We met while touring Europe in 1997. Since then, Pat and Phil came to America twice to visit us, first in 2002 and then again in 2010. In between, the four of us have toured the south of England together in 2008. Then in 2012 we flew to Adelaide and toured southeastern Australia and New Zealand with them. Now once again we come together, this time in Edinburgh, to do Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Poems on the Walls

We found several building walls in Sligo with Yeats poems printed on them.  Nancy told me that, by coincidence, the poem on Garrison Keiler's "The Writer's Almanac" Was Yeats' "An Airman Foresees His Death," a poem I used to use in my World War I unit when I was still teaching.  Here it is:
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

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