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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mountainy Singer, by Seosamh MacCathmhaoil
+
+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: The Mountainy Singer
+
+Author: Seosamh MacCathmhaoil
+
+Release Date: February 18, 2012 [EBook #38927]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOUNTAINY SINGER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jana Srna
+
+
+
+
+
+ [ Transcriber's Notes:
+
+ Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+ as possible, including any inconsistencies in the original.
+
+ Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+ ]
+
+
+
+
+THE MOUNTAINY SINGER
+
+
+
+
+ BY THE SAME AUTHOR:
+
+ THE GARDEN OF THE BEES
+ THE RUSHLIGHT
+ THE MAN-CHILD
+ THE GILLY OF CHRIST
+
+
+
+
+ THE MOUNTAINY SINGER
+
+ BY SEOSAMH MacCATHMHAOIL
+
+
+ MAUNSEL AND COMPANY, LTD.
+ 96 MID. ABBEY STREET, DUBLIN
+ 1909
+
+ All Rights Reserved
+
+
+
+
+ Dedit pauperibus.
+ Lib. Psalm.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+ I am the Mountainy Singer 1
+
+ When Rooks Fly Homeward 2
+
+ I Spin my Golden Web 2
+
+ Cherry Valley 3
+
+ Darkness 3
+
+ My Fidil is Singing 4
+
+ The Goat Dealer 4
+
+ Why Crush the Claret Rose 5
+
+ Lament of Padraic Mor Mac Cruimin 6
+
+ To a Town Girl 8
+
+ A March Moon 8
+
+ A Thousand Feet Up 9
+
+ The Dark 9
+
+ Reynardine 11
+
+ Snow 11
+
+ I am the Gilly of Christ 12
+
+ Go, Ploughman, Plough 13
+
+ Go, Reaper 14
+
+ The Good People 14
+
+ The Storm is Still, the Rain hath Ceased 15
+
+ Scare-the-Crows 16
+
+ A Cradle Song 17
+
+ Twine the Mazes Thro' and Thro' 18
+
+ The Fighting-Man 19
+
+ My Mother has a Wee Red Shoe 20
+
+ By a Wondrous Mystery 21
+
+ I Gather Three Ears of Corn 22
+
+ The Tinkers 23
+
+ As I Came over the Grey, Grey Hills 24
+
+ A Northern Love-Song 24
+
+ To the Golden Eagle 25
+
+ A Prophecy 26
+
+ I Met a Walking-Man 27
+
+ The Ninepenny Fidil 28
+
+ Grasslands are Fair 29
+
+ Winter Song 30
+
+ I Follow a Star 30
+
+ The Silence of Unlaboured Fields 31
+
+ The Beggar's Wake 32
+
+ The Besom-Man 36
+
+ Every Shuiler is Christ 38
+
+ I Wish and I Wish 39
+
+ I am the Man-Child 40
+
+ Fragment 41
+
+ At the Whitening of the Dawn 42
+
+ Who are My Friends 43
+
+ O Glorious Childbearer 44
+
+ Coronach 44
+
+ Twilight Fallen 45
+
+ The Dawn Whiteness 45
+
+ The Dwarf 46
+
+ I See all Love in Lowly Things 47
+
+ 'Tis Pretty tae be in Baile-Liosan 48
+
+ Ciaran, the Master of Horses and Lands 49
+
+ Deep Ways and Dripping Boughs 50
+
+ Night, and I Travelling 50
+
+ Night-Piece 51
+
+ At Morning Tide 51
+
+ The May-Fire 52
+
+ I Love the Din of Beating Drums 54
+
+ Three Colts Exercising in a Six-acre 54
+
+ The Natural 55
+
+ On the Top-Stone 55
+
+ The Women at their Doors 56
+
+ My Little Dark Love 57
+
+ I Heard a Piper Piping 58
+
+ The Clouds go By and By 58
+
+ Davy Daw 59
+
+ Black Sile of the Silver Eye 62
+
+ A Sheep-Dog Barks on the Mountain 63
+
+ Dead Oakleaves Everywhere 64
+
+ A Night Prayer 64
+
+ I am the Mountainy Singer 65
+
+ The Rainbow Spanning a Planet Shower 66
+
+ I will Go with My Father A-Ploughing 67
+
+ The Shining Spaces of the South 68
+
+ Like a Tuft of Ceanabhan 68
+
+ The Herb-Leech 69
+
+ Who Buys Land 70
+
+ The Poet Loosed a Winged Song 71
+
+ Sic Transit 72
+
+
+This book is made up of a selection from the Author's early books, with
+many new poems added.
+
+
+
+
+A LINE'S A SPEECH
+
+
+ A line's a speech;
+ So here's a line
+ To say this pedlar's pack
+ Of mine
+ Is not a book--
+ But a journey thro'
+ Mountainy places,
+ Ever in view
+ Of the sea and the fields,
+ With the rough wind
+ Blowing over the leagues
+ Behind!
+
+
+
+
+I AM THE MOUNTAINY SINGER
+
+
+ I am the mountainy singer--
+ The voice of the peasant's dream,
+ The cry of the wind on the wooded hill,
+ The leap of the fish in the stream.
