Naas

While pillaging my old university notes for some help in putting together my new teaching course, I came across a forgotten poem I wrote when I was 23, living in Ireland and evidently going through my W. B. Yeats phase.

Naas, winter 2003

Her senseless mercy shines upon you still
And tempers time and grief with pins of joy;
None but the purest heart would dare employ
That snare of kind and poisonous goodwill.

The worried walk away from beauty's sight
Is set with foreign voices faintly heard.
Into the fog a line of lanterns blurred
Warms the sleeping stillness of the night.

Then rise and face the winter's silver dawn
That over mist-strewn fields pours,
For crowds of stars and mountains are yet yours:
A lover's balm for pity's gentle thorn.

I think we can all be forgiven for turning to poetry once at some point in our lives.