed stone. My body was braille for the creeping influences: dawn suns groped over my head and cooled at my feet, through my fabrics and skins the seeps of winter digested me, the illiterate roots pondered and died in the cavings of stomach and socket. I lay waiting on the gravel bottom, my brain darkening. a jar of spawn fermenting underground dreams of Baltic amber. Bruised berries under my nails, the vital hoard reducing in the crock of the pelvis. My diadem grew carious, gemstones dropped in the peat floe like the bearings of history. My sash was a black glacier wrinkling, dyed weaves and Phoenician stitchwork retted on my breasts' soft moraines. I knew winter cold like the nuzzle of fjords at my thighs-- the soaked fledge, the heavy swaddle of hides. My skull hibernated in the wet nest of my hair. Which they robbed. I was barbered and stripped by a turfcutter's spade who veiled me again and packed coomb softly between the stone jambs at my head and my feet. Till a peer's wife bribed him. The plait of my hair a slimy birth-cord of bog, had been cut and I rose from the dark, hacked bone, skull-ware, frayed stitches, tufts, small gleams on the bank.

Seamus Heaney

COME TO THE BOWER My hands come touched By sweetbriar and tangled vetch, Foraging past the burst gizzards Of coin hoards. To where the dark bowerd queen, Whom I unpin, Is waiting. Out of the black maw Of the peat, sharpened willow Withdraws gently. I unwrap skins and see The pot of the skull, The damp ruck of each curl Reddish as a fox's brush, A mark of a gorget in the flesh Of her throat. And spring water Starts to rise around her. I reach past The riverbed's washed Dream of gold to the bullion Of her venus bone.

Seamus Heaney

DIGGING Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging. The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner's bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney

DOCKER There, in the corner, staring at his drink. The cap juts like a gantry's crossbeam, Cowling plated forehead and sledgehead jaw. Speech is clamped in the lips' vice. That fist would dropp a hammer on a Catholic- Oh yes, that kind of thing could start again; The only Roman collar he tolerates Smiles all round his sleek pint of porter. Mosaic imperatives bang home like rivets; God is a foreman with certain definite views Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure. A factory horn will blare the Resurrection. He sits, strong and blunt as a Celtic cross, Clearly used to silence and an armchair: Tonight the wife and children will be quiet At slammed door and smoker's cough in the hall.

Seamus Heaney

FEELING INTO WORDS This is a literary analysis of his own work by Heaney. It's long. Hopefully I can write about the other stuff.

Seamus Heaney

FOR THE COMMANDER OF THE ELIZA Routine patrol off West Mayo; sighting A rowboat heading unusually far Beyond the creek, I tacked and hailed the crew In Gaelic. Their stroke had clearly weakened As they pulled to, from guilt or bashfulness I was conjecturing when, O my sweet Christ, We saw piled in the bottom of their craft Six grown men with gaping mouths and eyes Bursting the sockets like spring onions in drills. Six wrecks of bone and pallid, tautened skin. "Biadh, biadh, biadh," in whines and snarls their desperation Rose and fell like a flock of starving gulls. We'd known about the shortage but on board They always kept us right with flour and beef So understand my feelings, and the men's, Who had no mandate to relieve distress. There was relief available in Westport Though these poor brutes would clearly never make it. I had to refuse food: they cursed and howled Like dogs that had been kicked hard in the privates. When they drove at me with their starboard oar (Risking capsize themselves) I saw they were Violent and without hope. I hoisted And cleared off. Less incidents the better. Next day, like six bad smells, those living skulls Drifted through the dark of bunk and hatches And once in port I exorcised my ship Reporting all to the Inspector General. Sir James, I understand, urged free relief For famine victims in the Westport Sector And earned tart reprimand from good Whitehall. Let natives prosper by their own exertions; Who could not swim might go ahead and sink. "The Coast Guard with their zeal and activity Are too lavish" were the words, I think.

