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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Reincarnations, by James Stephens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Reincarnations
+
+Author: James Stephens
+
+Release Date: August 25, 2011 [EBook #37213]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REINCARNATIONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+REINCARNATIONS
+
+
+BY
+
+JAMES STEPHENS
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+'THE CHARWOMAN'S DAUGHTER,' 'THE HILL OF VISION'
+ 'THE CROCK OF GOLD,' ETC.
+
+
+
+
+MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
+
+ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
+
+1918
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+ALICE STOPFORD GREEN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ Geoffrey Keating
+ Mary Hynes (after Raftery)
+ The Coolun do.
+ Peggy Mitchell do.
+ Nancy Walsh do.
+ The Red Man's Wife do.
+ Nancy Walsh do.
+ Anthony O'Daly do.
+ Mary Ruane do.
+ William O'Kelly do.
+ Sean O'Cosgair do.
+ The County Mayo do.
+ Eileen, Diarmuid and Teig (After O'Rahilly)
+ Honoro Butler and Lord Kenmare do.
+ Clann Cartie do.
+ The Land Of Fal (Anon.)
+ Inis Fal (after O'Rahilly)
+ Owen O'Neill (after Pierce Ferriter)
+ Egan O'Rahilly (after O'Rahilly)
+ Righteous Anger (after O'Bruadair)
+ The Weavers do.
+ Odell do.
+ The Apology do.
+ The Gang do.
+ The Geraldine's Cloak do.
+ Skim-Milk do.
+ Blue Blood do.
+ O'Bruaidar do.
+ Note
+
+
+
+
+ GEOFFREY KEATING
+
+ O woman full of wiliness!
+ Although for love of me you pine,
+ Withhold your hand adventurous,
+ It holdeth nothing holding mine.
+
+ Look on my head, how it is grey!
+ My body's weakness doth appear;
+ My blood is chill and thin; my day
+ Is done, and there is nothing here.
+
+ Do not call me a foolish man,
+ Nor lean your lovely cheek to mine
+ O slender witch, our bodies can
+ Not mingle now, nor any time.
+
+ So take your mouth from mine, your hand
+ From mine, ah, take your lips away!
+ Lest heat to will should ripen, and
+ All this be grave that had been gay.
+
+ It is this curl, a silken nest,
+ And this grey eye bright as the dew,
+ And this round, lovely, snow-white breast
+ That draws desire in search of you.
+
+ I would do all for you, meseems,
+ But this, tho' this were happiness!
+ I shall not mingle in your dreams,
+ O woman full of wiliness!
+
+
+
+
+ MARY HYNES
+
+ She is the sky of the sun,
+ She is the dart
+ Of love,
+ She is the love of my heart,
+ She is a rune,
+ She is above
+ The women of the race of Eve
+ As the sun is above the moon.
+
+ Lovely and airy the view from the hill
+ That looks down Ballylea;
+ But no good sight is good until
+ By great good luck you see
+ The Blossom of the Branches walking towards you
+ Airily.
+
+
+
+
+ THE COOLUN
+
+ Come with me, under my coat,
+ And we will drink our fill
+ Of the milk of the white goat,
+ Or wine if it be thy will;
+ And we will talk until
+ Talk is a trouble, too,
+ Out on the side of the hill,
+ And nothing is left to do,
+ But an eye to look into an eye
+ And a hand in a hand to slip,
+ And a sigh to answer a sigh,
+ And a lip to find out a lip:
+ What if the night be black
+ And the air on the mountain chill,
+ Where the goat lies down in her track
+ And all but the fern is still!
+ Stay with me, under my coat,
+ And we will drink our fill
+ Of the milk of the white goat
+ Out on the side of the hill.
+
+
+
+
+ PEGGY MITCHELL
+
+ As lily grows up easily,
+ In modest, gentle dignity
+ To sweet perfection,
+ So grew she,
+ As easily.
+
+ Or as the rose that takes no care
+ Will open out on sunny air
+ Bloom after bloom, fair after fair,
+ Sweet after sweet;
+ Just so did she,
+ As carelessly.
