To begin with, is it really W.B.

Georgie's snuggled up to?

It's said the corvette brought

a club-footed Frenchman back

from Roquebrune

to the holy land of Irelaunde.

Under ominous Ben Bulben

that dank September

half-a-century ago, Louis MacNeice,

in a black jostle of brollies,

a huddle of macs and nodding heads,

was just in time

for the soggy interment and, casting

a foggy alcoholic eye

on what was meant to be ancestral,

ceremonious, understood at least

that Georgie's dictating spirits

were mischievous,

said nary a word that Willie might

never join the politic convocation

of the red-headed rector in County Down,

the Sandymount Corbets, old William

Pollexfen, the smuggler Middleton,

Butlers far back, half-legendary men.

We are today pausing

dutifully at Drumcliff,

drinking lousy cups

of what passes for coffee

at the tacky tourist shop and doing our best

to cast cold eyes on life, on death.