The National Poet Of Ireland

The National Poet of Ireland was not Heaney or Yeats
But one whose name is seldom mentioned as one of Ireland's literary greats
He was a poor man of Dublin who wrote Ireland's National poem Dark Rosaleen
A poem that may live in Irish literature as long as Ireland's fields are green

In eighteen forty nine on his forty sixth year he died as a poor and a lonely man
One who only knew of poverty and unhappiness in his far too brief life span
By those who think they know better one who is not considered to be a major Irish Poet
If this be so then one has to ask who is worthy of literary note

The man who wrote A Vision Of Connacht, The Woman Of Three Cows and O Husseys Ode To The Maguire
Poems of exquisite beauty i for one never tire
Of reading Mangan's poetry he was a poetic great
A marvelous wordsmith such beauty in words he did create

The National Poet of Ireland James Clarence Mangan one who did not live for to grow old
In 1849 in post famine Dublin he died of comsumption as we have been told
A genius of words one who led a tragic life
And he died without children or without a wife.