+
+ She is our torment without end,
+ She is our enemy and friend,
+ Our joy, our woe;
+ And she will send
+ Madness or glee
+ To you and me,
+ And endlessly.
+
+
+
+
+ NANCY WALSH
+
+ I, without bite or sup,
+ If thou wert fated for me,
+ I would up
+ And would go after thee
+ Through mountains.
+
+ A thousand thanks from me
+ To God have gone,
+ Because I have not lost my senses to thee,
+ Though it was hardly I escaped from thee,
+ O ringleted one!
+
+
+
+
+ THE RED MAN'S WIFE
+
+ Then she arose
+ And walked in the valley
+ In her fine clothes.
+
+ After great fire
+ Great frost
+ Comes following.
+
+ Turgesius was lost
+ By the daughter of Maelsheachlin
+ The King.
+
+ By Grainne,
+ Of high Ben Gulbain in the north,
+ Was Diarmuid lost.
+
+ The strong sons of Ushna,
+ Who never submitted,
+ They fell by Deirdre.
+
+
+
+
+ NANCY WALSH
+
+ It is not on her gown
+ She fears to tread;
+ It is her hair
+ Which tumbles down
+ And strays
+ About her ways
+ That she must care.
+
+ And she lives nigh this place:
+ The dead would rise
+ If they could see her face;
+ The dead would rise
+ Only to hear her sing:
+ But death is blind, and gives not ear nor eye
+ To anything.
+
+ We would leave behind
+ Both wife and child,
+ And house and home;
+ And wander blind,
+ And wander thus,
+ And ever roam,
+ If she would come to us
+ In Erris.
+
+ Softly she said to me--
+ Be patient till the night comes,
+ And I will go with thee.
+
+
+
+
+ ANTHONY O'DALY
+
+ Since your limbs were laid out
+ The stars do not shine,
+ The fish leap not out
+ In the waves.
+ On our meadows the dew
+ Does not fall in the morn,
+ For O'Daly is dead:
+ Not a flower can be born,
+ Not a word can be said,
+ Not a tree have a leaf;
+ Anthony, after you
+ There is nothing to do,
+ There is nothing but grief.
+
+
+
+
+ MARY RUANE
+
+ The sky-like girl whom we knew!
+ She dressed herself to go to the fair
+ In a dress of white and blue;
+ A white lace cap, and ribbons white
+ She wore in her hair;
+ She does not hear in the night
+ Her mother crying for her,
+ Where,
+ Deep down in the sea,
+ She rolls and lingers to and fro
+ Unweariedly.
+
+
+
+
+ WILLIAM O'KELLY
+
+ The Protecting Tree
+ Of the men of the land of Fal!
+ What aileth thee,
+ And why is it that all
+ About thee grieves?
+
+ Alas, O Tree of the Leaves!
+ Here is thy rhyme:
+ Thy bloom is lightened;
+ And if thy fruit be withered
+ Thy root hath not tightened
+ At the same time.
+
+ Not since the Gael was sold
+ At Aughrim. Not since to cold,
+ Dull death went Owen Roe;
+ Not since the drowning of Clann Adam in the days of Noe
+ Brought men to hush,
+ Has such a tale of woe come to us
+ In such a rush.
+
+ The true flower of the blood of the place is fallen:
+ The true clean-wheat of the Gael is reaped.
+
+ Destruction be upon Death,
+ For he has come and taken from our tree
+ The topmost blackberry!
+
+
+
+
+ SEAN O'COSGAIR
+
+ Pity it was that you should ever stand
+ In ship or boat,
+ Or that you went afloat
+ Inside that ship!
+
+ The lusty steps you took!
+ The ways and journeys you knew how to wend
+ From London back to Beltra,
+ And this end!
+
+ You who could swim so well!
+ What time you sported in the lifting tides
+ The girls swam out to you, and held your sides
+ When they were weary, for they knew they were
+ Safe, because you were there.
