Last Poems: watercolour book cover

A collection of poems

Last Poems

193922 poems0 in full here

Last Poems and Two Plays (Cuala Press, Dublin, July 1939; with The Death of Cuchulain and Purgatory). Three poems first appeared in On the Boiler (Cuala Press, 1939). Last Poems and Plays (Macmillan, London and New York, 1940) merges New Poems and Last Poems.

  1. 1Three Songs to the One BurdenThe Roaring Tinker if you like,A tinker, a recluse and a dead actor, joined by one wild refrain.
  2. 2In Tara's HallsA man I praise that once in Tara's HallsA hundred-year-old man of ancient Tara calmly arranges his own death.
  3. 3The StatuesPythagoras planned it. Why did the people stare?Greek statues, measured by number, shaped Europe and inspired Ireland's 1916.
  4. 4News for the Delphic OracleThere all the golden codgers lay,A comic, bawdy report from the paradise of the blessed dead.
  5. 5Three Marching SongsRemember all those renowned generations,Three rousing songs on Irish memory, leadership and dying for a cause.
  6. 6Long-legged FlyThat civilisation may not sink,Great minds at work in silence: Caesar, Helen of Troy and Michelangelo.
  7. 7A Bronze HeadHere at right of the entrance this bronze head,A bronze bust of the aged Maud Gonne makes Yeats ask who she was.
  8. 8A Stick of IncenseWhence did all that fury come?A sly quatrain on the origins of Christianity's fury.
  9. 9John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs. Mary MooreA bloody and a sudden end,A roguish old man mourns the bawd who kept his life merry.
  10. 10Hound VoiceBecause we love bare hills and stunted treesA wild, hunting kind of people waits for the hour of the hunt.
  11. 11High TalkProcessions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye.A stilt-walker poet stalks on through the terrible novelty of dawn.
  12. 12The ApparitionsBecause there is safety in derisionAn old man counts his ghosts and faces the growing Night.
  13. 13A NativityWhat woman hugs her infant there?Great artists attend a birth, and the mother looks on in terror.
  14. 14Why should not Old Men be Mad?Why should not old men be mad?An old man lists wasted lives and asks why he should stay sane.
  15. 15The Statesman's HolidayI lived among great houses,A great man quits public life to sing in the street.
  16. 16Crazy Jane on the MountainI am tired of cursing the Bishop,Crazy Jane scorns a cowardly king and weeps before Cuchulain and Emer.
  17. 17The Circus Animals' DesertionI sought a theme and sought for it in vain,An old poet loses his themes and finds their source in the heart.
  18. 18PoliticsHow can I, that girl standing there,An old poet would rather watch a girl than discuss world politics.
  19. 19The Man and the EchoIn a cleft that's christened AltAn old poet questions his life's effects, and hears only an echo.
  20. 20Cuchulain ComfortedA man that had six mortal wounds, a manIn the land of the dead, the hero Cuchulain sews shrouds with cowards.
  21. 21The Black TowerSay that the men of the old black tower,Oath-bound soldiers guard an old tower for a king who may never return.
  22. 22Under Ben BulbenSwear by what the sages spokeYeats's final creed for Irish poets, ending with his own grave and epitaph.