Poets From Ireland

"For the future I cease, Death approaches with little delay, Since the dragons of Laune and Lane and Lee are destroyed; I’ll follow the heroes far from the light of day, The princes my ancestors followed before Christ died."

"Aodhagán Ó Rathaille sang this sang That I maun sing again; For I've met the Brightness o' Brightness Like him in a lanely glen."

"That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom, That foreign devils have made our land a tomb, That the sun that was Munster's glory has gone down Has made me a beggar before you,Valentine Brown."

"Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest, Till this remark set him off wid the rest: "Is it lave gaiety All to the laity? Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too?""

"The little red lark, like a rosy spark Of song, to his sun-burst flies; But till you are risen, earth is a prison, Full of my captive sighs."

"Put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry."

"We kneel, how weak; we rise, how full of power! Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, Or others — that we are not always strong, That we are ever overborne with care, That we should ever weak or heartless be, Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?"

"As shadows attend substances, so words follow upon things."

"It was Lazarus faith, not his poverty, which brought him into Abraham's bosom."

"We live not in our moments or our years: The present we fling from us like the rind Of some sweet future, which we after find Bitter to taste."

"Oh seize the instant time; you never will With waters once passed by impel the mill."

"What question can be here? Your own true heart Must needs advise you of the only part: That may be claim'd again which was but lent, And should be yielded with no discontent, Nor surely can we find herein a wrong, That it was left us to enjoy it long."

"Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident, It is the very place God meant for thee; And should'st thou there small room for action see, Do not for this give room for discontent."

"None but God can satisfy the longings of an immortal soul; that as the heart was made for Him, so He only can fill it."

"Not all who seem to fail have failed indeed, Not all who fail have therefor worked in vain. There is no failure for the good and brave."

"Outside the door a group of men stood whispering while the less solemn parts of the Mass were being said. These men stared about them at the rolling country of little hills and commented on the crops, the weather, the tombstones or whatever came into their dreaming minds. 'Very weedy piece of spuds, them of Mick Finnegan's.' 'He doesn't put on the dung, Larry: the man that doesn't drive on the dung won't take out a crop.' A pause, 'Nothing like the dung.'"

"They were both more than twenty-seven in those enthusiastic years of nineteen hundred and thirty-five, yet neither had as much as ever kissed a girl. Not that kissing was much in favour in that district. Reading about lovers kissing, Tarry often reflected on the fact that he had never seen anyone kissing anyone, except poor old Peter Toole whom he once saw kissing a corpse in a wakehouse in the hope of getting a couple of glasses of whiskey."

"With women in general he was truthful and sincere and would talk philosophy or Canon Law (Canon Law fascinated him, though what he knew of the subject was utter nonsense) to them on the slightest provocation. Women cannot understand honesty in a man."

"O commemorate me where there is water, Canal water, preferably, so stilly Greeny at the heart of summer. Brother Commemorate me thus beautifully Where by a lock niagarously roars The falls for those who sit in the tremendous silence Of mid-July."

"The headlands and the hedges were so fresh and wonderful, so gay with the dawn of the world. Tarry never tired looking at these ordinary things as he tired of the Mass and of religion. In a dim way he felt that he was not a Christian. In the god of Poetry he found a God more important to him than Christ. His god had never accepted Christ."

"In country places a single word is inflected to mean a hundred things, so that only a recording of the sounds gives an idea of the speech of these people."

"'Begod there's a powerful piece of turnips'"

"I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away."

"I inclined To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind. He said: I made the Iliad from such A local row. Gods make their own importance."

"'I was talking to one of the McArdles there and I was telling him that he ought to be getting a women. "Huh," says he, "what would I be doing with a woman? I have me pint and me fag," says he, "and I'm not going to bring in a woman.'""

"'I always say to these here, marry the first man that asks you. There's only three classes of men a woman should never marry - a delicate man, a drunken man, and a lazy man. I'm not so sure that the lazy man isn't the worst.'"

"I do not know what age I am, I am no mortal age; I know nothing of women, Nothing of cities, I cannot die Unless I walk outside these whitethorn hedges."

"Mullahinsa, Drummeril, Black Shanco- Wherever I turn I see In the stony grey soil of Monaghan Dead loves that were born for me."

