Eire, and other poems

Description

"The genial sultan; The princess who could not see; Late for the coronation" by Robin Flower is a collection of poems written in the early 20th century. Blending Irish folklore and landscape with classical and English-country scenes, it is a lyrical meditation on love, longing, exile, and the resilience of joy. The book opens with Irish-themed lyrics where Eire speaks as a mother-country urging labor, love, and forbearance; faery vistas like Tír na n-Óg tempt the heart; and voices of charmers, the Sidhe, and an 18th‑century exile weigh enchantment against mortal duty and homesickness. Nature and song knit community and memory across sea and city, while love poems and glen mornings celebrate simple rapture shadowed by the “lake of longing.” A middle group of “Lyrics” moves through beacons, birdsong, children at play, and myth (an apple from Troy) to ask how beauty endures as time unmakes the body. A dramatic monologue, “The Bacchante,” exalts Dionysian freedom over city order, vowing a life—and death—wedded to ecstatic nature. A sonnet sequence affirms love as the steadfast planet amid tempests, reading the sea, stars, and voyages as figures for desire’s courage. The closing “Hymenaea” invokes first dawns and forest innocence to renew hope in the present, calling lovers to the day’s work with Love as their champion. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• English poetry -- 20th century
• PR