+
+ Quiet and love I sing--
+ The carn on the mountain crest,
+ The cailin in her lover's arms,
+ The child at its mother's breast.
+
+ Beauty and peace I sing--
+ The fire on the open hearth,
+ The cailleach spinning at her wheel,
+ The plough in the broken earth.
+
+ Travail and pain I sing--
+ The bride on the childing bed,
+ The dark man labouring at his rhymes,
+ The ewe in the lambing shed.
+
+ Sorrow and death I sing--
+ The canker come on the corn,
+ The fisher lost in the mountain loch,
+ The cry at the mouth of morn.
+
+ No other life I sing,
+ For I am sprung of the stock
+ That broke the hilly land for bread,
+ And built the nest in the rock!
+
+
+
+
+WHEN ROOKS FLY HOMEWARD
+
+
+ When rooks fly homeward
+ And shadows fall,
+ When roses fold
+ On the hay-yard wall,
+ When blind moths flutter
+ By door and tree,
+ Then comes the quiet
+ Of Christ to me.
+
+ When stars look out
+ On the Children's Path
+ And grey mists gather
+ On carn and rath,
+ When night is one
+ With the brooding sea,
+ Then comes the quiet
+ Of Christ to me.
+
+
+
+
+I SPIN MY GOLDEN WEB
+
+
+ I spin my golden web in the sun:
+ The cherries tremble, the light is done.
+
+ A sudden wind sweeps over the bay,
+ And carries my golden web away!
+
+
+
+
+CHERRY VALLEY
+
+
+ In Cherry Valley the cherries blow:
+ The valley paths are white as snow.
+
+ And in their time with clusters red
+ The scented boughs are crimsoned.
+
+ Even now the moon is looking thro'
+ The glimmer of the honey dew.
+
+ A petal trembles to the grass,
+ The feet of fairies pass and pass.
+
+ By _them_, I know, all beauty comes
+ To me, a habitan of slums.
+
+ I sing no rune, I say no line:
+ The gift of second sight is mine!
+
+
+
+
+DARKNESS
+
+
+ Darkness.
+ I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole----
+ A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
+ I look at it, and pass on.
+
+
+
+
+MY FIDIL IS SINGING
+
+
+ My fidil is singing
+ Into the air;
+ The wind is stirring,
+ The moon is fair.
+
+ A shadow wanders
+ Along the road;
+ It stops to listen,
+ And drops its load.
+
+ Dreams for a space
+ Upon the moon,
+ Then passes, humming
+ My mountain tune.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOAT-DEALER
+
+
+ Did you see the goat-dealer
+ All in his jacket green?
+ I met him on the rocky road
+ 'Twixt this and Baile-doirin.
+
+ A hundred nannies ran before,
+ And a she-ass behind,
+ And then the old wanderer himself,
+ Burnt red with sun and wind.
+
+ He gave me the time-a-day
+ And doitered over the hill,
+ Walloping his gay ashplant
+ And shouting his fill.
+
+ I think I hear him yet,
+ Tho' it's a giant's cry
+ From where I hailed him first,
+ Standing up to the sky.
+
+ Is that Puck Green I see beyond?
+ It is, and the stir is there.
+ By the holy hat, I know then--
+ He's making for Puck Fair!
+
+
+
+
+WHY CRUSH THE CLARET ROSE
+
+
+ Why crush the claret rose
+ That blows
+ So rarely on the tree?
+ Wherefore the enmity, dear girl,
+ Betwixt the rose and thee?
+ Art thou not fair enough
+ With that dark beauty given thee,
+ That thou must crush the rose
+ That blows
+ So rarely on the tree!
+
+
+
+
+LAMENT OF PADRAIC MOR MAC CRUIMIN OVER HIS SONS
+
+
+ I am Padraic Mor mac Cruimin,
+ Son of Domhnall of the Shroud,
+ Piper, like my kind before me,
+ To the household of MacLeod.
+
+ Death is in the seed of Cruimin--
+ All my music is a wail;
+ Early graves await the poets
+ And the pipers of the Gael.
+
+ Samhain gleans the golden harvests
+ Duly in their tide and time,
+ But my body's fruit is blasted
+ Barely past the Bealtein prime.
+
+ Cethlenn claims the fairest fighters
+ Fitly for her own, her own,
+ But my seven sons are stricken
+ Where no battle-pipe is blown.
+
+ Flowers of the forest fallen
+ On the sliding summer stream--
+ Light and life and love are with me,
+ Then are vanished into dream.
+
+ Berried branches of the rowan
+ Rifled in the wizard wind--
+ Clan and generation leave me,
+ Lonely on the heath behind.
+
+ Who will soothe a father's sorrow
+ When his seven sons are gone?
+ Who will watch him in his sleeping?
+ Who will wake him at the dawn?
+
+ Seven sons are taken from me
+ In the compass of a year;
+ Every bone is bose within me,
+ All my blood is white with fear.
+
+ Seven youths of brawn and beauty
+ Moulder in their mountain bed,
+ Up in storied Inis-Scathach
+ Where their fathers reaped their bread.
+
+ Nevermore upon the mountain,
+ Nevermore in fair or field,
+ Shall ye see the seven champions
+ Of the silver-mantled shield.
