Coole Park is a melancholy place,
Especially in the autumn, in the gloaming.
Shaw took tea there, and Yeats ran wild,
Prophesying like an apostate lion, until
He also took his tea.
In this place the stories of a nation,
Culled from every corner, squabbled and flew,
While under the large brows of large, big-minded men,
Thoughts hunted each other through houses
Like a thousand cats and rats.
It's all gone now. Lady Gregory died,
And the house was torn down
For no particular reason.
Even the ghosts have abandoned it –
For the most part, anyway.
There's still a tree on the grounds there
Where geniuses hacked out their names,
And it's a melancholy place in the twilight,
And maybe that's tribute enough.
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