William Allingham Poems

Poems » william allingham

William Allingham
William Allingham (March 19, 1824 or 1828 - November 18, 1889) was an Irish man of letters and poet. He was born at Ballyshannon, Donegal, and was the son of the manager of a local bank who was of English descent. He obtained a post in the custom-house of his native town and held several similar posts in Ireland and England until 1870, when he had retired from the service, and became sub-editor of Fraser's Magazine, which he edited from 1874 to 1879, in succession to James Froude. He had published a volume of Poems in 1850, followed by Day and Night Songs, a volume containing many charming lyrics, in 1855. Allingham was on terms of close friendship with DG Rossetti, who contributed to the illustration of the Songs. His Letters to Allingham (1854-1870) were edited by Dr Birkbeck Hill in 1897. Lawrence Bloomfield in Ireland, his most ambitious, though not his most successful work, a narrative poem illustrative of Irish social questions, appeared in 1864. He also edited The Ballad Book for the Golden Treasury series in 1864. In 1874 Allingham married Helen Paterson, known under her married name as a water-colour painter. He died at Hampstead in 1889, and his ashes are interred at St. Anne's in his native Ballyshannon. Though working on an unostentatious scale, Allingham produced much excellent lyrical and descriptive poetry, and the best of his pieces are thoroughly national in spirit and local colouring. His verse is clear, fresh, and graceful. Other works are Fifty Modern Poems (1865), Songs, Poems, and Ballads (1877), Evil May Day (1883), Blackberries (1884), Irish Songs and Poems (1887), and Varieties in Prose (1893), and, arguably his wost famouse work, "The Faeries" . William Allingham: a Diary (1907), edited by Mrs Allingham and D Radford, contains many interesting reminiscences of Tennyson, Carlyle and other famous contemporaries. The Ulster poet John Harold Hewitt felt Allingham's influence keenly, and his attempts to revive his reputation included editin and writing an introduction to The Poems of William Allingham (Oxford University Press/ Dolmen Press, 1967).

writing
 
 
A man who keeps a diary, pays
Due toll to many tedious days;
But life becomes eventful--th... [read poem]
requiescat
 
 
Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
... [read poem]
morality
 
 
We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and ... [read poem]
to marguerite: continued
 
 
Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shore... [read poem]
sohrab and rustum
 
 
AND the first grey of morning fill'd the east,
And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.
Bu... [read poem]
the future
 
 
A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of Time... [read poem]
self-dependence
 
 
Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's pr... [read poem]
amy margaret's five years old
 
 
Amy Margaret's five years old,
Amy Margaret's hair is gold,
Dearer twenty-thousand-fold... [read poem]
isolation: to marguerite
 
 
We were apart; yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world... [read poem]
i remember, i remember
 
 
Coming up England by a different line
For once, early in the cold new year,
We stopped, an... [read poem]
bacchanalia
 
 
The evening comes, the fields are still.
The tinkle of the thirsty rill,
Unheard all day, ... [read poem]
immortality
 
 
Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
A... [read poem]
wires
 
 
The widest prairies have electric fences,
For though old cattle know they must not stray
Y... [read poem]
money
 
 
Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
'Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all... [read poem]
memorial verses april 1850
 
 
Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
But one s... [read poem]
when first we faced
 
 
When first we faced, and touching showed
How well we knew the early moves,
Behind the moon... [read poem]
cadmus and harmonia
 
 
Far, far from here,
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
Among the green Illyrian hills; and ... [read poem]
palladium
 
 
Set where the upper streams of Simois flow
Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood;
And... [read poem]
no road
 
 
Since we agreed to let the road between us
Fall to disuse,
And bricked our gates up, plant... [read poem]
rugby chapel
 
 
Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts... [read poem]
thyrsis: a monody, to commemorate the author's friend, arthur hugh clough
 
 
How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!
In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the sa... [read poem]
consolation
 
 
Mist clogs the sunshine.
Smoky dwarf houses
Hem me round everywhere;
A vague dejectio... [read poem]
the north ship
 
 
I saw three ships go sailing by,
Over the sea, the lifting sea,
And the wind rose in the m... [read poem]
youth and calm
 
 
'Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here,
And ease from shame, and rest from fear.
There's n... [read poem]
dover beach
 
 
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;--on the F... [read poem]
worldly place
 
 
Even in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
... [read poem]
shakespeare
 
 
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still,
Out-... [read poem]
the scholar-gipsy
 
 
Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!... [read poem]
apollo musagetes
 
 
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fierc... [read poem]
the forsaken merman
 
 
Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,... [read poem]

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