“Bhí Subh Milis” – Eight Poems We Remember From School

Remember when you were all asked to stand during class and recite a poem that the teacher had decided was instrumental to your education? Then you would belt out the chosen poem of the day word for word and only years later understand its true meaning. Today is World Poetry Day and what better way to celebrate than to revisit our primary school days.

1. Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

Heaney wrote this poem reflecting on the death of his infant brother, an absolutely heartbreaking piece of work that delivers a blow in the last line.

“Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.”

2. Subh Milis by Seamús Ó’Neill

The short little piece was about a child who left sweet jam on the door, but the parent decided to let it go when they thought of a time the child would no longer be there. And boy, did everyone learn this one.

“Bhí subh milis ar bháscrann an doras
ach mhúch mé an corraí
ionaim a d'éirigh
mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá
a bheadh an bháscrann glan
agus an lámh beag - ar iarraidh...”

3. Daffodils by Robert Herrick

God knows what the obsession was that primary teachers had with this one, but Daffodils was learnt by every class, in every school in the country.

“Fair Daffodils, we weep to see

         You haste away so soon;

As yet the early-rising sun

         Has not attain’d his noon.”

4. Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats

We positively dare you to find any love poem that is better than this beautiful piece of work.

“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

William Butler Yeats

5. The Flea by John Donne

This poem was never what we thought it was... There might be a hidden meaning that is very far from being about a flea...

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, 
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.”

6. The Listeners by Walter de la Mare

Written by the poet in 1912, the poem is a fantasy piece where a traveller knocks on the door of a house but the only people listening are the ghosts which are living within.

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest's ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.”

Walter de la Mare

7. After the Titanic by Derek Mahon

A poem written on the sinking of the Titanic that we all knew forwards and backwards, even if it was a little depressing first thing on a Monday morning,

"They said I got away in a boat
And And humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you
I sank as far that night as any
Hero. As I sat shivering on the dark water
I turned to ice to hear my costly
Life go thundering down in a pandemonium of
Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,
Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime."

8. Stony Grey Soil by Patrick Kavanagh

This was almost an anthem of sorts for anyone who grew up outside of Dublin, and what an anthem it was...

“O stony grey soil of Monaghan 
The laugh from my love you thieved; 
You took the the gay child of my passion 
And gave me your clod-conceived.”