‘The Spirit of Old Dublin’ by Liam Fitzpatrick

How it’s New York: Poet is a regular visitor to family in NYC.hap1
How it’s Irish: An Irish poem, about an Irish writer in and Irish city.

 

Cathedral shadow, from

moonlight’s gleam, casts

a shape on world serene.

This ghost of Swift

through gardens green

walks the park at midnight.

 

My spirit moves, on pathsnow bare.

With dormant life and inner stare

at world now changed

but yet the same,

with troubles still,

of war and pain

 

As in my time, long

now gone.

The poor still weak,

the rich still strong.

What might it take,

myself I ask

for men to know,

that life will pass.

 

Not like a flower to

bloom and please,

and then to die, with

Sweet unease.

 

 

 

 

But man perverse, will

not adjust,

to God’s request

or Nature’s thrust.

 

He will persist, with

lack of thought,

to exploit still

the lives he’s bought.

 

His wealth exceeds

his earthly want,

he yet submits

to earthly greed.

 

Life has not changed,

this ghost concedes.

Man’s still the same

with wants and needs.

Maybe with time, and God’s will,

He may improve, and may still win.

 

But for now to rest,

in silent tomb,

in Patrick’s church,

near Dublin’s Coombe.

Perhaps to walk some night again,

And ponder on the fates of men.

swifty