+
+ Your little-mother thought that this was true
+ (And so she made no stir
+ Till you were found),
+ Although an hundred might be drowned, you
+ Would come back safe to her,
+ And not be drowned!
+
+
+
+
+ THE COUNTY MAYO
+
+ Now with the coming in of the spring the days will stretch a bit,
+ And after the Feast of Brigid I shall hoist my flag and go,
+ For since the thought got into my head I can neither stand nor sit
+ Until I find myself in the middle of the County of Mayo.
+
+ In Claremorris I would stop a night and sleep with decent men,
+ And then go on to Balla just beyond and drink galore,
+ And next to Kiltimagh for a visit of about a month, and then
+ I would only be a couple of miles away from Ballymore.
+
+ I say and swear my heart lifts up like the lifting of a tide,
+ Rising up like the rising wind till fog or mist must go,
+ When I remember Carra and Gallen close beside,
+ And the Gap of the Two Bushes, and the wide plains of Mayo.
+
+ To Killaden then, to the place where everything grows that is best,
+ There are raspberries there and strawberries there and all that
+ is good for men;
+ And if I were only there in the middle of my folk my heart could rest,
+ For age itself would leave me there and I'd be young again.
+
+
+
+
+ EILEEN, DIARMUID AND TEIG
+
+ Be kind unto these three, O King!
+ For they were fragrant-skinned, cheerful and giving;
+ Three stainless pearls, three of mild, winning ways,
+ Three candles sending forth three pleasant rays,
+ Three vines, three doves, three apples from a bough,
+ Three graces in a house, three who refused nohow
+ Help to the needy, three of slenderness,
+ Three memories for the companionless,
+ Three strings of music, three deep holes in clay,
+ Three lovely children who loved Christ alway,
+ Three mouths, three hearts, three minds beneath a stone;
+ Ruin it is! three causes for the moan
+ That rises everywhere now they are gone:
+ Be kind, O King, unto this two and one!
+
+
+
+
+ HONORO BUTLER AND LORD KENMARE (1720)
+
+ In bloom and bud the bees are busily
+ Storing against the winter their sweet hoard
+ That shall be rifled ere the autumn be
+ Past, or the winter comes with silver sword
+ To fright the bees, until the merry round
+ Tells them that sweets again are to be found.
+
+ The lusty tide is flowing by in ease,
+ Telling of joy along its brimming way;
+ Far in its waters is an isle of trees
+ Whereto the sun will go at end of day,
+ As who in secret place and dear is hid,
+ And scarce can rouse him thence tho' he be chid.
+
+ Now justice comes all trouble to repair,
+ And cheeks that had been wan are coloured well,
+ The untilled moor is comely, and the air
+ Hath a great round of song from bird in dell,
+ And bird on wing and bird on forest tree,
+ And from each place and space where bird may be.
+
+ The languid are made strong, the strong grow stronger,
+ There is no grievance here, and no distress,
+ The woeful are not woeful any longer,
+ The rose hath put on her a finer dress,
+ And every girl to bloom adds bloom again,
+ And every man hath heart beyond all men.
+
+ For the Star of Munster, Pearl of the Golden Bough,
+ Comes joyfully this day of days to wed
+ Her choice of all whom fame hath loved till now,
+ And who chose her from all that love instead:
+ The Joy of the Flock, the Bud of the Branch is she,
+ Crown of the Irish Pride and Chivalry.
+
+ He is a chief and prince, well famed is he,
+ The love of thousands unto him does run;
+ And all days were before and all will be,
+ He was and will be loved by every one;
+ And she and he be loved by all no less
+ Who courage love, and love, and loveliness.
+
+ The nobles of the province take their wine,
+ And drink a merry health to groom and bride;
+ They shall be drunken ere the sun decline,
+ And all their merrymaking lay aside
+ In deep, sweet sleep that seals a merry day
+ Until the dawn, when they shall ride away,
+
+ Leaving those two who now are one behind.
+ O Moon! pour on the silence all thy beams,
+ And for this night be beautiful and kind;
+ Weave in their sleep thy best and dearest dreams;
+ And fortune them in their own land to be
+ Safe from all evil chance, and from all enmity.