Seamus Heaney

MID-TERM BREAK I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home. In the porch I met my father crying-- He had always taken funerals in his stride-- And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble," Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Seamus Heaney

PUNISHMENT Punishment I can feel the tug of the halter at the nape of her neck, the wind on her naked front. It blows her nipples to amber beads, it shakes the frail rigging of her ribs. I can see her drowned body in the bog, the weighing stone, the floating rods and boughs. Under which at first she was a barked sapling that is dug up oak-bone, brain-firkin: her shaved head like a stubble of black corn, her blindfold a soiled bandage, her noose a ring to store the memories of love. Little adulteress, before they punished you you were flaxen-haired, undernourished, and your tar-black face was beautiful. My poor scapegoat, I almost love you but would have cast, I know, the stones of silence. I am the artful voyeuur of your brain's exposed and darkened combs, your muscles' webbing and all your numbered bones: I who have stood dumb when your betraying sisters, cauled in tar, wept by the railings, who would connive in civilized outrage yet understand the exact and tribal, intimate revenge.

Seamus Heaney

REQUIEM FOR THE CROPPIES The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley... No kitchens on the run, no striking camp... We moved quick and sudden in our own country. The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp. A people hardly marching... on the hike... We found new tactics happening each day: We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike And stampede cattle into infantry, Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown. Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave. Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon. The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave. They buried us without shroud or coffin And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.

Seamus Heaney

SCAFFOLDING Masons, when they start upon a building, Are careful to test out the scaffolding; Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points, Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints. And yet all this comes down when the job's done Showing off walls of sure and solid stone. So if, my dear, there sometimes seems to be Old bridges breaking between you and me Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall Confident that we have built our wall.

Seamus Heaney

STRANGE FRUIT Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd. Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth. They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair And made an exhibition of its coil, Let the air at her leathery beauty. Pash of tallow, perishable treasure: Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod, Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings. Diodorus Siculus confessed His gradual ease with the likes of this: Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terrible Beheaded girl, outstaring axe And beatification, outstaring What had begun to feel like reverence.

Seamus Heaney

THE DIVINER Cut from the green hedge a forked hazel stick That he held tight by the arms of the V: Circling the terrain, hunting the pluck Of water, nervous, but professionally Unfussed. The pluck came sharp as a sting. The rod jerked down with precise convulsions, Spring water suddenly broadcasting Through a green aerial its secret stations. The bystanders would ask to have a try. He handed them the rod without a word. It lay dead in their grasp till nonchalantly He gripped the expectant wrists. The hazel stirred.

Seamus Heaney

THE OTTER The Otter by Seamus Heaney When you plunged The light of Tuscany wavered And swung through the pool From top to bottom. I loved your wet head and smashing crawl, Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders Surfacing and surfacing again This year and every year since. I sat dry-throated on the warm stones. You were beyond me. The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air Thinned and disappointed. Thank God for the slow loadening, When I hold you now We are close and deep As the atmosphere on water. My two hands are plumbed water. You are my palpable, lithe Otter of memory In the pool of the moment, Turning to swim on your back, Each silent, thigh-shaking kick Re-tilting the light, Heaving the cool at your neck. And suddenly you're out, Back again, intent as ever, Heavy and frisky in your freshened pelt, Printing the stones.

Seamus Heaney

TROUT Hangs, a fat gun-barrel, deep under arched bridges or slips like butter down the throat of the river. From depths smooth-skinned as plums his muzzle gets bull's eye; picks off grass-seed and moths that vanish, torpedoed. Where water unravels over gravel-beds he is fired from the shallows white belly reporting flat; darts like a tracer - bullet back between stones and is never burnt out. A volley of cold blood ramrodding the current.

Seamus Heaney

TWICE SHY Her scarf a la Bardot, In suede flats for the walk, She came with me one evening For air and friendly talk. We crossed the quiet river, Took the embankment walk. Traffic holding its breath, Sky a tense diaphragm: Dusk hung like a backcloth That shook where a swan swam, Tremulous as a hawk Hanging deadly, calm. A vacuum of need Collapsed each hunting heart But tremulously we held As hawk and prey apart, Preserved classic decorum, Deployed our talk with art. Our Juvenilia Had taught us both to wait, Not to publish feeling And regret it all too late - Mushroom loves already Had puffed and burst in hate. So, chary and excited, As a thrush linked on a hawk, We thrilled to the March twilight With nervous childish talk: Still waters running deep Along the embankment walk.

