Kilcash The same theme, but to a gentler tune. Kilcash was the home of one branch of the Butler family. Although I don’t think Yeats, who had Butler blood in him, knew this, it was one of his favourite poems, and there is a good deal of his work in it. What shall we do for timber? The last of the woods is down. Kilcash and the house of its glory And the bell of the house are gone, The spot where that lady waited Who shamed all women for grace When earls came sailing to greet her And Mass was said in the place. My grief and my aflliction Your gates are taken away, Your avenue needs attention, Goats in the garden stray. The courtyard’s filled with water And the great earls where are they? The earls, the lady, the people Beaten into the clay. No sound of duck or geese there, Hawk’s cry or eagle’s call, No humming of the bees there That brought honey and wax for all, Nor even the song of the birds there When the sun goes down in the west, No cuckoo on top of the boughs there, Singing the world to rest. There’s mist there tumbling from branches, Unstirred by night and by day, And darkness falling from heaven, For our fortune has ebbed away, There’s no holly nor hazel nor ash there, The pasture’s rock and stone, The crown of the forest has withered, And the last of its game is gone. I beseech of Mary and Jesus That the great come home again With long dances danced in the garden, Fiddle music and mirth among men, That Kilcash the home of our fathers Be lifted on high again, And from that to the deluge of waters In bounty and peace remain. Source: O'Connor, Frank (tr); Kings, Lords, & Commons: An Anthology from the Irish; 1962; London; Macmillan & Co; p.100