Child climbed
Into the trap; the pony started quick
As fly to a flick and Uncle John began
Our work-a-day, holiday jingle.
                                                  Up the hill,
Hurry me not.
                                 Down the hill,
Worry me not.
                         Verse came like that, simple
As join-hands, yet ambiguous, lesson
Implied, a flower-puzzle in final verb
And negative.

                            from 'Forget Me Not' by Austin Clarke

Austin Clarke's first book of poetry was published in 1917, his last in 1971. In a writing life spanning much of the twentieth century, Clarke created from his early, Yeatsian immersion in Gaelic myth and literature a poetry of passionate, idiosyncratic modernity, rooted in place and time, universal in its resonance. His is poetry, writes Christopher Ricks, of 'delicate and dancing interlacings' which is also 'simple as join-hands'. Clarke can be challengingly elliptical or as robust and earthy as folk tradition; he dares the terrors of the damaged soul. His later poems Thomas Kinsella described in The Dual Tradition as 'wickedly glittering narratives... poetry as pure entertainment, serious and successful'.

The first Collected Poems of Austin Clarke appeared shortly after his death in 1974. Now, newly edited and corrected, with Clarke's original Notes restored, a bibliography and an illuminating introduction by Christopher Ricks, the poetry takes its place as one of the most compelling bodies of twentieth-century Irish poetry, available for a new generation of readers.

Cover painting: Self Fishing near the Big Poplar, Callan with Heron and Crows (detail) by Tony O'Malley. Reproduced by permission of Jane O'Malley. Cover design by StephenRaw.com.

Contents

Introduction by Christopher Ricks
Editor's Foreword and Notes on the Text by R. Dardis Clarke

THE VENGEANCE OF FIONN (1917)

The Vengeance of Fionn
A Cliff Song

THE FIRES OF BAAL (1921)

The Fires of Baal

THE SWORD OF THE WEST (1921)

Concobar
The Music-Healers
O Love, There Is No Beauty

THE CATTLEDRIVE IN CONNAUGHT AND OTHER POEMS (1925)

Induction
Three Sentences
I Ceildhe
II Scandal
III Blessing
A Curse
Praise
If There Was Nothing Noble
Secrecy
Silver and Gold
The Itinerary of Ua Clerigh
The Pedlar
The Fair at Windgap
The Lad Made King
The Lost Heifer
The Son of Lir
The House in the West
The Musician's Wife
The Frenzy of Suibhne
The Circuit of Cuchullin
The Cattledrive in Connaught

PILGRIMAGE AND OTHER POEMS (1929)

Pilgrimage (When the far south glittered)
Celibacy
The Confession of Queen Gormlai
The Scholar
The Cardplayer
The Young Woman of Beare
South-Westerly Gale
The Marriage Night
The Planter's Daughter
Aisling (At morning from the coldness of Mount Brandon)

COLLECTED POEMS (1936)

Wandering Men
Six Sentences
Black and Tans
Civil War I, II
To James Stephens
No Recompense
The Tales of Ireland

NIGHT AND MORNING: POEMS (1938)

Night and Morning
Mortal Pride
Tenebrae
Martha Blake
Repentance
The Lucky Coin
The Straying Student
Penal Law
Her Voice Could Not Be Softer
Summer Lightning
The Jewels


ANCIENT LIGHTS. POEMS AND SATIRES: FIRST SERIES (1955)

Celebrations
Fashion
Marriage
Three Poems about Children
Offerings
Bequests
Ancient Lights
Respectable People
Mother and Child
Inscription for a Headstone
Emancipation
An Early Start
The Blackbird of Derrycairn
Vanishing Irish
The Envy of Poor Lovers
Return from England

TOO GREAT A VINE. POEMS AND SATIRES: SECOND SERIES (1957)

Usufruct
Abbey Theatre Fire
Wolfe Tone
The Trial of Robert Emmet
Past and Present
Nelson's Pillar, Dublin
Miss Marnell
Local Complainer
The Loss of Strength
Irish Mother
The Choice
War Propaganda
Pilgrimage (No bed that walks is worth such pain)
Marian Chimes
St Christopher

THE HORSE-EATERS. POEMS AND SATIRES: THIRD SERIES (1960)

