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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: BOLAND, EAVAN Matches Found: 192 Boland, Eavan Poet's Biography 192 poems available by this author A SPARROW-HAWK IN THE SUBURBS Poem Text First Line: At that time of year there is a turn in the road where Last Line: Last frosts of our / back gardens Subject(s): Environment; Hawks; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation ACHILL WOMAN First Line: She came up the hill carrying water AFTER THE IRISH OF AODGHAN O'RATHAILLE First Line: Without flocks or cattle or the curved horns Last Line: Would make you swallow these atlantic words Variant Title(s): After The Irish Of Egan O'rahill AND SOUL Poem Text Subject(s): Death - Mothers ANNA LIFFEY First Line: Life, the story goes, Last Line: Everything that burdened and distinguished me %will be lost in this: %I was a voice ANON First Line: I sympathize but wonder what he fled Last Line: To find it, accusing, illegitimate ANOREXIC Poem Text Recitation First Line: Flesh is heretic Last Line: And sweat and fat and greed Subject(s): Anorexia Nervosa; Eating Disorders; Women ANOREXIC First Line: Flesh is heretic Last Line: And sweat and fat and greed Subject(s): Anorexia Nervosa; Eating Disorders; Women AT THE GLASS FACTORY IN CAVAN TOWN First Line: Today it is a swan Last Line: Crate at the door %we will leave by ATHENE'S SONG First Line: From my father's head I sprung Last Line: Holds its peace and holds its own ATLANTIC OCEAN First Line: This stone, this spanish stone, flings light Last Line: The elder brother ATLANTIS€”A LOST SONNET Poem Text First Line: How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder Subject(s): Atlantis BALLAD OF BEAUTY AND TIME First Line: Plainly came the time Last Line: And say 'let it stand'.' BECOMING ANNE BRADSTREET Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: It happens again Subject(s): Bradstreet, Anne (1612-1662); Poetry & Poets BELFAST VS. DUBLIN First Line: Into this city of largesse Last Line: Have called into question one another's own BLACK LACE FAN MY MOTHER GAVE ME First Line: It was the first gift he ever gave her Last Line: The whole, full, flirtatious span of it Subject(s): Fans BLOSSOM First Line: A may morning. Light starting in the sky Last Line: And tuches mine for the last time %and falls to earth BOTANIC GARDENS First Line: Guided by love, leaving aside dispute Subject(s): Erotic Love; Love BOTTLE GARDEN First Line: I decanted them - feather mosses, fan-shaped plants BRIAR ROSE First Line: Intimate as underthings Last Line: And closing it without knowing why CANALETTO IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELALND First Line: Something beating in Last Line: Something measurable CHILD OF OUR TIME First Line: Yesterday I knew no lullaby Last Line: Sleep in a world your final sleep has woken CHORUS OF THE SHADOWS First Line: Puppets we are, strung by a puppet master Last Line: The run of a well CODE First Line: Poet to poet. I imagine you %at the edge of language, at the start of summer Last Line: One word at a time. %one woman to another CONVERSATION WITH AN INSPECTOR OF TAXES ABOUT POETRY First Line: No, comrade inspector, I won't sit down Last Line: Unsung and my tongue is idle CYCLIST WITH CUT BRANCHES First Line: Country hands on the handlebars Last Line: And still had lives to live CYNIC AT KILMAINHAM JAIL First Line: There is nowhere that the gimlet twilight has not Last Line: At death, a better future, neither tear nor flaw DAPHNE HEARD WITH HORROR THE ADDRESSES OF THE GOD First Line: It was early summer. Already Last Line: Behind it all, of darkness: in the shadow, %beside the laurel hedge, its gesture DAPHNE WITH HER THIGHS IN BARK First Line: I have written this Last Line: It thrusts and hardens DEATH OF REASON First Line: When the peep-o-day boys were laying fires down in Last Line: She is ash and tallow. It is over DEDICATION: THE OTHER WOMAN AND THE