+
+ I will play the "_Cumhadh na Cloinne_"
+ Wildest of the rowth of tunes
+ Gathered by the love of mortal
+ From the olden druid runes.
+
+ Wail ye! Night is on the water;
+ Wind and wave are roaring loud--
+ _Caoine_ for the fallen children
+ Of the piper of MacLeod.
+
+
+
+
+TO A TOWN GIRL
+
+
+ Violet mystery,
+ Ringleted gold,
+ Whiteness of whiteness,
+ Wherefore so cold?
+
+ Silent you sit there--
+ Spirit and mould--
+ Darkening the dream
+ That must never be told!
+
+
+
+
+A MARCH MOON
+
+
+ A March moon
+ Over the mountain crest,
+ _Ceanabhan_ blowing:
+ Her neck and breast.
+
+ Arbutus berries
+ On the tree head:
+ Her mouth of passion,
+ Dewy and red.
+
+ Cold as cold
+ And hot as hot,
+ She loves me . . . .
+ And she loves me not!
+
+
+
+
+A THOUSAND FEET UP
+
+
+ A thousand feet up: twilight.
+ Westwards, a clump of firtrees silhouetted against a bank of blue
+ cumulus cloud;
+ The June afterglow like a sea behind.
+ The mountain trail, white and clear where human feet have worn it,
+ zigzagging higher and higher till it loses itself in the southern
+ skyline.
+ A patch of young corn to my right hand, swaying and swaying
+ continuously, tho' hardly an air stirs.
+ A falcon wheeling overhead.
+ The moon rising.
+ The damp smell of the night in my nostrils.
+
+ O hills, O hills,
+ To you I lift mine eyes!
+ I kneel down and kiss the grass under my feet.
+ The sense of the mystery and infinity of things overwhelms me,
+ annihilates me almost.
+ I kneel down, and silently worship.
+
+
+
+
+THE DARK
+
+
+ This is the dark.
+ This is the dream that came of the dark.
+ This is the dreamer who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.
+ This is the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of
+ the dark.
+
+ This is the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed
+ the dream that came of the dark.
+
+ This is the breast that fired the love that followed the look the
+ dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.
+
+ This is the song was made to the breast that fired the love that
+ followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came
+ of the dark.
+
+ This is the sword that tracked the song was made to the breast that
+ fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed
+ the dream that came of the dark.
+
+ This is the rope that swung the sword that tracked the song was made
+ to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer
+ looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.
+
+ This is the dark that buried the rope that swung the sword that tracked
+ the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the
+ look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.
+
+ This is the dark, indeed!
+
+
+
+
+REYNARDINE
+
+
+ _If by chance you look for me_
+ _Perhaps you'll not me find,_
+ _For I'll be in my castle--_
+ _Enquire for Reynardine!_
+
+ Sun and dark he courted me--
+ His eyes were red as wine:
+ He took me for his leman,
+ Did my sweet Reynardine.
+
+ Sun and dark the gay horn blows,
+ The beagles run like wind:
+ They know not where he harbours,
+ The fairy Reynardine.
+
+ _If by chance you look for me_
+ _Perhaps you'll not me find,_
+ _For I'll be in my castle--_
+ _Enquire for Reynardine!_
+
+
+
+
+SNOW
+
+
+ Hills that were dark
+ At sparing-time last night
+ Now in the dawn-ring
+ Glimmer cold and white.
+
+
+
+
+I AM THE GILLY OF CHRIST
+
+
+ I am the gilly of Christ,
+ The mate of Mary's Son;
+ I run the roads at seeding time,
+ And when the harvest's done.
+
+ I sleep among the hills,
+ The heather is my bed;
+ I dip the termon-well for drink,
+ And pull the sloe for bread.
+
+ No eye has ever seen me,
+ But shepherds hear me pass,
+ Singing at fall of even
+ Along the shadowed grass.
+
+ The beetle is my bellman,
+ The meadow-fire my guide,
+ The bee and bat my ambling nags
+ When I have need to ride.
+
+ All know me only the Stranger,
+ Who sits on the Saxon's height;
+ He burned the bacach's little house
+ On last Saint Brigid's Night.
+
+ He sups off silver dishes,
+ And drinks in a golden horn,
+ But he will wake a wiser man
+ Upon the Judgment Morn!
+
+ I am the gilly of Christ,
+ The mate of Mary's Son;
+ I run the roads at seeding time,
+ And when the harvest's done.
+
+ The seed I sow is lucky,
+ The corn I reap is red,
+ And whoso sings the Gilly's Rann
+ Will never cry for bread.
+
+
+
+
+GO, PLOUGHMAN, PLOUGH
+
+
+ Go, ploughman, plough
+ The mearing lands,
+ The meadow lands,
+ The mountain lands:
+ All life is bare
+ Beneath your share,
+ All love is in your lusty hands.
+
+ Up, horses, now!
+ And straight and true
+ Let every broken furrow run:
+ The strength you sweat
+ Shall blossom yet
+ In golden glory to the sun.
+
+
+
+
+GO, REAPER
+
+
+ Go, reaper,
+ Speed and reap,
+ Go take the harvest
+ Of the plough:
+ The wheat is standing
+ Broad and deep,
+ The barley glumes
+ Are golden now.
