What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave;
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were,
In all their loneliness and pain
You'd cry 'some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son':
They weighed so lightly what they gave,
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.

The garden lay about us twain 
Hoarding its sweets up for the rain; 
We clung together, you and I, 
And heard the minutes hurrying by. 
Heart against heart beat heavily, 
Your eyes through twilight sought for mine, 
My lips drank love from yours like wine. 

Our lips together met and clung — 
Our love stood beautiful and young 
And watched us while the minutes spun 
Webs of delight not yet undone, 
While our lips, kissing, would not part; 
While all the night beat like a heart 
Fuller of fire than any sun; 
And one great star and only one 
Above us for a lantern hung. 

My hand in yours so closely lay, 
I felt your pulse beat like my own; 
I breathed your breath, and in my brain 
The seed of your own thought was sown. 
The garden walls seemed far away,
The scent of flowering mint was blown 
About us in the gloaming gray, 
About us as our lips clung close 
As flash and peal, as bee and rose. 

But flash and peal and cloud were not. 
Twilight and scent for us begot 
Delicate dreams, and for our sake 
No bat, or buzzing chafer came 
The happy silences to break.
We kissed, and to the lighted room 
Came, carrying with us like perfume 
As lovely as the rose's name, 
The memory of the twilight sweet 
In shining eyes and laggard feet.