NOVELIST First Line: I know you have a world I cannot share Last Line: Her speaking part for any of our silences DEGAS'S LAUNDRESSES Poem Text First Line: You rise, you dawn Last Line: It’s your winding sheet Subject(s): Degas, Edgar (1834-1917); Laundry & Laundering; Paintings & Painters; Women DEGAS'S LAUNDRESSES First Line: You rise, you dawn Last Line: It's your winding sheet Subject(s): Degas, Edgar (1834-1917); Laundry And Laundering; Paintings And Painters; Women DOLLS MUSEUM IN DUBLIN First Line: The wounds are terrible. The paint is old Last Line: With a terrible stare. But not feel it. And not know it Subject(s): Dolls; Dublin, Ireland; Museums; Toys DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 1. NIGHT FEED First Line: This is dawn Last Line: I tuck you in DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 10. FRUIT ON A STRAIGHT-SIDED TRAY First Line: When the painter takes the straight-sided tray Last Line: Spaces. Distances. Growing to infinities DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 11. DOMESTIC INTERIOR First Line: The woman is as round Last Line: Grow important by DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 2. MONOTONY First Line: The stilled hub Last Line: Small families DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 3. HYMN First Line: For a.M. %december Last Line: The world %was made flesh DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 4. PARTINGS First Line: By the mercy Last Line: Dawn sunders %to define DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 5. ENERGIES First Line: This is my time Last Line: Damp and tight DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 6. THE MUSE MOTHER Poem Text First Line: My window pearls wet Last Line: From this rainy street Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 6. THE MUSE MOTHER First Line: My window pearls wet Last Line: My mother tongue Subject(s): Language DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 7. ENDINGS First Line: A child %shifts in a cot Last Line: The blossom. %the abandon DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 8. IN THE GARDEN First Line: Let's go out now Last Line: An inkling of it DOMESTIC INTERIOR: 9. AFTER A CHILDHOOD AWAY FROM IRELAND First Line: One summer %we slipped in at dawn Last Line: Your cheeks %are brick pink DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Poem Text First Line: It was winter, lunar, wet. At dusk Subject(s): Man-woman Relationships; Male-female Relations DREAM OF COLONY First Line: I dreamed we came to an iron gate Last Line: I was saying -- %what have we done EMIGRANT IRISH First Line: Like oil lamps we put them out the back Last Line: And all the old songs. And nothing to lose Variant Title(s): The Emigrant Ma Subject(s): U.s. - Immigration And Emigration ENVOI First Line: It is easter in the suburb. Clematis EROTICS OF HISTORY First Line: Sex and history. And skin and bone Last Line: This time - and this you did not ordain - %I am changing the story Variant Title(s): Heroi Subject(s): Erotic Love; Heroism; History EXHIBITIONIST First Line: I wake to dark Last Line: Unyielding, %frigid, %constellate EXILE! EXILE! Poem Text First Line: All night the room breathes out its grief Subject(s): Ireland; United States; Irish; America EXILE! EXILE! First Line: All night the room breathes out its grief Last Line: In consequence, a fine, crazed skin of porcelain FALSE SPRING First Line: Alders are tasselled Last Line: Our futures, leaving us %nothing to look forward to except %what one serious frost can accomplish FAMINE ROAD First Line: Idle as trout in light colonel jones Last Line: Now if not a famine road? FEVER First Line: Is what remained or what they thought FIRE IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD First Line: The sign factory went on fire last night FLIGHT First Line: Princes, it seems, are seldom wise Last Line: Writing to headstones and forgotten princes FOND MEMORY First