Patrick Kavanagh
The Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Trust

Home Life Photos Works in Print Kavanagh Centre The Trust Contact


The Hour


Now is the clock hour
The triumphant stroke
Struck. This is the inexorable.
This rubber-band life
Is stretched to violin sweetness.

Beware! If the gong clangs
On your passivity
Narrow despair is a grinning
Mandarin.

Now is desirable
Achieving ready sensuous to embrace,
The hills marshal furrows
Soldierly. A marching tune is played.

O children!
Now have we borne the exultant
Hood on our shoulders.
Who will be the defeated after?

Dublin Magazine
-Patrick Kavanagh
Copyright © Estate of Katherine Kavanagh

[Return to Verses (Texas) Index] [Uncollected Poems index]


Home Life Photos Works in Print Kavanagh Centre The Trust Contact