+
+
+
+
+ CLANN CARTIE
+
+ My heart is withered and my health is gone,
+ For they who were not easy put upon,
+ Masters of mirth and of fair clemency,
+ Masters of wealth and gentle charity,
+ They are all gone. Mac Caura Mor is dead,
+ Mac Caura of the Lee is finished,
+ Mac Caura of Kanturk joined clay to clay
+ And gat him gone, and bides as deep as they.
+
+ Their years, their gentle deeds, their flags are furled,
+ And deeply down, under the stiffened world,
+ In chests of oaken wood are princes thrust,
+ To crumble day by day into the dust
+ A mouth might puff at; nor is left a trace
+ Of those who did of grace all that was grace.
+
+ O Wave of Cliona, cease thy bellowing!
+ And let mine ears forget a while to ring
+ At thy long, lamentable misery:
+ The great are dead indeed, the great are dead;
+ And I, in little time, will stoop my head
+ And put it under, and will be forgot
+ With them, and be with them, and thus be not:
+ Ease thee, cease thy long keening, cry no more:
+ End is, and here is end, and end is sore,
+ And to all lamentation be there end:
+ If I might come on thee, O howling friend!
+ Knowing that sails were drumming on the sea
+ Westward to Eire, and that help would be
+ Trampling for her upon a Spanish deck,
+ I'd ram thy lamentation down thy neck.
+
+
+
+
+ THE LAND OF FAL
+
+ If all must suffer equally, and pay
+ In equal share for that sin wrought by Eve,
+ O Thou, if Thou wilt deign to answer, say:
+ Why are the poor tormented? why made grieve
+ The innocent? why are the free enslaved?
+ Why have the wicked peace tho' void of ruth?
+ Why are there none to pity, when, dismayed,
+ And sick with fear, the lamb bleats to the tooth
+ That tears him down? why is the cry unheard
+ Of lonely anguish? why, when the land of Fal
+ Had loved Thee long and well, was she not spared
+ The ruin that hath stamped her under all
+ That mourn and die?
+
+
+
+
+ INIS FAL
+
+ Now may we turn aside and dry our tears,
+ And comfort us, and lay aside our fears,
+ For all is gone--all comely quality,
+ All gentleness and hospitality,
+ All courtesy and merriment is gone;
+ Our virtues all are withered every one,
+ Our music vanished and our skill to sing:
+ Now may we quiet us and quit our moan,
+ Nothing is whole that could be broke; no thing
+ Remains to us of all that was our own.
+
+
+
+
+ OWEN O'NEILL
+
+ If poesy have truth at all,
+ If some great lion of the Gael
+ Shall rule the lovely land of Fal;
+ O yellow mast and roaring sail!
+ Carry the leadership for me,
+ Writ in this letter, o'er the sea
+ To great O'Neill.
+
+
+
+
+ EGAN O'RAHILLY
+
+ Here in a distant place I hold my tongue;
+ I am O'Rahilly:
+ When I was young,
+ Who now am young no more,
+ I did not eat things picked up from the shore.
+ The periwinkle, and the tough dogfish
+ At even-time have got into my dish!
+ The great, where are they now! the great had said--
+ This is not seemly, bring to him instead
+ That which serves his and serves our dignity--
+ And that was done.
+
+ I am O'Rahilly:
+ Here in a distant place I hold my tongue,
+ Who once said all his say, when he was young!
+
+
+
+
+ RIGHTEOUS ANGER
+
+ The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there
+ Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer:
+ May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair,
+ And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.
+
+ That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will see
+ On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,
+ Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,
+ And threw me out of the house on the back of my head!
+
+ If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day;
+ But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!
+ May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may
+ The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.
+
+
+
+
+ THE WEAVERS
+
+ Many a time your father gave me aid
+ When I was down, and now I'm down again:
+ You mustn't take it bad or be dismayed
+ Because I say, young folk should help old men
+ And 'tis their duty to do that: Amen!