Line: It was a school where all the children wore darned worsted Last Line: Our safe inventory of pain. And I was wrong FROM THE IRISH OF PANGUR BAN First Line: Myself and pangur, cat and sage Last Line: From dark to light FROM THE PAINTING BACK FROM MARKET BY CHARDIN Poem Text First Line: Dressed in the colors of a country day Last Line: Like birds in the accumulating snow Subject(s): Chardin, Jean Baptiste (1699-1779); Paintings & Painters FROM THE PAINTING BACK FROM MARKET BY CHARDIN First Line: Dressed in the colors of a country day Last Line: Like birds in the accumulating snow Subject(s): Chardin, Jean Baptiste (1699-1779); Paintings And Painters GLASS KING First Line: Isabella of bavaria married charles vi of france in 1385. In later years Last Line: She married, all her sorrows in her stolid face GREEK EXPERIENCE First Line: Until that night, the night I lost my wonder Last Line: How hard it is to get a good horse GROWING UP First Line: Their two heads, hatted, bowed, mooning Last Line: They look forward to is memory HANGING JUDGE First Line: Come to the country where justice is seen to be done Last Line: Dropping on your own neck like a noose HARBOR First Line: This harbor was made by art and force Last Line: Its colors stolen where the twilight gathers HOUSE OF SHADOWS. HOME OF SIMILE Poem Text First Line: One afternoon of summer rain HOW WE MADE A NEW ART ON OLD GROUND Poem Text First Line: A famous battle happened in this valley HUGUENOT GRAVEYARD AT THE HEART OF THE CITY First Line: It is the immodesty we bring to these Last Line: Is all that they could keep. Or stay I REMEMBER First Line: I remember the way the big windows washed Last Line: And vanilla silk of the french empire chairs IN A BAD LIGHT First Line: This is st. Louis. Where the rivers meet Last Line: It is, for that moment, beautiful IN HER OWN IMAGE First Line: It is her eyes Last Line: The one perfection %among compromises IN HIS OWN IMAGE Poem Text First Line: I was not myself, myself Last Line: I'm a new woman Subject(s): Women – Abused; Violence IN HIS OWN IMAGE First Line: I was not myself, myself Last Line: I am a new woman Subject(s): Women IN WHICH THE ANCIENT HISTORY I LEARN IS NOT MY OWN Poem Text First Line: The linen map Subject(s): England - History IN WHICH THE ANCIENT HISTORY I LEARN IS NOT MY OWN First Line: The linen map Last Line: They rarely left with more %than an ambiguous answer INSCRIPTIONS First Line: About holiday rooms there can be Last Line: Headstones to feed their hunger IRISH CHILDHOOD IN ENGLAND: 1951 First Line: The bickering of vowels on the buses Last Line: Turned and said - 'you're not in ireland now Variant Title(s): Another Country; On Re-reading The Middle English One Summer Night In Irelan IRISH INTERIOR Poem Text First Line: The woman sits and spins. She makes no sound Subject(s): Spinning; Ireland; Irish IT'S A WOMAN'S WORLD Poem Text First Line: Our way of life Last Line: Coming home Subject(s): Women; Women's Rights IT'S A WOMAN'S WORLD First Line: Our way of life Last Line: Just my frosty neighbor %coming home Subject(s): Women JOURNEY First Line: And then the dark fell and 'there has never,' Last Line: Slept the last dark out safely and I wept KING AND THE TROUBADOUR First Line: A troubadour once lost his king Last Line: Hearty as a giant LACE First Line: Bent over LATIN LESSON First Line: Easter light in the convent garden Last Line: Keep a civil tongue %in my head LAVA CAMEO First Line: I like this story Last Line: Arrest a profile in the flux of hell %inscribe catastrophe LAWS OF LOVE First Line: At first light the legislator Last Line: Yet still there as the well is, haunted LEGENDS First Line: Tryers of firesides Last Line: Because you will retell the story LIGHTS First Line: We sailed the long way home Last Line: Leave me in the dark LINES WRITTEN FOR A THIRTIETH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY First Line: Somewhere up in the eaves it began Last Line: This