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Love songs and poems of the great Irish writers for Valentine’s Day

Yeats, Joyce, Boyle O’ Reilly, Heaney, and others on great love and loss

By
JAMES DILLON,
IrishCentral Contributing Writer
Published Monday, February 13, 2012, 7:29 AM
Updated Monday, February 13, 2012, 11:04 AM

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Wow your Valentine with some romantic Irish verse
Wow your Valentine with some romantic Irish verse
Photo by CORBIS


When it comes to romance Irish writers are rightly famous. With Valentine’s Day on the horizon we decided to give you a flavor  of some of the best writings from some of our greatest writers.

William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

James Joyce

“Why is it that words like these seem dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?”

― The Dead

John Millington Synge

“...drawn to the cities where you'd hear a voice kissing and talking deep love in every shadow of the ditch, and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing from your heart...”

― J.M. Synge

John Boyle O’Reilly

THE red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest

Has a kiss of desire on the lips

John Boyle O'Reilly
·                        
A wasting breath,
But you must know one word of truth
Gives a ghost breath. In language beyond learning's touch
Passion can teach.
Speak in that speech beyond reproach
The body's speech.

____________________
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______________________

Donal IX MacCarthy Mór Last High King of Munster died 1596

Lament for Art O’Leary

My steadfast love!
When I saw you one day
by the market-house gable
my eye gave a look
my heart shone out
I fled with you far
from friends and home.

And never was sorry:
you had parlours painted
rooms decked out
the oven reddened
and loaves made up
roasts on spits
and cattle slaughtered;
I slept in duck-down
till noontime came
or later if I liked.

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See more: St. Valentine's Day , Irish Arts , Entertainment News , Seamus Heaney , James Joyce
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7 Comments

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yuricksl | Feb 14, 2012, 08:36 AM EST
HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. W.B. Yeats (1865–1939

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fromGort | Feb 14, 2012, 12:11 AM EST
Creide, daughter of Guaire, her caoine (lament) for Dinerach. A lovely ancient verse of lost love.

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annapolisirish | Feb 13, 2012, 12:47 PM EST
I'm sure 'twas a mere typo that ascribes the authorship of "The Lament for Art O'Leary" to Donal IX MacCarthy Mór Last High King of Munster died 1596. Please take note that the lament, regarded as being amongst the outstanding poems ever in the Irish language, was "keened" by Art's wife, his beloved "Eileen of the Raven Locks," Eibhlin Dubh ("Dark Eileen") O Conaill on the occasions of his murder near Macroom, Cork in 1773.

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yuricksl | Feb 13, 2012, 12:30 PM EST
Most desirable Irishman on the planet has to be the lovely, hirsute, slender,toothsome, laughing-eyed Aidan Turner. As vampire, as poet and painter and I hope as dwarf in "THe Hobbit". Swoon-inducing reading Rossetti's poetry on YouTube.

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yuricksl | Feb 13, 2012, 12:27 PM EST
But you left out the first line of "The Body's Speech"!! C'mon! Love W.B. Yeats as well. Check out "The song of wandering Aengus" He was the god of youth and love in the twilight years (they say).

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Murph46 | Feb 13, 2012, 10:27 AM EST
Roses are red, Irish are U-2 Let's go get drunk,nekid and sc...

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yuricksl | Feb 13, 2012, 09:37 AM EST
Love Seamus Heaney....

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