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

Larger Text

Print

E-mail

7 Comments

Wow your Valentine with some romantic Irish verse

Photo by CORBIS

Tweet

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.

____________________
Read More:
Read more St. Valentine's Day related stories

Read more news from Ireland on IrishCentral

Irish dating - Why American women are wild about Irish guys
______________________

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.

Print

E-mail

Tweet