constancy: what wears, what endures LISTEN. THIS IS THE NOISE OF MYTH First Line: This is the story of a man and woman Last Line: And when the story ends the song is over LOVE First Line: Dark falls on this midwestern town Last Line: But the words are shadows and you cannot hear me. %you walk away and I cannot follow MAKING MONEY First Line: They made money- %maybe not the way Last Line: Facing the paradox. Learning to die of it MAKING OF AN IRISH GODDESS First Line: Ceres went to hell Last Line: To pick out %my own daughter from %all the other children in the distance; %her back turned towards MAKING UP First Line: My naked face Last Line: Out of which %I dawn MARCH 1 1847. BY THE FIRST POST First Line: The daffodils are out & how Last Line: & poor mama was not herself all day MARRIAGE FOR THE MILLENNIUM First Line: Do you believe %that progress is a woman? Last Line: Her heart eased by this MASTECTOMY First Line: My ears heard Last Line: Theirs is the true booty MENSES First Line: It is dark again Last Line: And that my light's my own MIDNIGHT FLOWERS First Line: I go down step by step Last Line: A pliant jewel in the hands of someone else Variant Title(s): Dark Flower MIGRATION First Line: From august they embark on every wind Last Line: Huddled together without name or burial MIRAGES First Line: At various times strenuous sailing men Last Line: His phantom war a forcing house of kings MISE EIRE First Line: I won't go back to it Last Line: Of what went before MOTHER IRELAND Poem Text First Line: At first Subject(s): Ireland; Irish MOTHER IRELAND First Line: At first %I was land Last Line: Come back to us %they said %trust me I whispered MOTHS Poem Text First Line: Tonight the air smells of cut grass Last Line: And my child's shadow longer than my own Subject(s): Environment; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation MOTHS First Line: Tonight the air smells of cut grass Last Line: My child's shadow longer than my own Subject(s): Environment MOUNTAIN TIME First Line: Time is shadowless there. Mornings reoccur NAOISE AT FOUR First Line: The trap baited for them snaps Last Line: Can solve it to a folk memory? NEW PASTORAL First Line: The first man had flint to spark. He had a wheel Last Line: I danced once oon a frieze NEW TERRITORY First Line: Several things announced the fact to us Last Line: He glimpsed the holy boy NIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD Poem Text First Line: My mother kept a stockpot Last Line: Outside, the screams and stridency of mating Subject(s): Home NIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD First Line: My mother kept a stockpot Last Line: Outside, the screams and stridency of mating Subject(s): Home NOCTURNE Poem Text First Line: After a friend has gone I like the feel of it Subject(s): Home NOCTURNE First Line: After a friend has gone I like the feel of it Last Line: Instant and improbable Subject(s): Home O FONS BANDUSIAE First Line: Bold as crystal, bright as glass Last Line: And this green oak I celebrate ODE TO SUBURBIA First Line: Six o'clock: the kitchen bulbs which blister Last Line: On a red letter day %catch a mouse OLD STEEL ENGRAVING First Line: Look. %the figure in the foreground Last Line: Is this river which moments ago must have flashed the morse %of a bayonet thrust. And is moving on ON HOLIDAY First Line: Ballyvaughan Last Line: And wake to find it eaten ORAL TRADITION First Line: I was standing there OUR ORIGINS ARE IN THE SEA First Line: I live near the coast, on these summer nights OUSIDE HISTORY First Line: There are outsiders, always. These stars Last Line: And we are too late. We are always too late OUTSIDE HISTORY: 9. IN EXILE First Line: The german girls who came to us that winter and Last Line: My speech will not heal. I do not want it to heal PARCEL First Line: There are dying arts and Last Line: The twine unravelling. The destination illegible PATCHWORK First Line: I have been thinking at random Last