JOHN HEWITT Selected Poems

edited by & FRANK ORMSBY

BLACKSTAFF PRESS CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION xi EDITORS' NOTE ' xxvii from Conacre 1 Once Alien Here 8 First Corncrake 9 East Antrim Winter 10 The Swathe Uncut 11 Lyric ('Let but a thrush begin . . .') 12 Lyric ('Chestnut and beech . . .') 13 Leaf 14 Load 15 Frost 16 Ghosts 17 Mykonos 19 Mycenae and Epidaurus 20 Turf-Carrier on Aranmore 21 Because I Paced My Thought 23 The Green Shoot 24 First Snow in the Glens 26 Colour 27 Landscape 28 The Ram's Horn 29 O Country People • 30 Man Fish and Bird 32 The Colony 36 The Stoat 41 The Watchers 42 Hedgehog 43 Rite, Lubitavish, Glenaan 44 The Owl 45 The Municipal Gallery Revisited, October 1954 47 Ossian's Grave, Lubitavish, County Antrim 49 The Frontier 51 Jacob and the Angel 52 An Irishman in 53 Whit Monday 55 My Grandmother's Garter 56 April Awake 58 Footing Turf 59 Sunset over Glenaan 60 May Altar 62 The Ballad 63 The Wake 64 The Bell 65 The Hill-Farm 66 Gloss, on the Difficulties of Translation 67 An Ulsterman 68 The Dilemma 69 Street Names 70 The Coasters 71 Black and White 74 The Storm , 75 From the Chinese of Wang Li Shi 76 Chinese Fluteplayer 77 Emily Dickinson 78 Scissors for a One-Armed Tailor 79 Grey and White 80 Skypiece 81 I Write For... 82 The Search 83 From the Tibetan 85 Et Tu in Arcadia Vixisti 87 The Scar 88 Mary Hagan, Islandmagee, 1919 89 The King's Horses 90 Cultra Manor: The Folk Museum 91 Neither an Elegy nor a Manifesto 92 A Birthday Rhyme for Roberta 95 Substance and Shadow 96 Encounter Nineteen Twenty 97 A Mobile Mollusc 98 A Local Poet 99 For a Moment of Darkness Over the Nations 100 The Romantic 101 The Glens of Antrim 102 The Blossomed Thorn 103 A Father's Death 104 from Sonnets for Roberta (1954) 105 A Happy Boy 106 Balloons and Wooden Guns 107 The Volunteer 108 The Magician 109 Orchard Country 110 The Doctor's Bag 111 A Holy Place 112 My Sister 113 The Irish Dimension 114 Carnations 115 I Lie Alone ' 116 The Glens 117 The Man from Malabar 118 The Covenanter's Grave 119 A House Demolished 120 The Christmas Rhymers, Ballynure, 1941 121 For Roberta in the Garden 122 The Hedgehog: For R. 123 To the People of Dresden 124 from Freehold 125 Ulster Names ' 135

INDEX OF TITLES 139