Michael Robartes and the Dancer: watercolour book cover

A collection of poems

Michael Robartes and the Dancer

192115 poems

Cuala Press, Churchtown, Dundrum; dated 1920 on the colophon, issued February 1921.

  1. 1Michael Robartes and the DancerOpinion is not worth a rush;A man argues that a beautiful woman should think with her body.
  2. 2Solomon and the WitchAnd thus declared that Arab lady:Sheba cries out in a strange tongue; Solomon explains the world's end.
  3. 3An Image from a Past LifeNever until this night have I been stirred.By a starlit river, a woman sees the ghost of her lover's former sweetheart.
  4. 4Under SaturnDo not because this day I have grown saturnineYeats assures his wife that his gloom is homesickness for Sligo, not lost love.
  5. 5Easter, 1916I have met them at close of dayYeats struggles to judge the Easter Rising and the leaders executed for it.
  6. 6Sixteen Dead MenO but we talked at large beforeAfter the 1916 executions, the dead leaders make political argument useless.
  7. 7The Rose Tree"O words are lightly spoken,"Pearse and Connolly agree that only blood can revive Ireland's rose tree.
  8. 8On a Political PrisonerShe that but little patience knew,A grey gull visits an imprisoned rebel, recalling the wild girl she was.
  9. 9The Leaders of the CrowdThey must to keep their certainty accusePopular leaders trade in slander, while truth needs the solitary student's lamp.
  10. 10Towards Break of DayWas it the double of my dreamAt dawn, a man and the woman beside him dream halves of one dream.
  11. 11Demon and BeastFor certain minutes at the leastA rare hour free of hatred and desire, and the wish to keep it.
  12. 12The Second ComingTurning and turning in the widening gyreA vision of the world collapsing and a monstrous new age arriving.
  13. 13A Prayer for my DaughterOnce more the storm is howling and half hidA father, during a storm, prays for his baby daughter's future life.
  14. 14A Meditation in Time of WarFor one throb of the Artery,In one heartbeat under an old tree, the speaker glimpses what is real.
  15. 15To be Carved on a Stone at Thoor BallyleeI, the poet William Yeats,The poet's own inscription for the tower he restored for his wife.