Francis Ledwidge
Who is Francis Ledwidge
Francis Edward Ledwidge (19 August 1887 – 31 July 1917) was an Irish poet from Slane, County Meath, sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds". He was later also known as a First World War war poet. He was killed in action at Ypres in 1917.Born to a poor family in Slane, County Meath, Ledwidge started writing at an early age, and was first published in a local newspaper at the age of 14. Finding work as a labourer and miner, he was also a trade union activist, and a keen patriot and nationalist, associated with Sinn Féin. He became friendly with a local landowner, the writer Lord Dunsany, who gave him a workspace in the library of Dunsany Castle, and introduced him to literary figures including William Butler Yeats, Æ and Katherine Tynan, with whom he had a long-term correspond...
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Francis Ledwidge Poems
- The Wife Of Llew
And Gwydion said to Math, when it was Spring:
"Come now and let us make a wife for Llew."
And so they broke broad boughs yet moist with dew,
And in a shadow made a magic ring:
...
- A Little Boy In The Morning
He will not come, and still I wait.
He whistles at another gate
Where angels listen. Ah I know
He will not come, yet if I go
...
- After Court Martial
My mind is not my mind, therefore
I take no heed of what men say,
I lived ten thousand years before
God cursed the town of Nineveh.
...
- Behind The Closed Eye
I walk the old frequented ways
That wind around the tangled braes,
I live again the sunny days
Ere I the city knew.
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- Thoughts At The Trysting Stile
Come, May, and hang a white flag on each thorn,
Make truce with earth and heaven; the April child
Now hides her sulky face deep in the morn
Of your new flowers by the water wild
...
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Francis Ledwidge Quotes
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Comments about Francis Ledwidge
- War_poets: 21 march 1916 francis ledwidge writes to lord dunsany ‘did you receive the last poems i sent, the one about the cobbler, etc? i have many more old ones in my haversack and some day soon will transcribe them and send you copies. they are all faded with balkan rains'
- War_poets: 12 march 1916 francis ledwidge writes ‘i love keats. i think poor keats reaches the top of beauty in odes to a grecian urn, to a nightingale and autumn, as well as in several of his beautiful apostrophes in the poem endymion. i like keats best of all.'
- Forgottenbeauty: 3/3 in the wide poppy blowing for her mouth.
and over all they chanted twenty hours.
and llew came singing from the azure south
and bore away his wife of birds and flowers.
-francis ledwidge
- War_poets: 11 march 1917 francis ledwidge completes the poem ‘pan’.
- Bookworld_ie: just added!! 4 brand new copies of selected poems by francis ledwidge for only €3.95 here:
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