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R ed is th e R ose

A BO O K O F IR IS H L OV E PO E MS

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Contents ‘Inventions of Delight’ The Time I’ve Lost in Wooing A Poet To His Beloved The Snowy-Breasted Pearl He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven The Lark In The Clear Air Is It a Month New Love The Kiss Love’s Young Dream Brown Penny Pulse of My Heart

Thomas Moore W.B. Yeats Translated by Sir George Petrie W.B. Yeats Traditional J. M. Synge Joseph Mary Plunkett Thomas Moore Thomas Moore W.B. Yeats Anonymous

8 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 20 21

Remembered Love And Then No More The Song of Wandering Aengus We Parted in Silence He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers To Helene Do You Remember That Night?

Inamorata When You are Old

James Clarence Mangan W.B. Yeats Isabella Valancy Crawford W.B. Yeats George Darley Translated by Eugene O’Curry Francis Ledwidge W.B. Yeats

24 26 27 30 31 32 34 35

‘No one has ever loved but you and I …’

Nocturne Frances Wynne Oh, Call It by Some Better Name Thomas Moore My Hope, My Love Anonymous Queens J. M. Synge Amo, Amas John O’Keefe The Ragged Wood W.B. Yeats Had I a Golden Pound Francis Ledwidge If Thoul’t Be Mine Thomas Moore The Heart Of The Woman W.B. Yeats Song Francis Ledwidge

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Romancing ’Round Ireland Youghal Harbour Anonymous My Lagan Love Traditional On Deborah Perkins of the County of Wicklow Anonymous The Lapful of Nuts Anonymous Lovely Mary Donnelly William Allingham ‘Who Could Deny You Love?’

It Is Not Beauty I Demand Dear Dark Head Your Songs On Beauty She The Lions The Vision of Love

George Darley Translated by Sir Samuel Ferguson Joseph Mary Plunkett John Kelly Anonymous Joseph Mary Plunkett AE (George William Russell)

‘Lovely and fair as the rose of the summer ...’

Red is the Rose Traditional A White Rose John Boyle O’Reilly The Rose of Mooncoin Watt Murphy The Last Rose of Summer Thomas Moore The Little Black Rose Shall Be Red At Last Joseph Mary Plunkett

52 53 54 56 58

62 64 65 66 67 70 71

74 75 76 77 78

‘Time will but make thee more dear …’

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms Thomas Moore Any Wife Katharine Tynan My Love is Like a Cabbage Oral poem from Tyrone The Folly of Being Comforted W.B. Yeats

82 83 84 85

Index of titles Index of first lines

86 87

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‘I NV E NT I O NS O F D E L I G H T ’

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The Time I’ve Lost in Wooing The time I’ve lost in wooing, In watching and pursuing The light that lies In woman’s eyes, Has been my heart’s undoing.

Though Wisdom oft has sought me, I scorn’d the lore she brought me, My only books Were woman’s looks, And folly’s all they’ve taught me.

Her smile when Beauty granted, I hung with gaze enchanted, Like him the Sprite, Whom maids by night Oft meet in glen that’s haunted.

Like him, too, Beauty won me, But while her eyes were on me, If once their ray Was turn’d away, O! winds could not outrun me.

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And are those follies going?

And is my proud heart growing Too cold or wise For brilliant eyes Again to set it glowing?

No, vain, alas! the endeavour From bonds so sweet to sever; Poor Wisdom’s chance Against a glance Is now as weak as ever.

Thomas Moore

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A Poet To His Beloved I bring you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams, White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-grey sands, And with heart more old than the horn That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: White woman with numberless dreams, I bring you my passionate rhyme.

W.B. Yeats

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The Snowy-Breasted Pearl There’s a colleen fair as May, For a year and for a day I’ve sought by every way her heart to gain.

There’s no art of tongue or eye Fond youths with maidens try But I’ve tried with ceaseless sigh, yet tried in vain.

If to France or far-off Spain She’d cross the watery main, To see her face again the sea I’d brave.

And if ’tis heaven’s decree That mine she may not be May the son of Mary me in mercy save!

O thou blooming milk-white dove, To whom I’ve given true love, Do not ever thus reprove my constancy.

There are maidens would be mine, With wealth in hand and kine, If my heart would but incline to turn from thee.

But a kiss with welcome bland, And a touch of thy dear hand, Are all that I demand, would’st thou not spurn; For if not mine, dear girl, O Snowy-Breasted Pearl!

May I never from the fair with life return!

Translated by Sir George Petrie 11

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He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

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