+
+ Labour is hard,
+ But it endures
+ Like love:
+ The land is yours:
+ Go reap the life
+ It gives you now,
+ O sunbrowned master
+ Of the plough!
+
+
+
+
+THE GOOD PEOPLE
+
+
+ The millway path looks like a wraith,
+ The lock is black as ink,
+ And silently in stream and sky
+ The stars begin to blink.
+
+ I see them pass along the grass
+ With slow and solemn tread:
+ Aoibheall, their queen, is in between--
+ A corpse is at their head!
+
+ They wander on with faces wan,
+ And dirges sad as wind.
+ I know not, but it may be that
+ The dead's of human kind.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORM IS STILL, THE RAIN HATH CEASED
+
+
+ The storm is still, the rain hath ceased
+ To vex the beauty of the east:
+ A linnet singeth in the wood
+ His hermit song of gratitude.
+
+ So shall I sing when life is done
+ To greet the glory of the sun;
+ And cloud and star and stream and sea
+ Shall dance for very ecstasy!
+
+
+
+
+SCARE-THE-CROWS
+
+
+ Twopence a day for scaring crows--
+ Tho' the rain beats and the wind blows!
+
+ The scholars think I've little wit,
+ But, God! I've got my share of it.
+
+ Why does the gorbing land-shark
+ Leave ploughed rigs for the green park?
+
+ Where little's to find, and nothing's to eat
+ But rabbits' droppings and pheasants' meat.
+
+ He knows better than come my way
+ Between the mouth and the tail of day.
+
+ For one lick of my hurding wattle
+ Would lay him out like a showman's bottle!
+
+ And the thoughts that rise in my crazed head
+ When the cloud is low and the wind's dead.
+
+ Where you see only clay and stones
+ I see swords and blanching bones. . . .
+
+ But I'll leave you now--it's gone six,
+ And the smoke is curling over the ricks.
+
+ And it's hardly like that the land-shark
+ Will trouble the furrows after dark.
+
+
+
+
+A CRADLE-SONG
+
+
+ Sleep, white love, sleep,
+ A cedarn cradle holds thee,
+ And twilight, like a silver-woven coverlid,
+ Enfolds thee.
+ Moon and star keep charmed watch
+ Upon thy lying;
+ Water plovers thro' the dusk
+ Are tremulously crying.
+ Sleep, white love mine,
+ Till day doth shine.
+
+ Sleep, white love, sleep,
+ The daylight wanes, and deeper
+ Gathers the blue darkness
+ O'er the cradle of the sleeper.
+ Cliodhna's curachs, carmine-oared,
+ On Loch-da-linn are gleaming;
+ Blind bats flutter thro' the night,
+ And carrion birds are screaming.
+ Sleep, white love mine,
+ Till day doth shine.
+
+ Sleep, white love, sleep,
+ The holy mothers, Anne and Mary,
+ Sit high in heaven, dreaming
+ On the seven ends of Eire.
+ Brigid sits beside them,
+ Spinning lamb-white wool on whorls,
+ Singing fragrant songs of love
+ To little naked boys and girls.
+ Sleep, white love mine,
+ Till day doth shine.
+
+
+
+
+TWINE THE MAZES THRO' AND THRO'
+
+
+ Twine the mazes thro' and thro'
+ Over beach and margent pale;
+ Not a bawn appears in view,
+ Not a sail!
+
+ Round about!
+ In and out!
+ Thro' the stones and sandy bars
+ To the music of the stars!
+ The asteroidal fire that dances
+ Nightly in the northern blue,
+ The brightest of the boreal lances,
+ Dances not so light as you,
+ Cliodhna!
+ Dances not so light as you.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIGHTING-MAN
+
+
+ A fighting-man he was,
+ Guts and soul;
+ His blood as hot and red
+ As that on Cain's hand-towel.
+
+ A copper-skinned six-footer,
+ Hewn out of the rock.
+ Who would stand up against
+ His hammer-knock?
+
+ Not a sinner--
+ No, and not one dared!
+ Giants showed clean heels
+ When his arm was bared.
+
+ I've seen him swing an anvil
+ Fifty feet,
+ Break a bough in two,
+ And tear a twisted sheet.
+
+ And the music of his roar--
+ Like oaks in thunder cleaving;
+ Lips foaming red froth,
+ And flanks heaving.
+
+ God! a goodly man,
+ A Gael, the last
+ Of those that stood with Dan
+ On Mullach-Maist!
+
+
+
+
+MY MOTHER HAS A WEE RED SHOE
+
+
+ My mother has a wee red shoe--
+ She bought it off a bacach-man;
+ And all the neighbours say it's true
+ He stole it off a Leath-brogan.
+ Bacach-man, bacach-man,
+ Where did you get it?
+ Faith now, says he,
+ In my leather wallet!
+
+ My father has an arrow-head--
+ He begged it off poor Peig na Blath;
+ And Mor, the talking-woman, said
+ She found it in a fairy rath.
+ Peig na Blath, Peig na Blath,
+ Where did you get it?
+ Faith now, says she,
+ In my wincey jacket!
+
+ My brother has a copper pot--
+ He tryst' it wi' a shuiler-man;
+ And gossip says it's like as not
+ He truff'd it from a Clobhair-ceann.
