Padraic Colum Poems

An age being mathematical, these flowers
Of linear stalks and spheroid blooms were prized
By men with wakened, speculative minds,
And when with mathematics they explored
...

Sunset and silence! A man: around him earth savage, earth broken;
Beside him two horses -- a plough!
Earth savage, earth broken, the brutes, the dawn man there in the sunset,
And the Plough that is twin to the Sword, that is founder of cities!
...

Two little creatures
with faces the size of
a pair of pennies
are clasping each other
...

First Old Man
He threw his crutched stick down: there came
Into his face the anger flame,
And he spoke viciously of one
...

As I went down through Dublin city
At the hour of twelve of the night,
Who did I see but a Spanish lady
Washing her feet by candle light.
...

O woman, shapely as the swan,
On your account I shall not die:
The men you've slain -- a trivial clan --
Were less than I.
...

NOR right, nor left, nor any road I see a comrade face,
Nor word to lift the heart in me I hear in any place;
...

MY eyelids red and heavy arc
With bending o'er the smold'ring peat.
I know the Aeneid now by heart,
My Virgil read in cold and heat,
...

THE stir of children with fresh dresses on,
And men who meet and say unguarded words,
And women from the coops
Of drudgeries released;
...

Jesus His Mother meets:
She looks on Him and sees
The Savior in Her Son:
The Angel's word comes back:
...