Top 5 Leaving Cert English Poems
WHAT this year’s English Leaving Certificate students may not have come to appreciate yet is that all those hours spent hastily memorising vital poetry quotations can help foster a love of poetry which lasts a lifetime.
Proof of such ardor for poetry and prose comes in the form of former students, whose exams are a distant memory, and yet they can still rattle off lines from their most beloved works. The unbreakable bond students form with poetry is one of the unquestionable triumphs of the Leaving Certificate. Here below, WWN is happy to reveal the Top 5 ultimate Leaving Cert poems as voted for by our readers:
5) Easter, 1916 written by W.B Yeats
Work, work, work, work, work, work
He say me have to
Work, work, work, work, work, work!
He see me do me
Dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt!
So me put in
Work, work, work, work, work, work
When you all gon’?
Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn
Me no care if him
Hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurting
4) The Pomegranate, written by Eavan Boland
Hurry on down to Bargaintown,
Where the prices are only famous
3) The Hospital, written by Patrick Kavanagh
Hello, it’s me
I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet
To go over everything
They say that time’s supposed to heal ya
But I ain’t done much healing
Hello, can you hear me?
I’m in California dreaming about who we used to be
When we were younger and free
I’ve forgotten how it felt before the world fell at our feet
There’s such a difference between us
And a million miles
Hello from the other side
I must have called a thousand times
To tell you I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done
But when I call you never seem to be home
Hello from the outside
At least I can say that I’ve tried
To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart
But it don’t matter. It clearly doesn’t tear you apart anymore
2) Digging, written by Seamus Heaney
Yo listen up here’s a story
About a little guy that lives in a blue world
And all day and all night and everything he sees
Is just blue like him inside and outside
Blue his house with a blue little window
And a blue corvette
And everything is blue for him and himself
And everybody around
‘Cause he ain’t got nobody to listen to
I’m blue da ba dee da ba die…
I have a blue house with a blue window.
Blue is the colour of all that I wear.
Blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue.
Blue are the people here that walk around,
Blue like my corvette, it’s in and outside.
Blue are the words I say and what I think.
Blue are the feelings that live inside me.
I’m blue da ba dee da ba die…
I have a blue house with a blue window.
Blue is the colour of all that I wear.
Blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue.
Blue are the people here that walk around,
Blue like my corvette, it’s in and outside.
Blue are the words I say and what I think.
Blue are the feelings that live inside me.
I’m blue da ba dee da ba die…
Inside and outside blue his house
With the blue little window
And a blue corvette
And everything is blue for him and himself
And everybody around
‘Cause he ain’t got nobody to listen to
I’m blue da ba dee da ba die…
I’m blue (da ba dee da ba die)
1) The Wild Swans At Coole, written by W.B Yeats
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans, and just look at the length of their fucking necks.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings, their mad necks flailing about the place.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head, and the sound of their necks, which must be, what a metre long? They sound like helicopters taking off,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still by just how long their necks are, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold, seriously, I feel like I’m the only poet bringing this up, is no one else noticing this?
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful, ridiculously long-necked;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away? Jesus, there must be some force gathered up in those wings of theirs to stay in the sky, what with their necks and that. I don’t know the science of it, but fair play like.