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Friday 23 March 2012

The Twilight People

It is a whisper among hazel bushes;
   It is a long low whispering voice that fills
With a sad music the bending and swaying
      rushes;
   It is a heart beat deep in the quiet hills.

Twilight people, why will you still be crying,
   Crying and calling to me out of the trees?
For under the quiet grass the wise are lying,
   And all the strong ones are gone over the seas.

And I am old, and in my heart at your calling
   Only the old dead dreams a-fluttering go;
As the wind, the forest wind, in its falling
   Sets the withered leaves fluttering to and fro.
Seumas O'Sullivan (1879 - 1958)

O'Sullivan was fond of a drink. As Wikipedia puts it:-

He was a friend of most of the leading literary figures in Dublin, including William Butler Yeats, James Stephens and George William Russell, but was inlined to be quarrelsome, largely due to his heavy drinking. Even the tolerant Russell admitted " Seumas drinks too much "; Yeats' verdict was;" the trouble with Seumas is that when he's not drunk, he's sober ".

2 comments:

James Higham said...

Seems legit to me - drunk in his non-sober moments.

A K Haart said...

JH - I had an uncle like that, but he was no poet (: