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by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)

Irish poets, earn your trade
Language: English 
Irish poets, earn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.
Sing the peasantry, and then
Hard-riding country gentlemen,
The holiness of monks, and after
Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;
Sing the lords and ladies gay
That were beaten into the clay
Through seven heroic centuries;
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry.

About the headline (FAQ)

First published in Irish Times, February 1939

Text Authorship:

  • by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), no title, appears in Under Ben Bulben, no. 5 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by John Eaton (1935 - 2015), "Under Ben Bulben V" [ soprano and piano ], from Songs for Ursula, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2009-01-03
Line count: 16
Word count: 84

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