Produced by David Starner, Sigal Alon and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Sixteen poems by William
Allingham:  Selected by
William Butler Yeats

The Dun Emer Press
Dundrum
MCMV

CONTENTS Page

Let Me Sing of What I Know 1
The Winding Banks of Erne 1
Abbey Asaroe 7
A Dream 10
The Fairies 12
The Lepracaun or Fairy Shoemaker 14
The Girl’s Lamentation 17
The Nobleman’s Wedding 20
Kate O’ Belashanny 22
Four Ducks on a Pond 24
AEolian Harp 24
The Maids of Elfin Mere 25
Twilight Voices 26
The Lover and Birds 28
The Abbot of Innisfallen 30
The Ruined Chapel 34

LET ME SING OF WHAT I KNOW

    A wild west Coast, a little Town,
    Where little Folk go up and down,
    Tides flow and winds blow: 
    Night and Tempest and the Sea,
    Human Will and Human Fate: 
    What is little, what is great? 
    Howsoe’er the answer be,
    Let me sing of what I know.

THE WINDING BANKS OF ERNE

    Adieu to Belashanny!
      where I was bred and born;
    Go where I may, I’ll think of you,
      as sure as night and morn. 
    The kindly spot, the friendly town,
      where every one is known,
    And not a face in all the place
      but partly seems my own;
    There’s not a house or window,
      there’s not a field or hill,
    But, east or west, in foreign lands,
      I’ll recollect them still. 
    I leave my warm heart with you,
      tho’ my back I’m forced to turn—­
    Adieu to Belashanny,
      and the winding banks of Erne!

    No more on pleasant evenings
      we’ll saunter down the Mall,
    When the trout is rising to the fly,
      the salmon to the fall. 
    The boat comes straining on her net,
      and heavily she creeps,
    Cast off, cast off—­she feels the oars,
      and to her berth she sweeps;
    Now fore and aft keep hauling,
      and gathering up the clew,
    Till a silver wave of salmon
      rolls in among the crew. 
    Then they may sit, with pipes a-lit,
      and many a joke and ’yarn’;—­
    Adieu to Belashanny,
      and the winding banks of Erne!