William Allingham Poems

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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).

obermann once more
 
 
Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du
regret d'un monde?--OBERMANN.

Glion?--Ah, ... [read poem]
stanzas from the grande chartreuse
 
 
Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dar... [read poem]
the strayed reveller
 
 
The Youth.

Faster, faster,
O Circe, Goddess,
Let the wild, thronging trai... [read poem]
lines written in kensington gardens
 
 
In this lone, open glade I lie,
Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to... [read poem]
an arundel tomb
 
 
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits... [read poem]
mcmxiv
 
 
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The O... [read poem]
water
 
 
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.

Going t... [read poem]
the buried life
 
 
Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I fee... [read poem]
maiden name
 
 
Marrying left your maiden name disused.
Its five light sounds no longer mean your face,
Yo... [read poem]
mycerinus
 
 
"Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,
Not for the thousands whom my father slew,
Alt... [read poem]
the explosion
 
 
On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
In the sun the slagheap s... [read poem]
toads
 
 
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
An... [read poem]
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