+ Shuiler-man, shuiler-man,
+ Where did you get it?
+ Faith now, says he,
+ In my breeches' pocket!
+
+
+
+
+BY A WONDROUS MYSTERY
+
+
+ By a wondrous mystery
+ Christ of Mary's fair body
+ Upon a middle winter's morn,
+ Between the tides of night and day,
+ In Ara's holy isle was born.
+ Mary went upon her knee
+ Travailing in ecstasy,
+ And Brigid, mistress of the birth,
+ Full reverently and tenderly
+ Laid the child upon the earth.
+ Then the dark-eyed rose did blow,
+ And rivers leaped from out the snow.
+ Earth grew lyrical: the grass,
+ As the light winds chanced to pass--
+ Than magian music more profound--
+ Murmured in a maze of sound.
+ White incense rose upon the hills
+ As from a thousand thuribles,
+ And in the east a seven-rayed star
+ Proclaimed the news to near and far.
+ The shepherd danced, the gilly ran,
+ The boatman left his curachan;
+ The king came riding on the wind
+ To offer gifts of coin and kind;
+ The druid dropped his ogham wand,
+ And said, "Another day's at hand,
+ A newer dawn is in the sky:
+ I put my withered sapling by.
+ The druid Christ has taken breath
+ To sing the runes of life and death."
+
+
+
+
+I GATHER THREE EARS OF CORN
+
+
+ I gather three ears of corn,
+ And the Black Earl from over the sea
+ Sails across in his silver ships,
+ And takes two out of the three.
+
+ I might build a house on the hill
+ And a barn of the speckly stone,
+ And tell my little stocking of gold,
+ If the Earl would let me alone.
+
+ But he has no thought for me--
+ Only the thought of his share,
+ And the softness of the linsey shifts
+ His lazy daughters wear.
+
+ There is a God in heaven,
+ And angels, score on score,
+ Who will not see my hearthstone cold
+ Because I'm crazed and poor.
+
+ My childer have my blood,
+ And when they get their beards
+ They will not be content to run
+ As gillies to their herds!
+
+ The day will come, maybe,
+ When we can have our own,
+ And the Black Earl will come to us
+ Begging the bacach's bone!
+
+
+
+
+THE TINKERS
+
+
+ "One _ciarog_ knows another _ciarog_,
+ And why shouldn't I know you, you rogue?"
+ "They say a stroller will never pair
+ Except with one of his kind and care . . ."
+ So talked two tinkers prone in the shough--
+ And then, as the fun got a trifle rough,
+ They flitted: he with his corn-straw bass,
+ She with her load of tin and brass:
+ As mad a match as you would see
+ In a twelvemonth's ride thro' Christendie.
+ He roared--they both were drunk as hell:
+ She danced, and danced it mighty well!
+ I could have eyed them longer, but
+ They staggered for the Quarry Cut:
+ That half-perch seemed to trouble them more
+ Than all the leagues they'd tramped before.
+ Some'll drink at the fair the morrow,
+ And some'll sup with the spoon of sorrow;
+ But whether _they_'ll get as far as Droichid
+ The night--well, who knows that but God?
+
+
+
+
+AS I CAME OVER THE GREY, GREY HILLS
+
+
+ As I came over the grey, grey hills
+ And over the grey, grey water,
+ I saw the gilly leading on,
+ And the white Christ following after.
+
+ Where and where does the gilly lead?
+ And where is the white Christ faring?
+ They've travelled the four grey sounds of Orc,
+ And the four grey seas of Eirinn.
+
+ The moon it set and the wind's away,
+ And the song in the grass is dying,
+ And a silver cloud on the silent sea
+ Like a shrouding sheet is lying.
+
+ But Christ and the gilly will follow on
+ Till the ring in the east is showing,
+ And the awny corn is red on the hills,
+ And the golden light is glowing!
+
+
+
+
+A NORTHERN LOVE-SONG
+
+
+ Brigidin Ban of the lint-white locks,
+ What was it gave you that flaxen hair,
+ Long as the summer heath in the rocks?
+ What was it gave you those eyes of fire,
+ Lip so waxen and cheek so wan?
+ Tell me, tell me, Brigidin Ban,
+ Little white bride of my heart's desire.
+
+ Was it the Good People stole you away,
+ Little white changeling, Brigidin Ban?
+ Carried you off in the ring of the dawn,
+ Laid like a queen on her purple car,
+ Carried you back 'twixt the night and the day;
+ Gave you that fortune of flaxen hair,
+ Gave you those eyes of wandering fire,
+ Lit at the wheel of the southern star;
+ Gave you that look so far away,
+ Lip so waxen and cheek so wan?
+ Tell me, tell me, Brigidin Ban,
+ Little white bride of my heart's desire.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE GOLDEN EAGLE
+
+
+ Wanderer of the mountain,
+ Winger of the blue,
+ From this stormy rock
+ I send my love to you.
+
+ Take me for your lover,
+ Dark and fierce and true--
+ Wanderer of the mountain,
+ Winger of the blue!
+
+
+
+
+A PROPHECY
+
+
+ "The loins of the Galldacht
+ Shall wither like grass"--
+ Strange words I heard said
+ At the Fair of Dun-eas.
