W. T. Quirk – Manx Poet & Writer

The lamp is lit, the wick burns clear;

The night is still, without, within.

Time in his chariot draws not ...

Great saffron moon low on the sea,

Indigo trees with starry crowns,

Attend our homing feet,

Our lantern’s orange glow...

Come, climb in me, feel my rude strength.

Come, trust my embrace and mount, till at length

From a nest ...

The Eairy Dam lies chill, its surface flecked

Into sharp ripples by the breeze.  Reeds sway

Ever so slightly where ...

Maid in bonnet

Posing demurely

Hiding your face as if surely

You knew the look on it.

There for all ...

Let us take a walk beside the lovely Silverburn

Whose waters ripple twinkling on the stones.

Smell the sweet aroma ...

Oh, come to the mountains !

Oh, come to the hills !

Where crystalline fountains

Dance in the sun,

And ...

Old dark night

Poking about under the trees,

Under the apple trees in the orchard,

An ancient fellow with fleas...

Curlew in the night

Take me in your flight

Over dark restless waves

To the resonant caves

Where the tide ...

The dead grey waters heave and dwindle low

In the phantasmal veiling of the mist

That merges sea and sky ...

The old black boat

Will never float

Except upon a sea of nettles;

Half on her side

She lay, and ...

They sleep below

Grassy mound and lichened stone,

Old men and young men,

Girls and women,

Children,

Laid in row ...

Here, where the bees are droning

Athwart the fuchsia bush,

All, all, save their intoning

Is wrapped in evening hush;...

The crocus lifts her valiant head

To light the first flame of the year,

And winter falters.

She blows a ...

The waterlilies floated on the still

Green bosom of the lake, yellow and white

Cups sitting on their rounded velvet ...

She is my love and I her knight and gallant gay.

I often think that once she might

Just look ...

If he sees not the springtime green,

If he hears not the birds’ sweet song,

If he goes without having ...

In the oil-lamp’s mellow light

Fears and fancies crowd in sight,

While outside the waiting night

Draws in eerily;

From ...

O mammoth trunk,

To earth you’ve sunk,

Your roots flung in the air;

Your leafy crown

In weeds brought down...

Two worlds exist.  The one, a place of light

All coloured, bright and glittering; of time

That stretches limitless in ...

The honeyed breath of meadowsweet

With perfume doth the arbour fill,

Where we wander on happy feet

Beside the rill....

Blue sky and golden sun,

The scent of new-mown hay,

And a parcel of fun

When the work is done...

August has fled into the void

And taken with her hours

And minutes that I have enjoyed

But knew it ...

Tonight I smelt the smoke

Of a woodland fire.

Sudden, bitter-sweet it came,

Creating the desire

Leaping like the dead ...

It is only a book

And a tattered one at that,

And if you closely look

There’s the binding showing ...

Come your ways in,

Stranger no stranger,

Gently, so gently.

Here is no sin,

Here is no danger;

Here is ...

If you should in your frantic grief revile

The blows of fate, and at some godhead scream,

Not understanding the ...

Draw the curtains, hide the light;

Themselves are riding out tonight.

Through the glen

The Little Men

Thrash the branches ...

Awake to life and feel its pulse

Beating from the heart to brain,

Teeming in the earth,

Streaming out from ...

The lamp obeys my every whim

As did Aladdin’s long ago,

And it its dim

And gentle glim

It conjures ...

Warriors win renown

And seek a victor’s crown:

They strain and strive

To keep alive

The spark that in them ...

Up from the gulfs of the dark,

Up from the depths of the night,

Floating up into the arc

Of ...

One night I turned my lamp-wick down,

Dowsing the light, and in the dark

Prepared for sleep.  But from the ...

The silver sea, the golden sand,

The smiling meadows green and fair;

The beaming sun, the azure sky,

The charmed ...

Sequins of moonlight quiver and gleam,

Dance to the music, the waltz of the stream;

Laugh in the night of ...

Miasmic shapes that writhe and whirl

In robes diaphanous and white,

That round the hedges coil and furl,

And make ...

