Oh, weather clerk, oh why hast thou
On this, this one day of all days
Quenched by thy clouds the ...
Vol 2: The Boat in the Farmyard and other poetry
Poems in Category: The Boat in the Farmyard and other poetry
An unpublished collection written in 1925-1926.
W T Quirk’s dedication: “Dedicated to my mother, who first taught me the value of friendship.”
For an alphabetical list of titles of these poems Click here
Anna Moyra
There is music in the field
Where the reapers keen scythes wield
In the corn stalks half-concealed:
“Anna Moyra!”
Who ...
Broken Bell
(Translated from the French of Charles Baudelaire)
‘Tis bitter-sweet on cold and wintry nights
To sit beside a fire that ...
Called I Thee Fair
“Called I thee fair? Called I thee nymph divine?
Called I thee fragile, dainty, perfumed flower?
And didst thou miss ...
Castle Rushen
See where the mighty keep its form uprears
In lofty grandeur to the pondering sky.
See the majestic pile there ...
Close of Day
Tranquil mere in sunset light,
Mirror of gold:
On thy breast doth radiance pour,
Shady trees thine edge embower,
All ...
Cupid at Play
I
Love once came dancing through a forest glade
In wild abandon and in fancy free,
But ah, he stopped ...
December
Now last of all here comes cold proud December;
Last lies it on the calendar, not least.
Glowing alone, the ...
Deep in the Memories of Long Ago
Deep in the mem’ries of long ago
Lies something precious and rare,
Gratefully lighting with gentle glow
Days that are ...
Early Morning – I General
‘Tis early morning and the gloomy night
Has flown with all its damp and heavy dew,
And bats and owls, ...
Early Morning in the Country- II
Dew-pearled the lawn, and ruddy-lipped the sky,
New-waked the cock that nearby proudly crows;
Sighing the zephyr awakening the rose;...
Early Morning in the Snow – IV
Silence prevails, the very air is still;
Muffled are footsteps on the parapet;
Hushed are the cars, and quiet is ...
Early Morning in the Town – III
The town’s asleep, the streets are bare and cold;
Shuttered the shops, the window-blinds are down;
Raw lies the morning ...
Elegy in a Dismal Schoolroom
(The first of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to Gray)
The school bell tolls the knell of parting day;...
Erystain after Rain
The escallonia smells sweet
After a shower of rain,
Its waxy flowers like babies’ feet
Shine in the sun again....
Failure
A ship sailed out into the golden west,
Her sails were set and bellied in the breeze.
But battered she ...
Fire Fancies
The fire grows low, the embers fall apart,
The room grows dark and shadows steal around;
I gaze and gaze ...
Foxdale Eve
I seem to hear the rallying call
When daylight fades and shadows fall
And dusk is creeping up the glen,...
Foxdale Stream
FOXDALE STREAM
I.
O singing stream, I take one tender look
At thy clear crystal depths in childish speed
Dancing ...
From the Lowliest
Of commonplace things and commonplace life we dream.
In commonplace homes and commonplace streets we live.
Humble and poor and ...
House Fever
(The sixth of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to Walter Scott)
Breathes there a boy with soul so dead...
Isle of Man
Green-mantled isle of rock-bound coast and hills,
Of smiling fields and hedgerows bright with flowers,
Of happy memories of leisured ...
Lament for a Language
Oh, weep for our land of quick passing day!
Sigh for the words now passed for ever far
From the ...
Lines in Spenserian Stanza
The clock dings out the passages of time
In solemn strokes, clear, sure, and ponderous;
With every quarter a melodious ...
Lines to a Little Boy on Christmas Day
The air is still, there is no sound,
White are the roofs, and white the ground,
And soft white flakes ...
Love’s Fever
O’er the green hedges came the jolly cry
Borne on the breeze of reapers in the wheat,
And all was ...
Man’s Limitations
Borne to my ears the sound of billows’ roar,
Borne to my ears the far surf’s sullen song,
The scream ...
Morn from the East
Morn from the East comes dancing through the gate,
Clad all in flowers and decked in lovely white,
Joyous, light-hearted, ...
Mountain Tarn
Oh, mountain tarn, I dare to venture near
Thy grassy rim and stand amid the reeds
Knee-high, and look into ...
Noble Sixth Form
(The fourth of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to Lord Tennyson)
Half an hour, half an hour,
Half an ...
November
Oh, month of withered leaves and leaping fires!
Oh, month of tossing seas and storms of hail;
When sun each ...
October
Now hath the summer gone and autumn come
And old October hath her raiment donned
And gathered tatters for her ...
Odelet
(From the French of Henri de Regnier)
If I have Sunday
Of my love, ‘tis to the water slow
Which ...