+
+ I have no cows, no sheep, no cloak, no hat,
+ For those who used to give me things are dead
+ And my luck died with them: because of that
+ I won't pay you a farthing, but, instead,
+ I'll owe you till the dead rise from the dead.
+
+ A farthing! that's not much, but, all the same,
+ I haven't half a farthing, for that grand
+ Big idiot called Fortune rigged the game
+ And gave me nothing, while she filled the hand
+ Of every stingy devil in the land.
+
+ You weave, and I: you shirts: I weave instead
+ My careful verse--but you get paid at times!
+ The only rap I get is on my head:
+ But should it come again that men like rhymes
+ And pay for them, I'll pay you for your shirt.
+
+
+
+
+ ODELL
+
+ My mind is sad and weary thinking how
+ The griffins of the Gael went over the sea
+ From noble Eire, and are fighting now
+ In France and Flanders and in Germany.
+
+ If they, 'mid whom I sported without dread,
+ Were home I would not mind what foe might do,
+ Or fear tax-man Odell would seize my bed
+ To pay the hearth-rate that is overdue.
+
+ I pray to Him who, in the haughty hour
+ Of Babel, threw confusion on each tongue,
+ That I may see our princes back in power,
+ And see Odell, the tax-collector, hung.
+
+
+
+
+ THE APOLOGY
+
+ Do not be distant with me, do not be
+ Angry because I drank deep of your wine,
+ But treat that laughing matter laughingly
+ Because I am a poet, and incline
+ By nature and by art to jollity.
+
+ Always I loved to see, I will aver,
+ The good red tide lip at the flagon's brim,
+ Sitting half fool and half philosopher,
+ Chatting with every kind of her and him,
+ And shrugged at sneer of money-gatherer.
+
+ Often enough I trudge by hedge and wall,
+ Too often there's no money in my purse,
+ Nor malice in my mind ever at all,
+ And for my songs no person is the worse
+ But I who give all of my store to all.
+
+ If busybody spoke to you of it,
+ Say, kindly man, if kindly man do live:
+ The poet only takes his sup and bit,
+ And say: It is no great return to give
+ For his unstinted gift of verse and wit.
+
+
+
+
+ THE GANG
+
+ Our fathers must have sinned: we pay for it!
+ Through them the base-born tribe that sold their king
+ Sneaked into power, and in high places sit,
+ And do their will and wish in everything;
+ For they may rob and kill, grieve and disgrace
+ All who are left alive of Eiver's race.
+
+ They seized with daring guile on rank and pelf,
+ And swore that they would never bend a knee
+ Unto the king: they robbed the Church herself:
+ They stole our princes' lands, and o'er the sea
+ They packed those princes, or drove them away
+ To barren rocks and fields that have no clay.
+
+ That spawn of base mechanics! who could ne'er,
+ Though Doomsday came, by any art be made
+ Noble, are noble now, and have no care:
+ Snugly they sit and safe and unafraid
+ In stately places, proud as if the mud
+ And slime that swills their veins were princes' blood.
+
+ Let us be wise and wary of that gang!
+ When they seem friendly know they have much wit,
+ And if it come that any man shall hang,
+ This neck will go unchoked, that nose unslit,
+ For, be things wry and crooked and to guess,
+ Those twisters are at home in twistiness.
+
+ We know now what their plottings were about,
+ And how they planned, and what they meant to win;
+ 'Twas God, not us, that took their tangles out,
+ For no sleek eel inside an oily skin
+ Could slip with more address from harm than they
+ Can slip from punishment and get away.
+
+ When trouble came it was their plan to get
+ Our friends into the boat they meant to leave,
+ And there was some one left to pay their debt,
+ And they were free again to lie and thieve:
+ So they could put the feet of the man they'd rob
+ Into the boots of the one that did the job.
+
+ If burnt child does truly dread the flame,
+ If wounded soldier shrinks again to see
+ A steel point sloping to him, let the same
+ Experience teach our chiefs that they may be
+ Crafty in meeting craft, and may beware
+ Of brewer's bees and buzzers everywhere.
