Thomas MacDonagh Poems

The stars up in the air,
The sun and the moon are gone,
The strand of its waters is bare.
And her sway is swept from the swan.
...

In the morning, in the dark,
When the stars begin to blunt,
By the wall of Barna Park
Dogs I heard and saw them hunt
...

I once spent an evening in a village
Where the people are all taken up with tillage,
Or do some business in a small way
...

I wish I were to-day on the hill behind the wood,--
My eyes on the brown bog there and the Shannon river,--
...

His songs were a little phrase
Of eternal song,
Drowned in the harping of lays
...

The yellow bittern that never broke out
In a drinking bout, might as well have drunk;
His bones are thrown on a naked stone
...

I walked in dream within a convent close,
And met there lonely a familiar nun;
Then in my mind arose
A vehement memory strife
...

So here is my desert and here am I
In the midst of it alone,
Silent and free, as a hawk in the sky,
Unnoticed and unknown.
...

You come in the day of destiny,
Barbara, born to the air of Mars:
The greater glory you shall see
And the greater peace, beyond these wars.
...

--Who is that out there still
With voice sharp and shrill,
Beating my door and calling?
...