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. ...
  • 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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Top 10 most used topics by Francis Ledwidge

Sweet 17 Hear 12 Heart 10 Love 10 I Love You 10 Song 9 Wild 9 Fairy 8 Long 8 Spring 7


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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Poem of the day

Edgar Albert Guest Poem
The Killing Place
 by Edgar Albert Guest

We're hiking along at a two-forty pace
We 're making life seem like a man-killing race,
With our nerves all on edge and our jaws firmly set
We go rushing along; with our brows lined with sweat
And our cheeks pale and drawn every minute we dash,
And the goal that we 're after is merely more cash.

We 're out for the money, the greenbacks and gold,
...

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