+
+ Unto the Mind which pardons sin I pray,
+ I pray to Him who did permit our woe
+ But halted our destruction, that to-day
+ Kindness and love and trust and inward glow
+ Of vision light our hearts with light divine,
+ So that we know our way until the end of time.
+
+
+
+
+ THE GERALDINE'S CLOAK
+
+ I will not heed the message which you bring:
+ That lovely lady gave her cloak to us,
+ And who'd believe she'd give away a thing
+ And ask it back again?--'tis fabulous!
+
+ My parting from her gave me cause to grieve,
+ For she, that I was poor, had misty eyes;
+ If some Archangel blew it I'd believe
+ The message which you bring, not otherwise.
+
+ I do not say this just to make a joke,
+ Nor would I rob her, but, 'tis verity,
+ So long as I could swagger in a cloak
+ I never cared how bad my luck could be.
+
+ That lady, all perfection, knows the sting
+ Of poverty was thrust deep into me:
+ I don't believe she'd do this kind of thing,
+ Or treat a poet less than daintily.
+
+
+
+
+ SKIM-MILK
+
+ A small part only of my grief I write;
+ And if I do not give you all the tale
+ It is because my gloom gets some respite
+ By just a small bewailing: I bewail
+ That I with sly and stupid folk must bide
+ Who steal my food and ruin my inside.
+
+ Once I had books, each book beyond compare,
+ But now no book at all is left to me,
+ And I am spied and peeped on everywhere,
+ And my old head, stuffed with latinity,
+ And with the poet's load of grave and gay
+ Will not get me skim-milk for half a day.
+
+ Wild horse or quiet, not a horse have I,
+ But to the forest every day I go
+ Bending beneath a load of wood, that high!
+ Which raises on my back a sorry row
+ Of raw, red blisters; so I cry, alack,
+ The rider that rides me will break my back.
+
+ Ossian, when he was old and near his end,
+ Met Patrick by good luck, and he was stayed;
+ I am a poet too and seek a friend,
+ A prop, a staff, a comforter, an aid,
+ A Patrick who will lift me from despair,
+ In Cormac Uasal Mac Donagh of the golden hair.
+
+
+
+
+ BLUE BLOOD
+
+ We thought at first, this man is a king for sure,
+ Or the branch of a mighty and ancient and famous lineage--
+ That silly, sulky, illiterate, black-avised boor
+ Who was hatched by foreign vulgarity under a hedge.
+
+ The good men of Clare were drinking his health in a flood,
+ And gazing with me in awe at the princely lad,
+ And asking each other from what bluest blueness of blood
+ His daddy was squeezed, and the pa of the da of his dad?
+
+ We waited there, gaping and wondering, anxiously,
+ Until he'd stop eating and let the glad tidings out,
+ And the slack-jawed booby proved to the hilt that he
+ Was lout, son of lout, by old lout, and was da to a lout!
+
+
+
+
+ O'BRUAIDAR
+
+ I will sing no more songs: the pride of my country I sang
+ Through forty long years of good rhyme, without any avail;
+ And no one cared even as much as the half of a hang
+ For the song or the singer, so here is an end to the tale.
+
+ If a person should think I complain and have not got the cause,
+ Let him bring his eyes here and take a good look at my hand,
+ Let him say if a goose-quill has calloused this poor pair of paws
+ Or the spade that I grip on and dig with out there in the land?
+
+ When the great ones were safe and renowned and were rooted and tough,
+ Though my mind went to them and took joy in the fortune of those,
+ And pride in their pride and their fame, they gave little enough,
+ Not as much as two boots for my feet, or an old suit of clothes.
+
+ I ask of the Craftsman that fashioned the fly and the bird,
+ Of the Champion whose passion will lift me from death in a time,
+ Of the Spirit that melts icy hearts with the wind of a word,
+ That my people be worthy, and get, better singing than mine.