Intercessors
Irish-American Dignitary
Knacker Rhymes
Fable
Menai Strait
Christmas Eve
The Flock at Dawn
In the New Statesman Office
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Lower Criticism
Early Unfinished Sketch
The Hippophagi

FORGET ME NOT (1962)

Forget Me Not

FLIGHT TO AFRICA AND OTHER POEMS (1963)

Mount Parnassus
Over Wales
The Stadium
Ecumenical Council
The Common Market,
The Abbey Theatre Fire
Burial of an Irish President
The Wounds of Fodhla
Flight to Africa
Precautions
The Last Republicans
Street Game
Four Letter Words
A Simple Tale
Medical Missionary of Mary
From a Diary of Dreams
Martha Blake at Fifty-One
Corporal Punishment
Living on Sin
Unmarried Mothers
The Knock
Richmond Hill
Looking Back
Our Dumb Friends
Guinness Was Bad for Me
Midnight in Templeogue
Japanese Print
Right of Way
A Strong Wind
A Mile from Tallaght
Cypress Grove
On the Mountain Tops
I Saw from Cashel
The Eighth Wonder of Ireland
Beyond the Pale
Eighteenth Century Harp Songs
I Mabel Kelly
II Gracey Nugent
III Peggy Browne
IV The Tantalus
V Breedeen
A Vision of Mars
Aisling (One day before Titan had lighted the way...)
O'Rourke's Feast
Cock and Hen
Rustic Match-Making
The Adventures of the Great Fool
How Covetousness Came into the Church
Song of the Books
The Thorn
The Jest
Every Fine Day
The Phoenix Park
Fragaria
Jeanne d'Arc
Following Darkness
Rightful Rhymes
I Irish-American Visitor
II Tale of a Tub
III The Plot

MNEMOSYNE LAY IN DUST (1966)

Mnemosyne Lay in Dust

OLD-FASHIONED PILGRIMAGE AND OTHER POEMS (1967)

Old-Fashioned Pilgrimage
Napalm
Robert Frost
Ezra Pound
Fiesta in Spain
Garcia Lorca
Pablo Neruda
The Paper Curtain
Letter to a Friend
The Penitent
A Young Member of the Party
At Middle Abbey Street Corner
At the Opposite Corner
Nova et Vetera
The Pill
Our Love Was Incorruptible
The Redemptorist
Catechism Lesson
Pigeon Pie
Custom House Official
A Student in Paris
More Extracts from a Diary of Dreams

THE ECHO AT COOLE AND OTHER POEMS (1968)

The Labours of Idleness
A Centenary Tribute
In the Savile Club
The Echo at Coole
A.E.
James Stephens
F.R. Higgins
Paupers
The House-Breakers
The Uncommissioned
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Song for Cecilia
Afterthought
Nunc Dimittis
The Knot
At the Dáil
Above Party
Black, White and Yellow
The Council of Churches
Love, Joy, Peace
Rousseau
In the Rocky Glen
The Bolshoi Ballet
New Liberty Hall
In O'Connell Street
The New Tolerance
A Statue for Dublin Bay
The Subjection of Women
Miss Rosanna Ford
The New Cathedral in Galway
A Reply
In Kildare Street
At the House of Commons
The Vocation
No Keepsake
On a Bright Morning
The Last Ditch
The Knuckleduster
Lactuca Prodigiosa
Aisling (Morning had gone into the wood before me)
Eire
A Jingling Trifle
The Happy Saint
The House of Mercy
The Last Irish Snake
Phallomeda
Impotence

A SERMON ON SWIFT AND OTHER POEMS (1968)

A Sermon on Swift
The Disestablished Church
Rose MacDowell
Another Protestant Insult
Ex Trivio
Dirge
A Jocular Retort
Moral Tales
The New World
Galway
Drumcondra
The Stump
Neptune
Anacreontic
Talaria
Amor Angustus Domi
Stopples

ORPHIDE AND OTHER POEMS (1970)

Orphide
The Quarry
The Dilemma of Iphis
The Trees of the Forest
The Healing of Mis

TIRESIAS: A POEM (1971)

Tiresias

COLLECTED POEMS (1974)

The Wooing of Becfola

Austin Clarke's Notes on the Poems
Bibliography
Index of Titles
Index of First Lines