Sixteen Poems

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Allingham
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Title: Sixteen Poems
Author: William Allingham
Release Date: October 9, 2005 [EBook #16839]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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POEMS ***
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SIXTEEN POEMS BY WILLIAM
ALLINGHAM: SELECTED
BY
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
THE DUN EMER PRESS
DUNDRUM
MCMV
CONTENTS Page
Let Me Sing of What I Know 1
The Winding Banks of Erne 1
Abbey Asaroe 7
A Dream 10
The Fairies 12
The Lepracaun or Fairy Shoemaker 14
The Girl's Lamentation 17
The Nobleman's Wedding 20
Kate O' Belashanny 22

Four Ducks on a Pond 24
Æolian Harp 24
The Maids of Elfin Mere 25
Twilight Voices 26
The Lover and Birds 28
The Abbot of Innisfallen 30
The Ruined Chapel 34
LET ME SING OF WHAT I KNOW
A wild west Coast, a little Town,
Where little Folk go up and down,

Tides flow and winds blow:
Night and Tempest and the Sea,

Human Will and Human Fate:
What is little, what is great?

Howsoe'er the answer be,
Let me sing of what I know.
THE WINDING BANKS OF ERNE
Adieu to Belashanny!
where I was bred and born;
Go where I may,
I'll think of you,
as sure as night and morn.
The kindly spot, the
friendly town,
where every one is known,
And not a face in all the
place
but partly seems my own;
There's not a house or window,

there's not a field or hill,
But, east or west, in foreign lands,
I'll
recollect them still.
I leave my warm heart with you,
tho' my back
I'm forced to turn--
Adieu to Belashanny,
and the winding banks of
Erne!
No more on pleasant evenings
we'll saunter down the Mall,
When
the trout is rising to the fly,
the salmon to the fall.
The boat comes
straining on her net,
and heavily she creeps,
Cast off, cast off--she
feels the oars,
and to her berth she sweeps;
Now fore and aft keep
hauling,
and gathering up the clew,
Till a silver wave of salmon

rolls in among the crew.
Then they may sit, with pipes a-lit,
and
many a joke and 'yarn';--
Adieu to Belashanny,
and the winding
banks of Erne!
The music of the waterfall,
the mirror of the tide,
When all the
green-hill'd harbour

is full from side to side,
From Portnasun to

Bulliebawns,
and round the Abbey Bay,
From rocky Inis Saimer

to Coolnargit sandhills gray;
While far upon the southern line,
to
guard it like a wall,
The Leitrim mountains clothed in blue
gaze
calmly over all,
And watch the ship sail up or down,
the red flag at
her stern;--
Adieu to these, adieu to all
the winding banks of Erne!
Farewell to you, Kildoney lads,
and them that pull an oar,
A
lug-sail set, or haul a net,
from the Point to Mullaghmore;
From
Killybegs to bold Slieve-League,
that ocean-mountain steep,
Six
hundred yards in air aloft,
six hundred in the deep,
From Dooran to
the Fairy Bridge,
and round by Tullen strand,
Level and long, and
white with waves,
where gull and curlew stand;
Head out to sea
when on your lee
the breakers you discern!--
Adieu to all the
billowy coast,
and winding banks of Erne!
Farewell, Coolmore,--Bundoran! and
your summer crowds that run

From inland homes to see with joy
th' Atlantic-setting sun;
To
breathe the buoyant salted air,
and