Line: And the pieces fit PHOTOGRAPH ON MY FATHER'S DESK First Line: It could be %any irish summer afternoon Last Line: And the shrubbed lavender %will find %neither fragrance nor muslin PILGRIM First Line: When the nest falls in winter, birds have flown Last Line: Follow one another into the dark POETS First Line: They like all creatures, being made Last Line: Of morning, absentee landlord of the dark POMEGRANATE First Line: The only legend I have ever loved is Last Line: And to her lips. I will say nothing Subject(s): Pomegranates POSE First Line: She is a housekeeping. A spring cleaning Last Line: She holds the open book like pantry keys PRISONERS First Line: I saw him first lost in the lion cages Last Line: The lion flee, silently, his stars QUARANTINE Poem Text First Line: In the worst hour of the worst season Subject(s): Ireland - Famine READY FOR FLIGHT First Line: From this I will not swerve nor fall nor falter Last Line: Of devils, you and I would live in peace REQUIEM FOR A PERSONAL FRIEND First Line: A striped philistine with quick Last Line: Who got your body, of my tongue RIVER First Line: You brought me ROOMS OF OTHER WOMEN POETS First Line: I wonder about you: whether the blue abraisons Last Line: The bay windbreak, the laburnum hang fire, feel %the ache of things ending in the jasmine darkening SELF-PORTRAIT ON A SUMMER EVENING First Line: Jean-baptiste chardin Last Line: The need to be ordinary SHADOW DOLL First Line: They stitched blooms from ivory tulle SINGERS First Line: The women who were singers in the west Last Line: Finding a voice where they found a vision SISTERS First Line: Now it is winter and the hare Last Line: Ours with a chill and idle gesture SOLDIER'S SON First Line: A young man's war it is, a young man's war Last Line: He is your war. You are his pacifist SOLITARY First Line: Night: %an oratory of dark Last Line: I winter %into sleep SONG Poem Text First Line: Where in blind files Last Line: Following the leaping tide Subject(s): Love - Erotic; Love SONG First Line: Where in blind files Last Line: Followed the leaping tide Subject(s): Erotic Love; Love SONGS SOURCE First Line: The adults stood %making sounds of disappointment Last Line: Maybe. Nearly. It could almost be SPARROW-HAWK IN THE SUBURBS First Line: At that time of year there is a turn in the road where Last Line: Last frosts of our %back gardens Subject(s): Environment SPRING AT THE EDGE OF THE SONNET First Line: Late march and I'm still lighting fires STORY First Line: Two lovers in an irish wood at dusk Last Line: How new it is -- this story. How hard it will be to tell SUBURBAN WOMAN First Line: Town and country at each other's throat Last Line: Who are of one another the first draft SUBURBAN WOMAN: A DETAIL First Line: The chimneys have been swept. Last Line: Crying 'remember us.' THANKED BE FORTUNE First Line: Did we live a double life? %I would have said %we never envied Last Line: The last crooked hour of starlight THAT THE SCIENCE OF CARTOGRAPHY IS LIMITED Poem Text First Line: And not simply by the fact that this shading of Subject(s): Food Habits; Ireland - Famine; Maps; Potatoes THAT THE SCIENCE OF CARTOGRAPHY IS LIMITED First Line: #name? Last Line: And finds no horizon %will not be there Subject(s): Food Habits; Ireland - Famine; Maps; Potatoes THE BLACK LACE FAN MY MOTHER GAVE ME Poem Text First Line: It was the first gift he ever gave her Subject(s): Fans THE DOLLS MUSEUM IN DUBLIN Poem Text First Line: The wounds are terrible. The paint is old Last Line: With a terrible stare. But not feel it. And not know it Subject(s): Dolls; Dublin, Ireland; Museums; Toys; Art Gallerys THE EMIGRANT IRISH Poem Text Recitation First Line: Like oil lamps we put them out the back Last Line: Program. She has published nine volumes of poetry Variant Title(s): The Emigrant Man Subject(s): United States - Immigration & Emigtration THE EROTICS OF HISTORY Poem Text First Line: Sex and history. And skin and bone Last