The Complete Poems

by Francis Ledwidge, Alice Curtayne (Editor)

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

Genres: Poetry, Ireland

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1919

Reviews

[Samuel Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Francis Ledwidge captures the pain of serving as a soldier in WW1 and his longing for his home in County Meath, Ireland. His lines are marked by their simple beauty and his ability to capture country scenes in a few words.

"...Ay! soon the swallows will be flying south,
The wind wheel north to gather in the snow,
Even the roses spilt on youth’s red mouth
Will soon blow down the road all roses go."

From 'June'

Ledwidge captures also the conflict of being a proud Irishman fighting in British Army. He mourns the execution of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising in a few of his poems.

Reading Ledwidge is calming, moving and, at times, thrilling. He was killed by a German shell in 1917 aged 29.