His wife, George, was present with flowers.
Anne and Michael,his children, were there.
A headstone had been carved at the Quarry,
now all waited on Yeats to appear.
Soft and damp was that day in the graveyard
with the scent of turned earth in the air.
Beyond rose the bulk of Ben Bulben,
As the Lorry, with the poet, drew near.
Ten years he had slept in his coffin,
while the great nation states played at war.
Now Sean MacBride, the son of his rival,
brought him home, where he'd not been before.
At his birth, Yeats was a British subject.
By his death, a Dominion was here.
Now they laid him to rest in the free state;
the newly minted Republic of Eire.
A bhean chéile, George, a bhí i láthair le bláthanna.
Anne agus Michael, a pháistí, bhí ann.
Bhí A cloch chinn snoite ar an Cairéal,
gach fhan anois ar Yeats le feiceáil.
Bhí bog agus tais an lá sin sa reilig
leis an boladh de domhain iompú san aer.
Beyond ardaigh an chuid is mó de Ben Bulben,
Mar an Leoraí, leis an bhfile, tharraing aice.
Deich mbliana bhí chodail sé ina cónra,
agus an stáit náisiúin mór a bhí ag an chogaidh.
Anois Seán MacBride, mac a rival,
thabhairt dó sa bhaile, i gcás nach mhaith a bhí sé riamh.
Ag a rugadh é, go raibh Yeats ábhar na Breataine.
De réir a bhás, bhí Dominion anseo.
Anois atá leagtha siad dó a gcuid eile sa stát saor in aisce;
an bualadh nua-Phoblacht na Eire.
Yeats always called his wife "George" short for Georgette. Ben Bulben is a mountain in County Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Sean MacBride was the son of John MacBride a hero of the1916 rising and the estranged spouse of Maud Gonne, Yeats' lifelong love and muse. The poet died abroad on the continent in early 1939 and did not rest in his native soil until September of 1948. A rough translation in Irish follows the English version.