+
+ "A bard shall be born
+ Of the seed of the folk,
+ To break with his singing
+ The bond and the yoke.
+
+ "A sword, white as ashes,
+ Shall fall from the sky,
+ To rise, red as blood,
+ On the charge and the cry.
+
+ "Stark pipers shall blow,
+ Stout drummers shall beat,
+ And the shout of the north
+ Shall be heard in the street.
+
+ "The strong shall go down,
+ And the weak shall prevail,
+ And a glory shall sit
+ On the sign of the Gaodhal.
+
+ "Then Emer shall come
+ In good time by her own,
+ And a man of the people
+ Shall speak from the throne."
+
+ Strange words I heard said
+ At the Fair of Dun-eas--
+ "The Gaodhaldacht shall live,
+ The Galldacht shall pass!"
+
+
+
+
+I MET A WALKING-MAN
+
+
+ I met a walking-man;
+ His head was old and grey.
+ I gave him what I had
+ To crutch him on his way.
+ The man was Mary's Son, I'll swear;
+ A glory trembled in his hair!
+
+ And since that blessed day
+ I've never known the pinch:
+ I plough a broad townland,
+ And dig a river-inch;
+ And on my hearth the fire is bright
+ For all that walk by day or night.
+
+
+
+
+THE NINEPENNY FIDIL
+
+
+ My father and mother were Irish,
+ And I am Irish, too;
+ I bought a wee fidil for ninepence,
+ And it is Irish, too.
+ I'm up in the morning early
+ To meet the dawn of day,
+ And to the lintwhite's piping
+ The many's the tune I play.
+
+ One pleasant eve in June time
+ I met a lochrie-man:
+ His face and hands were weazen,
+ His height was not a span.
+ He boor'd me for my fidil--
+ "You know," says he, "like you,
+ My father and mother were Irish,
+ And I am Irish, too!"
+
+ He took my wee red fidil,
+ And such a tune he turned--
+ The Glaise in it whispered,
+ The Lionan in it m'urned.
+ Says he, "My lad, you're lucky--
+ I wish t' I was like you:
+ You're lucky in your birth-star,
+ And in your fidil, too!"
+
+ He gave me back my fidil,
+ My fidil-stick, also,
+ And stepping like a mayboy,
+ He jumped the Leargaidh Knowe.
+ I never saw him after,
+ Nor met his gentle kind;
+ But, whiles, I think I hear him
+ A-wheening in the wind!
+
+ My father and mother were Irish,
+ And I am Irish, too:
+ I bought a wee fidil for ninepence,
+ And it is Irish, too.
+ I'm up in the morning early
+ To meet the dawn of day,
+ And to the lintwhite's piping
+ The many's the tune I play.
+
+
+
+
+GRASSLANDS ARE FAIR
+
+
+ Grasslands are fair,
+ Ploughlands are rare.
+ Grasslands are lonely,
+ Ploughlands are comely.
+ Grasslands breed cattle,
+ Ploughlands feed people.
+ Grasslands are not wrought,
+ Ploughlands swell with thought.
+
+
+
+
+WINTER SONG
+
+
+ 'Twould skin a fairy
+ It is so airy,
+ And the snow it nips so cold:
+ Shepherd and squire
+ Sit by the fire,
+ The sheep are in the fold.
+
+ You have your wish--
+ A reeking dish,
+ And rubble walls about;
+ So pity the poor
+ That have no door
+ To keep the winter out!
+
+
+
+
+I FOLLOW A STAR
+
+
+ I follow a star
+ Burning deep in the blue,
+ A sign on the hills
+ Lit for me and for you!
+
+ Moon-red is the star,
+ Halo-ringed like a rood,
+ Christ's heart in its heart set,
+ Streaming with blood.
+
+ Follow the gilly
+ Beyond to the west:
+ He leads where the Christ lies
+ On Mary's white breast.
+
+ King, priest and prophet--
+ A child, and no more--
+ Adonai the Maker!
+ Come, let us adore.
+
+
+
+
+THE SILENCE OF UNLABOURED FIELDS
+
+
+ The silence of unlaboured fields
+ Lies like a judgment on the air:
+ A human voice is never heard:
+ The sighing grass is everywhere--
+ The sighing grass, the shadowed sky,
+ The cattle crying wearily!
+
+ Where are the lowland people gone?
+ Where are the sun-dark faces now?
+ The love that kept the quiet hearth,
+ The strength that held the speeding plough?
+ Grasslands and lowing herds are good,
+ But better human flesh and blood!
+
+
+
+
+THE BEGGAR'S WAKE
+
+
+ I watched at a beggar's wake
+ In the hills of Bearna-barr,
+ And the old men were telling stories
+ Of Troy and the Trojan war.
+
+ And a flickering fire of bog-deal
+ Burned on the open hearth,
+ And the night-wind roared in the chimney,
+ And darkness was over the earth.
+
+ And Tearlach Ban MacGiolla,
+ The piper of Gort, was there,
+ And he sat and he dreamed apart
+ In the arms of a sugan chair.
+
+ And sudden he woke from his dream
+ Like a dream-frightened child,
+ And his lips were pale and trembling,
+ And his eyes were wild.