"This is a new land - a land of pretension because it is new; because classes and systems have not had that time to grow here naturally. We have no aristocracy but of virtue and talent, which is the only true aristocracy, and is the old and true meaning of the term. (Hear, hear.)"

"We have here no traditions and ancient venerable institutions; here, there are no aristocratic elements hallowed by time or bright deeds; here, every man is the first settler of the land, or removed from the settler one or two generations at the furthest; here, we have no architectural monuments calling up old associations; here, we have none of these old popular legends and stories which, in other countries, have exercised a powerful share in the government; here every man is the son of his own works. (Hear, hear.)"

"I will take leave to read to the house a few figures which show the amazing, the unprecedented growth which has not perhaps a parallel in the annals of the past, of the military power of our neighbours within the past three or four years... From January 1861 to January 1863 the army of 10,000 was increased to 800,000... In January 1861 the ships of war belonging to the United States were 83; in December 1864 they numbered 671... These are frightful figures for the capacity of destruction they represent, for the heaps of carnage that they represent, for the quantity of human blood spilt that they represent, for the lust of conquest that they represent, for the evil passions that they represent, and for the the arrest of onward progress that they represent."

"If we are true to Canada, if we do not desire to become part and parcel of these people, we cannot overlook this the greatest revolution of our times. Let us remember this, that when the three cries among our next neighbours are money, taxation, blood, it is time for us to provide for our own security..."

"The two greatest things that all men aim at in any free government are liberty and permanency. We have had liberty enough - too much perhaps in some respects - but at all events, liberty to our hearts content."

"Miracles would cease to be miracles if they were events of everyday occurrence; the very nature of wonders requires that they should be rare; and this is a miraculous and wonderful circumstance, that men at the head of the governments in five separate provinces, and men at the head of the parties opposing them, all agreed at the same time to sink party differences for the good of all, and did not shrink, at the risk of having their motives misunderstood, from associating together for the purpose of bringing about this result. (Cheers.)"

"The idea of a universal democracy in America is no more welcome to the minds of thoughtful men among us than was that of a universal monarchy to the mind of the thoughtful men who followed the standard of the third William in Europe, or who afterwards, under the great Marlborough, opposed the armies of the particular dynasty that sought to place Europe under a single dominion. (Hear, hear.) But if we are to a universal democracy on this continent, the lower provinces - the smaller fragments - will be "gobbled up" first, and we will come in afterwards by the way of dessert. (Laughter.)"

"That is a glorious doctrine to instill into society. (Cheers.)"

"I will content myself, Mr. Speaker, with those principal motives to union; first, that we are in the rapids and must go on; next that our neighbours will not, on their side, let us rest supinely, even if we could do so from other causes; and thirdly, that by making the united colonies more valuable as an ally to Great Britain, we shall strengthen rather than weaken the imperial connection. (Cheers.)"

"Everything we did was done in form and with propriety, and the result of our proceedings is the document [the Quebec Resolutions] that has been submitted to the imperial government as well as to this house and which we speak of here as a treaty. And that there may be no doubt about our position in regard to that document we say, question it you may, reject it you may, or accept it you may, but alter it you may not. (Hear, hear.)"

"Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh; Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear; To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer."

"At the foot of the cross, in all humility and in all adoration, we have learned at once the depth and the height of human nature; we have learned to think all wisdom but foolishness for the knowledge of Christ; all purity but sin, unwashed by His atonement; all hope in earth, of all hopes the most miserable, but in the faith of His most blessed resurrection; content to bear the struggles of life, at His command; and submitting to the grave, with a consciousness that it can sting no more."

"Heaven above is softer blue Earth around is sweeter green; Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen Birds with gladder songs o'erflow Flowers with deeper beauties shine. Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine."

"He was born an Englishman and remained one for years."

"When I came back to Dublin, I was courtmartialled in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence."

"An author's first duty is to let down his country."

"There's no bad publicity except an obituary."

"The sun was in mind to come out but having a look at the weather it was in lost heart and went back again."

"It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody."

"Mother, they would praise my balls if I hung them high enough."

"[Brendan Behan was] too young to die, but too drunk to live."

"If the English hoard words like misers, the Irish spend them like sailors; and Brendan Behan … sends language out on a swaggering spree, ribald, flushed, and spoiling for a fight."