They hang violet globes from the trees

Like hearts in the bosoms of leaves,

Pendulous in summer rain,

Crowning the ...

Crimson banners unfurl in the dusky fires

Beyond etched tree-lined and gold-tipped spires;

A blaze as a brand is the ...

Sing to me of the dark pine woods,

O wind of the night!

Voice to my heart the deep call...

A voice in the night whispers, ‘Where?’

And the breeze

In the trees

Seems to sigh

To the sky,

‘They ...

When all is quiet where there has been laughter,

And the last voice has faded fdown the lane

The house ...

Moon-green shingle, pallid sand.

The sea in molten metal sleeping;

A roving filament, bright band,

From distant lighthouse thinly creeping....

Over the midnight wave

A starry carpet is spread;

Starry flowers on the grave

Where a day lies dead.

 ...

There’s a harmony in summer of a rich and perfect blend;

Though its cadences descend

In a long chromatic scale,...

Here within this country chapel,

Small and bare and dimly lit,

Quiet save for tick and rappel

Of the watching ...

Blue sky and golden sun,

The scent o’ new-mown hay,

And a parcel o’ fun

When the work is done...

I do not know a sweeter sound

Than rain upon the thirsty ground;

A lovelier sight I’ll never see

Than ...

The smoke curled lazily

To sky that seemed asleep,

In still air hazily

The far hills melted deep,

Blurred with ...

Cold ashen light in the valley,

Rose-pink above it and grey,

Pale with the advent of twilight,

Sad with the ...

Skipping lightly on the green,

Weaving patterns out and in,

Children taking hands are seen

Under summer skies.

In the ...

(After Catullus, the Roman lyrical poet)

To me he seems a god, no less,

Who on the headland pensive stands,...

Over the hushed glen

A quiet spirit broods;

Far from haunts of men

Is its solitudes.

Gaunt trees stand on ...

A medal pinned upon the breast

Is heroism self-confessed

For all the world to see;

No thoughts of meekness animate...

The church bells have been pealing and are hushed:

Their call to worship fell like fragrant dew

Upon rich meadow ...

Tendrils that cunningly twist on the tree,

Threading in sinuous curls in the leaves;

Clasping in breathless abandon to be...

The shamrock leaf on Patrick’s Day

Reminds us all to pray

To father, Son and Holy Ghost,

To pray for ...

Old water mill, thy lumbering wheel

Still turns in heavy majesty;

Its measured movement may reveal

The sure approach of ...

(After the Spanish of El Marques de Santillana)

No maiden so fair in the valleys I see,

No maiden so ...

(From the French of Victor Hugo)

All alone beside the waves

I stood one starry night,

A cloudless sky was ...

It is most good to feel

Flung salt-spray on the face,

For life becomes more real

When the pulse is ...

In summer, when the sun is high

And thoughts are turned to holiday.

When daylight lingers in the sky,

And ...

Who told the lovely flower to grow

With petals six and horn of golden frill?

Who is the artist such ...

In the fall of the night when the rocks lay a-sleeping

And the waves gently fondled the slumberous shore,

When ...

When flowers of June are in their prime

And hollyhocks and roses climb,

Delphiniums blue

Rival the sky,

And sunflowers ...

It is just a little cottage

That is thatched with yellow straw,

And it nestles in the hollow by the ...

Voices in the night air when dusk has descended,

Coming with sweet clarity across the still water,

Bring to my ...

We have sung the old Missouri

And the Mississippi too;

We have sung the Minnetonka,

We have sung the Danube ...

Rain on the window and the lone wind sighing,

Sighing in the branches of the gaunt old elm-tree;

Sighing and ...

My saucy youth derides my sober age,

Mocking, haunting, refusing to be stilled:

That which was me, and wholly me, ...

Dead is the sky above the frozen ridge,

And icy as the hand of death the breeze;

Drawn on the ...

(From the Spanish of Francisco de Rioja)

Carnation, envy of Aurora,

Deepest flame of all the flowers,

On thy birth ...

Whether we wish it,

Whether or no,

Someone will come to us,

Someone will go;

Someone will love us,

Someone ...