+
+ And he stood straight up, and he cried,
+ With a wave of his withered hand,
+ "The days of the grasping stranger
+ Shall be few in the land!
+
+ "The scrip of his doom is written,
+ The thread of his shroud is spun;
+ The net of his strength is broken,
+ The tide of his life is run. . . ."
+
+ Then he sank to his seat like a stone,
+ And the watchers stared aghast,
+ And they crossed themselves for fear
+ As the coffin cart went past.
+
+ . . . . . . . .
+
+ "At the battle of Gleann-muic-duibh
+ The fate the poets foretold
+ Shall fall on the neck of the stranger,
+ And redden the plashy mould.
+
+ "The bagmen carry the story
+ The circuit of Ireland round,
+ And they sing it at fair and hurling
+ From Edair to Acaill Sound.
+
+ "And the folk repeat it over
+ About the winter fires,
+ Till the heart of each one listening
+ Is burning with fierce desires.
+
+ "In the Glen of the Bristleless Boar
+ They say the battle shall be,
+ Where Breiffne's iron mountains
+ Look on the Western sea.
+
+ "In the Glen of the Pig of Diarmad,
+ On Gulban's hither side,
+ The battle shall be broken
+ About the Samhain tide.
+
+ "Forth from the ancient hills,
+ With war-cries strident and loud,
+ The people shall march at daybreak,
+ Massed in a clamorous crowd.
+
+ "War-pipes shall scream and cry,
+ And battle-banners shall wave,
+ And every stone on Gulban
+ Shall mark a hero's grave.
+
+ "The horses shall wade to their houghs
+ In rivers of smoking blood,
+ Charging thro' heaps of corpses
+ Scattered in whinny and wood.
+
+ "The girths shall rot from their bellies
+ After the battle is done,
+ For lack of a hand to undo them
+ And hide them out of the sun.
+
+ "It shall not be the battle
+ Between the folk and the Sidhe
+ At the rape of a bride from her bed
+ Or a babe from its mother's knee.
+
+ "It shall not be the battle
+ Between the white hosts flying
+ And the shrieking devils of hell
+ For a priest at the point of dying.
+
+ "It shall not be the battle
+ Between the sun and the leaves,
+ Between the winter and summer,
+ Between the storm and the sheaves.
+
+ "But a battle to doom and death
+ Between the Gael and the Gall,
+ Between the sword of light
+ And the shield of darkness and thrall.
+
+ "And the Gael shall have the mastery
+ After a month of days,
+ And the lakes of the west shall cry,
+ And the hills of the north shall blaze.
+
+ "And the neck of the fair-haired Gall
+ Shall be as a stool for the feet
+ Of Ciaran, chief of the Gael,
+ Sitting in Emer's seat!"--
+
+ . . . . . . . .
+
+ At this MacGiolla fainted,
+ Tearing his yellow hair,
+ And the young men cursed the stranger,
+ And the old men mouthed a prayer.
+
+ For they knew the day would come,
+ As sure as the piper said,
+ When many loves would be parted,
+ And many graves would be red.
+
+ And the wake broke up in tumult,
+ And the women were left alone,
+ Keening over the beggar
+ That died at Gobnat's Stone.
+
+
+
+
+THE BESOM-MAN
+
+
+ Did you see Paidin,
+ Paidin, the besom-man,
+ Last night as you came by
+ Over the mountain?
+
+ A barth of new heather
+ He bore on his shoulder,
+ And a bundle of whitlow-grass
+ Under his oxter.
+
+ I spied him as he passed
+ Beyond the carn head,
+ But no eye saw him
+ At the hill foot after.
+
+ What has come over him?
+ The women are saying.
+ What can have crossed
+ Paidin, the besom-man?
+
+ The bogholes he knew
+ As the curlews know them,
+ And the rabbits' pads,
+ And the derelict quarries.
+
+ He was humming a tune--
+ The "Enchanted Valley"--
+ As he passed me westward
+ Beyond the carn.
+
+ I stood and I listened,
+ For his singing was strange:
+ It rang in my ears
+ The long night after.
+
+ What has come over
+ Paidin, the besom-man?
+ What can have crossed him?
+ The women keep saying.
+
+ They talk of the fairies--
+ And, God forgive me,
+ Paidin knew _them_
+ Like his prayers!
+
+ Will you fetch word
+ Up to the cross-roads
+ If you see track of him,
+ Living or dead?
+
+ The boys are loafing
+ Without game or caper;
+ And the dark piper
+ Is gone home with the birds.
+
+
+
+
+EVERY SHUILER IS CHRIST
+
+
+ Every shuiler is Christ,
+ Then be not hard or cold:
+ The bit that goes for Christ
+ Will come a hundred-fold.
+
+ The ear upon your corn
+ Will burst before its time;
+ Your roots will yield a crop
+ Without manure or lime.
+
+ And every sup you give
+ To crutch him on his way
+ Will fill your churn with milk,
+ And choke your barn with hay.
+
+ Then when the shuiler begs,
+ Be neither hard nor cold;
+ The share that goes for Christ
+ Will come a hundred-fold.