+
+ I had hoped to live decent, when Ireland was quit of her care,
+ As a bailiff or steward perhaps in a house of degree,
+ But my end of the tale is, old brogues and old britches to wear,
+ So I'll sing no more songs for the men that care nothing for me.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+This book ought to be called Loot or Plunder or Pieces of Eight or
+Treasure-Trove, or some name which would indicate and get away from its
+source, for although everything in it can be referred to the Irish of
+from one hundred to three hundred years ago the word translation would
+be a misdescription. There are really only two translations in it,
+Keating's "O Woman full of Wiliness" and Raftery's "County Mayo." Some
+of the poems owe no more than a phrase, a line, half a line, to the
+Irish, and around these scraps I have blown a bubble of verse and made
+my poem. In other cases, where the matter of the poem is almost
+entirely taken from the Irish, I have yet followed my own instinct in
+the arrangement of it, and the result might be called new poems. My
+first idea was to make an anthology of people whom long ago our poets
+had praised, so that, in another language and another time, these
+honoured names might be heard again, even though in my own terms and
+not in the historic context. I did not pursue this course, for I could
+not control the material which came to me and which took no heed of my
+plan and was just as interesting. It would therefore be a mistake to
+consider that these verses are representative of the poets by whom they
+are inspired. In the case of David O'Bruadair this is less true than
+in any of the others, but, even in his case, although I have often
+conveyed his matter almost verbatim, the selection is not
+representative of the poet. One side only, and that the least, is
+shown, for a greater pen than mine would be necessary if that tornado
+of rage, eloquence, and humour were to be presented; but the poems
+which I give might almost be taken as translations of one side of his
+terrific muse.
+
+As regards Egan O'Rahilly a similar remark is necessary. No pen and no
+language but his own could even distantly indicate a skill and melody
+which might be spoken of as one of the wonders of the world. I have
+done exactly as I pleased with his material.
+
+From Antoine O'Raftery I have taken more than from any of the others,
+and have in nearly every instance treated his matter so familiarly that
+a lover of Raftery (and who, having read a verse of his, does not love
+him?) might not know I was indebted to this poet for my songs. His
+work is different from that of Keating, O'Rahilly, or O'Bruadair, for
+these were learned men, and were writing out of a tradition so hoary
+with age and so complicated in convention that only learned and subtle
+minds could attempt it. I have wondered would Keating or O'Rahilly
+have been very scornful of Raftery's work? I think they might have
+been angry at such an ignorance of all the rules, and would probably
+have torn the paper on which his poems were written, and sat down to
+compose a satire which would have raised blisters on that poor, blind,
+wandering singer, the master of them all.
+
+In two of the poems which I tried to translate from Raftery I have
+completely failed. Against one of them I broke an hundred pens in
+vain; and in the other, "The County Mayo," I have been so close to
+success and so far from succeeding that I may mourn a little about it.
+The first three verses are not bad, but the last verse is the
+completest miss: the simplicity of the original is there, its music is
+not, and in the last two lines the poignance, which should come on the
+reader as though a hand gripped at his heart, is absent. The other
+failure I have not printed because I could get no way on it at all: it
+would not even begin to translate. This is Raftery's reply to the man
+who did not recognise him as he fiddled to a crowd, and asked "who is
+the musician?"
+
+ I am Raftery the poet,
+ Full of hope and love,
+ My eyes without sight,
+ My mind without torment,
+
+ Going west on my journey
+ By the light of my heart,
+ Tired and weary
+ To the end of the road.
+
+ Behold me now
+ With my back to a wall,
+ Playing music
+ To empty pockets.
+
+See Douglas Hyde's _Life of Raftery_.
+
+Dissimilar as these poets are from each other in time, education, and
+temperament, they are alike in that they were all poor men, so poor
+that there was often little difference between them and beggars. They
+all sing of their poverty: Keating as a fact to be recorded among other
+facts, O'Rahilly in a very stately and bitter complaint, and Raftery as
+in the quotation above; but O'Bruadair lets out of him an unending,
+rebellious bawl which would be the most desolating utterance ever made
+by man if it was not also the most gleeful.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BY JAMES STEPHENS
+
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