Seamus Heaney

UNDINE He slashed the briars, shovelled up grey silt To give me right of way in my own drains And I ran quick for him, cleaned out my rust. He halted, saw me finally disrobed, Running clear, with apparent unconcern. Then he walked by me. I rippled and I churned. Where ditches intersected near the river Until he dug a spade deep in my flank And took me to him. I swallowed his trench. Gratefully, dispersing myself for love Down in his roots, climbing his brassy grain- But once he knew my welfome, I alone Could give him subtle increase and reflection. He explored me so completely, each limb Lost its cold freedom. Human, warmed to him.

Seamus Heaney

POBLACHT NA hÉIREANN THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom. Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory. We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. Ads 1916 Easter Rising Travel to Ireland Dublin Ireland Dublin Irish Dublin Travel In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations. The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past. Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people. We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called. Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government: THOMAS J. CLARKE SEAN Mac DIARMADA THOMAS MacDONAGH P. H. PEARSE EAMONN CEANNT JAMES CONNOLLY JOSEPH PLUNKETT

Thomas Clarke and others

A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. Helen being chosen found life flat and dull And later had much trouble from a fool, While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray, Being fatherless could have her way Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man. It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone. In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful; Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty's very self, has charm made wise, And many a poor man that has roved, Loved and thought himself beloved, From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. O may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place. My mind, because the minds that I have loved, The sort of beauty that I have approved, Prosper but little, has dried up of late, Yet knows that to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind? Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will; She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still. And may her bridegroom bring her to a house Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

W.B. Yeats

AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and history, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way—the children's eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling public man. II I dream of a Ledaean body, bent Above a sinking fire, a tale that she Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event That changed some childish day to tragedy— Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent Into a sphere from youthful sympathy, Or else, to alter Plato's parable, Into the yolk and white of the one shell. III And thinking of that fit of grief or rage I look upon one child or t'other there And wonder if she stood so at that age— For even daughters of the swan can share Something of every paddler's heritage— And had that colour upon cheek or hair, And thereupon my heart is driven wild: She stands before me as a living child. IV Her present image floats into the mind— Did Quattrocento finger fashion it Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind And took a mess of shadows for its meat? And I though never of Ledaean kind Had pretty plumage once—enough of that, Better to smile on all that smile, and show There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow. V What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap Honey of generation had betrayed, And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape As recollection or the drug decide, Would think her son, did she but see that shape With sixty or more winters on its head, A compensation for the pang of his birth, Or the uncertainty of his setting forth? VI Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard: Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird. VII Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose. And yet they too break hearts—O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise— O self-born mockers of man's enterprise; VIII Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

W.B. Yeats

CRAZY JANE TALKS WITH THE BISHOP poet William Butler Yeats #16 on top 500 poets Poet's PagePoemsQuotesCommentsStatsE-BooksBiographyShare on FacebookShare on Twitter Poems by William Butler Yeats : 86 / 399 « prev. poem next poem » Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop - Poem by William Butler Yeats 0:00 / 0:54 --> Autoplay next video I met the Bishop on the road And much said he and I. 'Those breasts are flat and fallen now, Those veins must soon be dry; Live in a heavenly mansion, Not in some foul sty.' 'Fair and foul are near of kin, And fair needs foul,' I cried. 'My friends are gone, but that's a truth Nor grave nor bed denied, Learned in bodily lowliness And in the heart's pride. 'A woman can be proud and stiff When on love intent; But Love has pitched his mansion in The place of excrement; For nothing can be sole or whole That has not been rent.'

W.B. Yeats

EASTER 1916 I HAVE met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. That woman's days were spent In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful, She rode to harriers? This man had kept a school And rode our winged horse; This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road. The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? That is Heaven's part, our part To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild. What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse - MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

W.B. Yeats

LEDA AND THE SWAN A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower[20] And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

W.B. Yeats

NO SECOND TROY WHY should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great. Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?

W.B. Yeats

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM Sailing to Byzantium THAT is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations - at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

W.B. Yeats

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

W.B. Yeats

THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore. All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water, Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake's edge or pool Delight men's eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away?

W.B. Yeats

WHEN YOU ARE OLD WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

W.B. Yeats