]> Selected poems by John Millington Synge An electronic edition John Millington Synge Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Benjamin Hazard University College, Cork The Higher Education Authority via the CELT Project. Second draft. 1230 CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College Cork.
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 Editions John Millington Synge, Poems and translations (Dublin 1920). Literature John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World, a comedy in three acts (Boston 1911). Augusta Gregory, Our Irish theatre (London 1914). William Butler Yeats, The death of Synge, and other passages from an old diary (Dublin 1928). Daniel Corkery, Synge and Anglo-Irish literature: a study (Cork 1931). Robin Skelton and Alan Price (eds.), Synge: the collected works (4 volumes) (Oxford 1962-68). Nicholas Greene, Synge: a critical study of the plays (London 1975). Diarmaid Ó Muirithe (ed.), The English language in Ireland (Thomas Davis Lecture Series), (Cork 1977). Robert Hogan and James Kilroy, The Abbey Theatre: the years of Synge 1905-1909 (Dublin 1978). Alan Bliss, Spoken English in Ireland: the background to the literature, 1600-1740 (Portlaoise 1979). G. J. Watson, Irish identity and the literary revival: Synge, Yeats, Joyce and O'Casey (London 1979). David H. Greene and Edward M. Stephens, John Millington Synge 1871-1909 (New York 1989). Bariou, Michel. 'À la "Belle Époque" du celtisme: le théâtre populaire et l'œuvre en prose de J. M. Synge. Ses analogies avec l'œuvre critique et romanesque d'Anatole Le Braz', in Catherine Laurent, Helen Davis (ed.) Irlande et Bretagne: vingt siècles d'histoire: actes du colloque de Rennes (29-31 mars 1993) Rennes: 1994 250-61. Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland (London 1995). Seán Ó Tuama, Repossessions: selected essays on the Irish literary heritage (Cork 1995). Anthony Roche and Augustine Martin (eds.), Bearing witness: essays on Anglo-Irish literature (Dublin 1996). W. J. McCormack, Fool of the family: a life of J.M. Synge (London 2000). Gregory Castle, Modernism and the Celtic revival (Cambridge 2001). Mary C. King, 'Disturbing events: assessing and re-assessing J.M. Synge', Bullán 6:2 (2002) 83-98. The edition used in the digital edition Poems and translations John Millington Synge First edition Maunsel Dublin 1920

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

The poems of the present text are taken from pages 3, 14–15, 18–19, and 24–25 of the edition.

Text has been checked and proof-read three times.

The electronic text represents the edited text.

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The electronic edition adheres to the practice of the textual editor.

div0=the text group; div1=the individual poem. Page-breaks are marked pb n=""/.

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 By John Millington Synge 1908 The text is in English. literary poetry 19/20c 2011-01-24 Beatrix Färber ed. Header updated, new wordcount made. 2008-07-19 Beatrix Färber ed. Keywords added. 2005-08-25 Julianne Nyhan ed. Normalised language codes and edited langUsage for XML conversion 2005-08-04T14:41:27+0100 Peter Flynn ed. Converted to XML 2004-05-28 Beatrix Färber ed. Header modified; additions made to bibliography, HTML file created. 2004-05-28 Benjamin Hazard ed. File parsed. 2003-05-27 Benjamin Hazard ed. Text checked and proofed, header constructed, structural mark-up inserted and verified; bibliography compiled. 2003-05-27 Benjamin Hazard data capture File captured by scanning. In Kerry We heard the thrushes by the shore and sea, And saw the golden stars' nativity, Then round we went the lane by Thomas Flynn, Across the church where bones lie out and in; And there I asked beneath a lonely cloud Of strange delight, with one bird singing loud, What change you'd wrought in graveyard, rock and sea, This new wild paradise to wake for me... Yet knew no more than knew those merry sins Had built this stack of thigh-bones, jaws and shins. On an Anniversary After reading the dates in a book of Lyrics With Fifteen-ninety or Sixteen-sixteen We end Cervantes, Marot, Nashe or Green; Then Sixteen-thirteen till two score and nine, Is Crashaw's niche, that honey-lipped divine. And so when all my little work is done They'll say I came in Eighteen-seventy-one, And died in Dublin ... What year will they write For my poor passage to the stall of night? To the Oaks of Glencree My arms are round you, and I lean Against you, while the lark Sings over us, and golden lights, and green Shadows are on your bark. There'll come a season when you'll stretch Black boards to cover me; Then in Mount Jerome I will lie, poorwretch, With worms eternally. In Glencullen Thrush, linnet, stare and wren, Brown lark beside the sun, Take thought of kestril, sparrow-hawk, Birdlime and roving gun. You great-great-grandchildren Of birds I've listened to, I think I robbed your ancestors When I was young as you. I've Thirty Months I've thirty months, and that's my pride, Before my age's a double score, Though many lively men have died At twenty-nine or little more. I've left a long and famous set Behind some seven years or three, But there are millions I'd forget Will have their laugh at passing me. 25, ix, 1908. Winter With little money in a great city There's snow in every street Where I go up and down, And there's no woman man or dog That knows me in the town. I know each shop, and all These Jews and Russian Poles, For I go walking night and noon To spare my sack of coals. The Curse To the sister of an enemy of the author's who disapproved of The Playboy of the Western World Lord, confound this surly sister, Blight her brow with blotch and blister, Cramp her larynx, lung, and liver, In her guts a galling give her. Let her live to earn her dinners In Mountjoy with seedy sinners: Lord, this judgment quickly bring, And I'm your servant, J. M. Synge.