Eire, and other poems

Eire, and other poems by Robin Flower is a collection of lyric and narrative poetry written in the early 20th century. The book centers on Ireland’s landscape, lore, and spirit, interweaving themes of myth, love, exile, and nature, while also roaming into classical and English pastoral moods.

The collection opens with Ireland personified, offering counsel of labor, love, and peace, then moves through songs of faery temptation and homesick exile, sea-bred restlessness, folk enchantments, and intimate pastorals of glens, mornings, and longing. The “Lyrics” widen the scene to English hills and timeless meditations—on desire’s music, joy’s endurance beyond death, childhood’s unguarded delight, and a mythic fall from innocence. A central dramatic monologue, “The Bacchante,” voices a woman’s ecstatic pledge to Dionysian freedom in the high hills, choosing rapture and a fearless passing over domestic bonds. A sonnet sequence affirms love as a steady star amid storm, time, and voyaging seas, and the closing “Hymenaea” hymns the primal dawn of lovers, the cyclical renewal of the world, and a call to face life’s struggle with Love as ally.