Poems by William Allingham

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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Half-waking

I thought it was the little bed

I slept in long ago;

A straight white curtain at the head,

And two smooth knobs below.

I thought I saw the nursery fire,

And in a chair well-known

My mother sat, and did not tire

With reading all alone.

by William Allingham

Let Me Sing Of What I Know

A wild west Coast, a little Town,

Where little Folk go up and down,

Tides flow and winds blow:

Night and Tempest and the Sea,

Human Will and Human Fate:

What is little, what is great?

Howsoe'er the answer be,

Let me sing of what I know.

by William Allingham

Adieu To Belshanny

Adieu to Belashanny! where I was bred and born;

Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn.

The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known,

And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own;

There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill,

But, east or west, in foreign lands, I recollect them still.

I leave my warm heart with you, tho' my back I'm forced to turn

Adieu to Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne!

by William Allingham

After Sunset

The vast and solemn company of clouds

Around the Sun's death, lit, incarnadined,

Cool into ashy wan; as Night enshrouds

The level pasture, creeping up behind

Through voiceless vales, o'er lawn and purpled hill

And hazéd mead, her mystery to fulfil.

Cows low from far-off farms; the loitering wind

Sighs in the hedge, you hear it if you will,—

by William Allingham

Amy Margaret's Five Year Old

Amy Margaret's five years old,

Amy Margaret's hair is gold,

Dearer twenty-thousand-fold

Than gold, is Amy Margaret.

"Amy" is friend, is "Margaret"

The pearl for crown or carkanet?

Or peeping daisy, summer's pet?

Which are you, Amy Margaret?

by William Allingham

In A Spring Grove

Here the white-ray'd anemone is born,

Wood-sorrel, and the varnish'd buttercup;

And primrose in its purfled green swathed up,

Pallid and sweet round every budding thorn,

Gray ash, and beech with rusty leaves outworn.

Here, too the darting linnet hath her nest

In the blue-lustred holly, never shorn,

Whose partner cheers her little brooding breast,

by William Allingham

Late Autumn

October - and the skies are cool and gray

O'er stubbles emptied of their latest sheaf,

Bare meadow, and the slowly falling leaf.

The dignity of woods in rich decay

Accords full well with this majestic grief

That clothes our solemn purple hills to-day,

Whose afternoon is hush'd, and wintry brief

Only a robin sings from any spray.

by William Allingham

Meadowsweet

Through grass, through amber'd cornfields, our slow Stream—

Fringed with its flags and reeds and rushes tall,

And Meadowsweet, the chosen of them all

By wandering children, yellow as the cream

Of those great cows—winds on as in a dream

By mill and footbridge, hamlet old and small

(Red roofs, gray tower), and sees the sunset gleam

On mullion'd windows of an ivied Hall.

by William Allingham

Aeolian Harp

O pale green sea,

With long, pale, purple clouds above -

What lies in me like weight of love ?

What dies in me

With utter grief, because there comes no sign

Through the sun-raying West, or the dim sea-line ?

O salted air,

Blown round the rocky headland still,

by William Allingham

A Memory

Four ducks on a pond,

A grass-bank beyond,

A blue sky of spring,

White clouds on the wing;

What a little thing

To remember for years-

To remember with tears!

by William Allingham

Song

O Spirit of the Summertime !

Bring back the roses to the dells ;

The swallow from her distant clime,

The honey-bee from drowsy cells.

Bring back the friendship of the sun ;

The gilded evenings, calm and late,

When merry children homeward run,

And peeping stars bid lovers wait.

by William Allingham

In Snow

O English mother, in the ruddy glow

Hugging your baby closer when outside

You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow

Falling again, and think what ills betide

Unshelter'd creatures,—your sad thoughts may go

Where War and Winter now, two spectre-wolves,

Hunt in the freezing vapour that involves

Those Asian peaks of ice and gulfs below.

by William Allingham