W. T. Quirk – Manx Poet & Writer

Now good old Yule-tide once more comes
With blare of cornets, roll of drums,
And folks like us are full ...

When I will die
Bury me nigh
My mountains high,
Near to the sky
Where breezes sigh.

Bee’s lullaby,
Bird’s ...

A pig, a pig!
Who’ll buy my pig?
Thou’ll nowhere find a pig as big
As Curlywig,
As Curlywig!

Fresh ...

Oh, Father, from Thy lofty seat,
Oh, hear our simple prayer!
Be with the toilers on the deep,
Safe keep ...

There is rain on the window and rain on the door,
The garden is swimming in yellows and greens;
Whoever ...

At the top of the house is a world of play.
Rooms where children are noisy and gay.
Cable-cars rattle ...

Fluttering beside
The dusty hedge,
Beauty espied,
Summer’s pledge.
Settling now –
What are thou?
Silent, unheard,
Insect or bird?...

An open boat upon an open sea;
The sky, a canopy of million stars o’erhead;
The only occupant a broken ...

The Catholic Mary now draws near her end,
Her end unmourned by England, riven sore
By enmities and strife, for ...

(from the play ‘Eric Everard’)

Brother mine, the night is dark!
Must you go? Must you go?
Beware the dark ...

We like to go for a good long walk
In the evening after tea,
And with the neighbours have a ...

O mammoth trunk,
To earth you’ve sunk,
Your roots flung in the air;
Your leafy crown
In weeds brought down...

In the oil-lamp’s mellow light
Fear and fancies crowd in sight,
While outside the waiting night
Draws in eerily!
In ...

Far and near the fairies weep!
Near and far the shadows creep!
Now the beast’s life-breath is flown,
Fairies and ...

Grandfather clock, grandfather clock!
Tick, tock! Tick tock!
Weighing out seconds, and minutes, and hours,
Clipping off time with merciless ...

‘Fire!’
The cry went echoing wide,
Down the deserted street
In the gray light of dawn
That dread word was ...

She is my love and I her knight
And gallant gay!
I think sometimes that once she might
Just look ...

I remember a maiden,
Her face invades my dreams.
Her hair was black as the midnight wave,
Her eyes were ...

I saw thee weep, but knew not why
Thou wast upset, nor what the thief
Called Time had stol’n, to ...

If he sees not the springtime green,
If he hears not the birds’ sweet song,
If he goes without having ...

In every smile a threat
If we can see it there;
In every word a curse
If we expect to ...

Sometimes a yellow slug
Creeps up the pipe
To where the hole is for the plug.
It looks like some ...

A silhouette against the evening sky
He stands pensive and still;
The twilight fades, the breezes sigh
O’er all the ...

Remember now thy Maker in thy youth,
While evil days come not, nor years draw nigh,
When thou shalt say, ...

Oft in the days when the fairies were free,
Long, long ago:
On moonlit grass they would hold revelry,
Long ...

Tinker, tailor, plumber,
All’s the same to me,
To me, to me!
Soldier, sailor, drummer,
Men I long to see,...

(Prize Poem, D.S.S.)

Somewhere in Mona’s verdant isle there lies
A landscape formed of pastures, farms, and trees,
Enclosed on ...

Annie sits upon the milking stool,
Her head is pressed into the cow;
Between her fingers, deft and cool,
The ...

Here where the bees are droning
Around the fuchsia bush,
All, all save their intoning
Is wrapped in evening hush....

(Translation from the French of Th. Gautier)

The sky was dark, the earth was white,
And gaily rang the bells;...

(In memory of John Jabez Quirk)

Ah! He is gone, whom we shall sadly miss.
His voice no longer at ...

Of love my Shepherd is the King,
I shall not want for anything.
In pastures green He makes me lie...

We were saying, we ten,
Where sea and sand meet,
The world was made for men,
But women keep it ...