On Hearing Spohr
(With apologies to Keats)
Oft I have heard voices in sung upraised,
Oft have I felt sweet music’s power to ...
On Reaching my Seventeenth Birthday
Sweet seventeen! Ah, glorious seventeen!
I wellcome thee to join the previous years
And lay thy hand upon me. Thou ...
On the Passing of One Unknown
Our Baby
(The third of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to a popular song)
Everybody loves our baby but our baby ...
Paraphrase of Psalm 47
Oh, clap your hand, ye people, shout to God
In triumph, for most terrible and high
He sits a mighty ...
Paraphrase of the Hundredth Psalm
Unto the Lord, oh lands, make joyful noise,
And all ye nations, joyfully now sing;
Know ye, all ye, the ...
Peel Castle
Older companion of thy southern friend,
Older by far of the Manx castles twain,
Thy pomp and splendour shall we ...
Puny Man
Upon a rugged promontry I stood,
And round the wheeling screaming seagulls flew.
The angry surf murmured and frothed below...
Sixth Form Dirge
(The second of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to R.L. Stevenson)
Under a wide and starry sky
Dig the ...
Solace
Not for my eyes are Arcadia’s fountains
When I am tired and sore depressed.
Not for my feet are Alpine ...
Storm along Castletown Front
The waves’ advancing armies break and fall
In creamy lather, whipped by angry squall,
And pound the shingle and the ...
Summer Night
Oh, hasten out! Leave in thy rear that room
Where music reigns discordant; dancers gay
Flit o’er the polished surface ...
The Boat in the Farmyard
The old black boat
Will never float
Except upon a sea of nettles.
Half on her side
She lay and ...
The Choosing
My boy, that road leads to the distant town,
And this one stretches to the waiting sea.
Hast thou determined ...
The Dead Son
Long shadows are creeping,
The day’s almost done;
A mother kneels weeping
Beside her dead son.
“That Thou could’st have ...
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon a Tennis Pill,
A youth, to Fortune lost, from Ping-Pong flown;
Fair Science smiled not ...
The Lay of a Lost Bard
(The seventh of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to Scott)
The rain was wet, the wind was cold,
The ...
The Man of Maths
(The eighth of the Black Hole Ballads)
The Man of Maths was Paddy,
Work not to him doth belong;
For ...
The Marsh
A darksome stillness broods o’er all,
The breeze is dank and chill,
And there beneath a covering pall
Its moonless ...
The Pioneer
The sun swims down, in golden splendour clad,
And earth prepares the coming night to meet;
The night urged on ...
The Rainbow
A sheet of water from a leaden sky
Fell solid, and damply clinging mist
Rose thick and white. The passing ...
The Sunset
The lulled waters swell and murmur low
Beneath the crags and cliffs and come to rest
Upon the shingle in ...
The Tramp’s Bed – I
What can this be here in this dusty loft,
What the light finds when I unclose the door,
This frame, ...
The Tramp’s Bed – II
Oh, what if when fatigued with life’s unrest
And broken-spirited with burdens hard,
When from our sight all happiness in ...
The Twelve thirty Express
Imagine a countryside
Peaceful and calm,
Some fields and some trees,
A stream and a farm.
A day of close ...
The Wail of the Dalton Sufferers
(The fifth of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to Longfellow)
It was the sixth form classroom
On a cold ...
To a Jackdaw
Night claims its fee and takes to it the land,
And shadows lengthen; dusk on either hand
Makes dark spots ...
To Death
Death, why dost thou hard stare at me, I pray?
Why smilest thou in manner grimly cold?
And what is ...
To Her
I
The sky was clear, the sky was blue. No cloud
Floated to mar the pure serenity
Of the deep ...
To Keats
Sometimes the moon sails in the frosty sky
Like a white ship, majestic and supreme.
Sometimes it rises early then ...
To Mary
(From the French of Pierre de Ronsard)
As one sees on a stem a rose in May
In all its ...
To Shakespeare
Monarch of words, three hundred years hast thou
Reigned in a splendour only thine, and grown
In fame, and ever ...
Tom Brown
Tom Brown, thy little Isle reveres thy name,
Poet magnificent! Thine immortal fame
Hath long outlived thee, and will long ...
Whispering Spirits
(The ninth of the Black Hole Ballads)
(With apologies to R.S. Hawker)
We saw them not, we could not hear...
Written in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poems
Did I take pen and with a far-off look
Sit me before a pile of foolscap high,
And with a ...
Written on the Fly-leaf of William Cowper’s Poems
The lover lives but for a flashing glance
Of bright blue eyes ‘neath lashes long and dark,
Skywards then soars ...
Written on the Last Page of a Book of Keats’s Poems
A golden discourse and message bright,
Then broken off and left, a jagged edge;
Nothing but darkness, gone the heavenly ...