Favorite poems and passages cited in Half-Three in Galway

Who, of men, can tell
That flowers would bloom,
or that green fruit would swell
To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail,
The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale,
The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones,
The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones,
Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet
If human souls did never kiss and greet?

      John Keats, 1795-1821 (London)

Go on home British Soldiers, go on home,
Have you got no f--- homes of your own?
For 800 years, we fought you without fear!
And we will fight you for 800 more!

If you stay British soldiers, if you stay,
You’ll never ever beat the IRA
For the fourteen men in Derry,
Are the last that you will bury
So take a trip, and leave us while you may.

Oh we’re not British, we’re not Saxon,
   we’re not English,
We’re Irish, and proud we are to be,
So f--- your Union Jack,
We want our country back
We want to see old Ireland free once more!

      An old Irish pub fight song

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Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.  Longfellow

Stop and consider! Life is but a day; a fragile dew-drop on its perilous way from a tree’s summit; a poor Indian’s sleep while his boat hastens to the monstrous steep of Mont Morenci.  Keats

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.

      William Butler Yeats, 1865 – 1939 (Dublin)

Some say that the world is a vale of tears, I say it is a place of soul making.

        John Keats

The Garden of Eden has vanished, they say.
But I know the lie of it still.
Just turn to the left at the Bridge of Finea
And stop when halfway to Cootehill.

'Tis there you will find it, I'll go, sure enough,
When fortune has come to my call,
For the grass it grows around Ballyjamesduff,
And the blue sky is over it all.

And tones that are tender, and tones that are rough
Are whispering over the sea:
Come back, Paddy Reilly, to Ballyjamesduff,
Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.

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When you are old and gray 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.

       William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939 (Dublin)

Land of Heart’s Desire,
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.

      William Butler Yeats

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O that we might, for one brief hour
Forget that we are bound apart,
And lie within each other’s arms
Mouth pressed on mouth, and heart on heart.

For just one hour from all our life
To sink unchained through passion’s deep
And, cast upon the farther shore
To lie entwined in tender sleep!

"Then You Can Tell me Goodbye" by the Casinos.  
Kiss me each morning for a hundred years…Hold me each evening by your side…Tell me you love me for a million years…Then if it don’t work out…Then you can tell me goodbye…Sweeten my coffee with a morning kiss…Soften my dreams with your sigh…After you've loved me for a million years…Then if it don't work out…Then you can tell me goodbye.

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