Line: Could hear it but him: make me a heroine Variant Title(s): Heroic Subject(s): Love - Erotic; Heroism; History; Heroes; Heroines; Historians THE LOST LAND Poem Text First Line: I have two daughters Subject(s): Daughters; Ireland; Absence; Irish; Separation; Isolation THE POMEGRANATE Poem Text First Line: The only legend I have ever loved is Subject(s): Pomegranates THE ROOM IN WHICH MY FIRST CHILD SLEPT Poem Text First Line: After a while I thought of it this way THE WAR HORSE Poem Text First Line: This dry night, nothing unusual Subject(s): War THERE AND BACK First Line: Years ago I left the guest-house Last Line: Heliotropic, %to our kiss THIS MOMENT Poem Text First Line: A neighbourhood / at dusk Last Line: Apples sweeten in the dark Subject(s): Environment; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation THIS MOMENT First Line: A neighbourhood %at dusk Last Line: Apples sweeten in the dark Subject(s): Environment THREE SONGS FOR A LEGEND: 1. A LULLABY FOR LIR'S SON First Line: O nurse when I was a rascal boy Last Line: And whispered child, child, the winds must blow THREE SONGS FOR A LEGEND: 2. THE MALEDICTION First Line: Son of lir as lonely are you now Last Line: And where the wild dead lie wintering %forever THREE SONGS FOR A LEGEND: 3. ELEGY FOR A YOUTH CHANGED TO A SWAN First Line: Now the march woods will miss his step Last Line: And boughs of the almond and the laurel TIRADE FOR THE LYRIC MUSE First Line: You're propped and swabbed and bedded Last Line: Share my music TIRADE FOR THE MIMIC MUSE First Line: I've caught you out. You slut. You fat trout Last Line: Look in them and weep UNLIVED LIFE First Line: Listen to me,' I said to my neighbor WAR HORSE First Line: This dry night, nothing unusual Last Line: Of burned countryside, illicit braid: %a cause ruined before, a world betrayed WATER CLOCK First Line: Thinking of aging, on a summer day Last Line: Every trace of rain had disappeared WE ARE ALWAYS TOO LATE First Line: Memory %is in two parts Last Line: Beautiful upstagings of %what we suffer by %what survives and she never even sees me WE ARE HUMAN HISTORY. WE ARE NOT NATURAL HISTORY First Line: At twilight in %the shadow of the poplars Last Line: A swarm of wild bees is making use of WE ARE THE ONLY ANIMALS WHO DO THIS First Line: I saw a statue yesterday. A veiled woman Last Line: Where grief and its emblems are inseparable WHAT LANGUAGE DID First Line: The evening was the same as any other Last Line: And words we can grow old and die in WHAT WE LOST First Line: It is a winter afternoon WHITE HAWTHORN IN THE WEST OF IRELAND First Line: I drove west %in the season between seasons Last Line: And for travellers astray in %the unmarked lights of a may dusk-- %the only language spoken in those WILD SPRAY First Line: It came to me one afternoon in summer WINNING OF ETAIN First Line: Etain twice a woman twice a queen Last Line: And mounting up, rode away with him WITCHING First Line: My gifts %are nightly Last Line: A woman's %flesh %can burn WOMAN CHANGES HER SKIN First Line: How often Last Line: My tongue flickers WOMAN IN KITCHEN First Line: Breakfast over, islanded by noise Last Line: In a room white and quiet as a mortuary WOMAN PAINTED ON A LEAF First Line: I found it among curios and silver Last Line: A mouth crying out. Let me. %let me die WOMAN TAKES HER REVENGE ON THE MOON First Line: Claret. Plum. Cinnabar Last Line: In my sunrise WOMAN TURNS HERSELF INTO A FISH First Line: Unpod %the bag %the seed Last Line: Still %she moons %in me WOMEN First Line: This is the hour I love: the in-between Last Line: Folded in and over, stacked high, %neated flat, stoving heat and white Variant Title(s): Two World WRITING IN A TIME OF VIOLENCE First Line: In my last year in college Last Line: Beautiful speech. To strike YEATS IN CIVIL WAR First Line: In middle age you exchanged the sandals Last Line: A fantasy of honey your reprieve |
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