To A Young Poet Who Killed Himself

1 When you had played with life a space
2 And made it drink and lust and sing,
3 You flung it back into God's face
4 And thought you did a noble thing.
5 "Lo, I have lived and loved," you said,
6 "And sung to fools too dull to hear me.
7 Now for a cool and grassy bed
8 With violets in blossom near me."

9 Well, rest is good for weary feet,
10 Although they ran for no great prize;
11 And violets are very sweet,
12 Although their roots are in your eyes.
13 But hark to what the earthworms say
14 Who share with you your muddy haven:
15 "The fight was on -- you ran away.
16 You are a coward and a craven."

17 "The rug is ruined where you bled;
18 It was a dirty way to die!
19 To put a bullet through your head
20 And make a silly woman cry!
21 You could not vex the merry stars
22 Nor make them heed you, dead or living.
23 Not all your puny anger mars
24 God's irresistible forgiving.

25 "Yes, God forgives and men forget,
26 And you're forgiven and forgotten.
27 You may be gaily sinning yet
28 And quick and fresh instead of rotten.
29 And when you think of love and fame
30 And all that might have come to pass,
31 Then don't you feel a little shame?
32 And don't you think you were an ass?"

1 "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
2 It's with O'Leary in the grave."
3 Then, Yeats, what gave that Easter dawn
4 A hue so radiantly brave?

5 There was a rain of blood that day,
6 Red rain in gay blue April weather.
7 It blessed the earth till it gave birth
8 To valour thick as blooms of heather.

9 Romantic Ireland never dies!
10 O'Leary lies in fertile ground,
11 And songs and spears throughout the years
12 Rise up where patriot graves are found.

13 Immortal patriots newly dead
14 And ye that bled in bygone years,
15 What banners rise before your eyes?
16 What is the tune that greets your ears?

17 The young Republic's banners smile
18 For many a mile where troops convene.
19 O'Connell street is loudly sweet
20 With strains of Wearing of the Green.

21 The soil of Ireland throbs and glows
22 With life that knows the hour is here
23 To strike again like Irishmen
24 For that which Irishmen hold dear.

25 Lord Edward leaves his resting place
26 And Sarsfield's face is glad and fierce.
27 See Emmet leap from troubled sleep
28 To grasp the hand of Padraic Pearse!

29 There is no rope can strangle song
30 And not for long death takes his toll.
31 No prison bars can dim the stars
32 Nor quicklime eat the living soul.

33 Romantic Ireland is not old.
34 For years untold her youth shall shine.
35 Her heart is fed on Heavenly bread,
36 The blood of martyrs is her wine.

The House With Nobody In It

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

The boom and blare of the big brass band is cheering
to my heart
And I like the smell of the trampled grass and elephants and hay.
I take off my hat to the acrobat with his delicate, strong art,
And the motley mirth of the chalk-faced clown drives all my care
away.
I wish I could feel as they must feel, these players
brave and fair,
Who nonchalantly juggle death before a staring throng.
It must be fine to walk a line of silver in the air
And to cleave a hundred feet of space with a gesture like a song.
Sir Henry Irving never knew a keener, sweeter thrill
Than that which stirs the breast of him who turns his painted face
To the circling crowd who laugh aloud and clap hands with a will
As a tribute to the clown who won the great wheel-barrow race.
Now, one shall work in the living rock with a mallet
and a knife,
And another shall dance on a big white horse that canters round
a ring,
By another's hand shall colours stand in similitude of life;
And the hearts of the three shall be moved by one mysterious high
thing.
For the sculptor and the acrobat and the painter
are the same.
They know one hope, one fear, one pride, one sorrow and one mirth,
And they take delight in the endless fight for the fickle world's
acclaim;
For they worship art above the clouds and serve her on the earth.
But you, who can build of the stubborn rock no
form of loveliness,
Who can never mingle the radiant hues to make a wonder live,
Who can only show your little woe to the world in a rhythmic dress
-
What kind of a counterpart of you does the three-ring circus give?
Well - here in the little side-show tent to-day
some people stand,
One is a giant, one a dwarf, and one has a figured skin,
And each is scarred and seared and marred by Fate's relentless hand,
And each one shows his grief for pay, with a sort of pride therein.
You put your sorrow into rhyme and want the world
to look;
You sing the news of your ruined hope and want the world to hear;
Their woe is pent in a canvas tent and yours in a printed book.
O, poet of the broken heart, salute your brothers here!