A Poetry Recital

A Poetry Recital, published in June 1925 is a collection of poems Stephens used during his first American speaking tour in 1925. As such, the poems selected were those which could be read aloud with effect, and some are less poems than vocal excercises.

Two editions, a New York and a London one, were published in 1925 with slightly differing order and content. A new edition, dated 1926, added a foreward and seven poems to the 1925 American version. The new poems were: "Little Things," "The Snare," "The Merry Music," "The Fifteen Acres," "The Crest Jewel," "Thy Soul," and "Christmas in Freelands."

The Red Man's Wife

THEN she arose
And walked in the valley
In her fine clothes.

After great fire
Great frost
Comes following.

Turgesius was lost
By the daughter of Maelsheachlin
The King.

By Grainne,
Of high Ben Gulbain in the north,
Was Diarmuid lost.

The strong sons of Ushna,
Who never submitted,
They fell by Deirdre.

Besides That

If I could get to heaven
By eating all I could,
I'd become a pig,
And I'd gobble up my food. Of if I could get to heaven
By climbing up a tree,
I'd become a monkey.
And I'd climb up rapidly.

Or if I could get to heaven
By any other way
Than the way that's told of,
I'd ha' been there yesterday.

But the way that we are told of
Bars the monkey and the pig,
And is very, very difficult,
Besides that.

The Golden Bird

If joy, The Golden Bird, would fly,
Do not close an hand upon her ;
She belongeth to the sky,
With all the winds and heaven on her,
Only when her wings are free
Bird of Lovely Life is she.

He who Joy of life would store
Heart of his be widely open ;
Throw the key out, with the door,
Throw the hope out, with the hopen ;
Giver her, as she finds in sky,
Place to dip, and soar, and fly.

She will come again, I wist ;
She of thee shall not be frighted ;
She shall sing upon thy fist ;
By her shall thy dark be lighted :
By her freedom thou art given
Right and room in Joyous heaven.

The Rivals

I heard a bird at dawn
Singing sweetly on a tree,
That the dew was on the lawn,
And the wind was on the lea ;
But I didn’t listen to him,
For he didn’t sing to me.

I didn’t listen to him,
For he didn’t sing to me
That the dew was on the lawn,
And the wind was on the lea ;
I was singing at the time
Just as prettily as he.

I was singing all the time,
Just as prettily as he,
About the dew upon the lawn
And the wind upon the lea ;
So I didn’t listen to him
As he sang upon a tree.