The law of all coincidence is strange,
If law there be. Man cannot cut and prune
And shape in figures ...

(Entered for competition, D.S.S.)

Amid the city’s bustle, haste and noise
In office dark alone I sit, with hands
‘Pon ...

Rosemary, Rosemary,
On the first day I saw thee,
Said I to meself, ‘Go wary
And she’ll be thy Ben-my-Chree!’...

When stars are bright
And lights are low
I hear at night
The undertow.
The distant scream
Of pebbles round...

Where my love lies sleeping
I am hast’ning on,
While the shadows round are creeping
I am hast’ning on:
Maybe ...

I hate the Indians and their customs!
I hate their rolling beating drums!
I want the pleasure of an English ...

Over the deserts hot and dry I roam
Trying to recall my memories of home,
Memories that blaze in radiant ...

My muse she is leaning
Where once she did reap,
She halts at her gleaning
To weep.

My muse is ...

The wind is sighing low
With music soft and slow
Through the bare stunted branches of the trees;
And like ...

Oh, the sun, the beauteous sun
When o’er dusky shade hath won,
Colouring where the flowers run,
Ripening the berry....

Over the stile and up the lane
Between the thorny brambles,
That’s the way we go again
For summer Sunday ...

The oily waters swell and murmur low
In the grey ghostly pallor of the mist
Which in the early morn ...

We love it when it rains to go into the loft,
Up the steps from the cowhouse, and play;
And ...

I’m an oul’ bachelor, studdy and staid,
Studdy I am, an’ studdy I’ll be;
All may accounts at the week-end ...

The Ballamoar is a farm of mountain, field and stone,
And there is dwelling happily our widowed aunt alone;
Alone ...

She sang in the garden
An old island song,
Her sister and warden
Her chair pushed along
Her voice was ...

There is an empty house
Beyond the lane,
And there no cat or mouse
Will come again;
The family is ...

See the house. How grim it stands
In its lonely solitude!
Feel the ghostly clammy hands
Repelling you
From the ...

(Prize Song in ‘Yn Chruinnaght’)

Up on Barrule there lived a man,
A man grey-haired and old;
He had a ...

(inspired by Matthew Arnold)

That night was felt a sense of tragedy,
A feeling that the Gods could not reject,...

On Sunday evening we to chapel go
Along the road, and sit six in a row,
And listen to the ...

A mossy carpet spread
Beneath the tall trees,
And through the wood a singing stream
Soft gurgles on the way...

We are very busy
For this afternoon our Lizzie,
Not to mention little Ann and Isobel,
Will be duly chosen...

Ann is our Queen of the May;
Ann is our Queen of the May;
We’ll own her, and gown her,...

Dancing on the village green,
Dancing in the market square,
There is nothing to be seen
More exciting anywhere.
Keep ...

The sunlight glinted on the dockyard wall
Gilding the ugly brickwork, damp and dark,
And there within the hammers, busy ...

The sunlight glinted on the cottage wall,
Gilding its humble portal with a glow
That with Heaven’s tender radiance seemed ...

The sunlight glinted on the prison wall,
Gilding its ugly brickwork, grim and dour,
And there within a brazen bell ...

I smile to think of Jimmy Sharpe
Who lives just down our street
He had a cannon quite as big...

‘Father, there is no moon tonight,
The clouds are scudding swift and black,
Flying on through the stormy night –...

Furry bee, you great brown lump
Wandering from clump to clump
Of flowers and shrubs around the pump
Rusty in ...

(from the French of A. de Larmartine)

When thy celestial songs prelude
The stillnesses of summer nights,
Winged songster of ...

Clip clop, up and down
We jerk and roll to Castletown;
Ruts, mounds, holes and stones
Give a shaking to ...

Amy with her petal skin and hair of liquid gold
Has come from distant Liverpool to join our little fold,...

Whether we wish it, whether or no,
Someone will come to us, someone will go;
Someone will love us, someone ...