+
+
+
+
+I WISH AND I WISH
+
+
+ I wish and I wish
+ And I wish I were
+ A golden bee
+ In the blue of the air,
+ Winging my way
+ At the mouth of day
+ To the honey marges
+ Of Loch-ciuin-ban;
+ Or a little green drake,
+ Or a silver swan,
+ Floating upon
+ The stream of Aili,
+ And I to be swimming
+ Gaily, gaily!
+
+
+
+
+I AM THE MAN-CHILD
+
+
+ I am the man-child. From a virgin womb,
+ Begot among the hills of virgin loins,
+ The generation of a hundred kings,
+ I come. I am the man-child glorious,
+ The love-son of the second birth foretold
+ By western bards, the fruit of form and strength
+ By nature's prophylactic forethought joined
+ In marriage with their kind, the crown, the peak,
+ The summit of the scheme of things, the pride
+ And glory of the hand of God.
+
+ Behold!
+ Where in the spaces of the morning world
+ The sunrise shines my harbinger, the hills
+ Leap up, the young winds sing, the rivers dance,
+ The leaving forests laugh, the eagles scream;
+ For I am one with them, a mate, a brother,
+ Bound by nature to the human soul
+ That thro' the accidents of nature runs.
+ And wherefore do they leap and laugh and sing,
+ And dance like vestals on a holyday?
+ Because their hearts are glad, and maenad-like,
+ They fain would share the frenzied cup they drink
+ With me, the man-child glorious.
+
+ I am he,
+ Even he, the master-mould, the paragon!
+ Behold me in my nonage, child and man:
+ The ripest grape on beauty's procreant vine,
+ The reddest apple of ingathering:
+ Perfect in form, of peerless strength, and free
+ As Caoilte when he roamed the primal hills
+ (Those "wildernesses rich with liberty"),
+ A hero that the shocks of chance might strike,
+ But never tame, a giant druid-ringed,
+ A god-like savage of the golden days
+ Ere service shackled action: free itself
+ As Oisin when he strayed in Doire-cairn,
+ His hand upon the mountain top, his feet
+ Fixt in the flowing sea, his holy head
+ Crowned by a flight of birds, acclaiming him
+ The singer of the dawn.
+
+
+
+
+FRAGMENT
+
+
+ I stand upon the summit now:
+ The falcon, flying from the heath,
+ Trails darkly o'er the mountain brow
+ And drops into the gloom beneath.
+ Night falls, and with it comes the wind
+ That blew on Fionn time out of mind,
+ When weary of love-feasts and wars
+ He left his comrades all behind
+ To dream upon the quiet stars.
+ Here on the lonely mountain height
+ Is ecstasy and living light--
+ The living inner light that burns
+ With magic caught from those white urns
+ That wander thro' the trackless blue
+ Forever, touching those they know
+ With beauty, and the things that come
+ Of beauty. Earth lies at my feet,
+ A dumb, vast shadow, vast as dumb.
+
+
+
+
+AT THE WHITENING OF THE DAWN
+
+
+ At the whitening of the dawn,
+ As I came o'er the windy water,
+ I saw the salmon-fisher's daughter,
+ Nuala ni Cholumain.
+ Nuala ni Cholumain,
+ Nuala ni Cholumain,
+ Palest lily of the dawn
+ Is Nuala ni Cholumain.
+
+ In the dark of evendown
+ I went o'er the quiet water,
+ Dreaming of the fisher's daughter
+ And her bothy in the town.
+ And I made this simple rann
+ Ere the whitening of the dawn,
+ Singing to the beauty wan
+ Of Nuala ni Cholumain.
+
+
+
+
+WHO ARE MY FRIENDS
+
+
+ Who are my friends,
+ Faithful and true?
+ Who but the stars
+ That burn in the blue.
+
+ Who but the sun
+ That sinketh so red,
+ Who but the clay
+ That giveth me bread.
+
+ Who but the hills,
+ Who but the sea,
+ Who but the flowers
+ That fold on the tree.
+
+ Who but the moths
+ That flutter and pass,
+ Who but the lambs
+ That cry in the grass.
+
+ Who but the darkness,
+ Who but the rain,
+ Who but the grave, the grave--
+ All else are vain!
+ All else are vain!
+
+
+
+
+O GLORIOUS CHILDBEARER
+
+
+ O glorious childbearer,
+ O secret womb,
+ O gilded bridechamber, from which hath come the sightly Bridegroom forth,
+ O amber veil,
+ Thou sittest in heaven, the white love of the Gael.
+ Thy head is crowned with stars, thy radiant hair
+ Shines like a river thro' the twilight air;
+ Thou walkest by trodden ways and trackless seas,
+ Immaculate of man's infirmities.
+
+
+
+
+CORONACH
+
+
+ Come, pipes, sound
+ A crooning coronach round,
+ Till hill and hollow glen and shadowed lake o'erflow
+ With welling music of our woe.
+ Beat, beat, ye muffled drums, ye drones and chanters wail,
+ With heartbreak of the baffled, battle-broken Gael.
+ The clay is deep on Ireland's breast:
+ Her proud and bleeding heart is laid at last to rest . .
+ To rest . . to rest!
+
+
+
+
+TWILIGHT FALLEN
+
+
+ Twilight fallen white and cold,
+ Child in cradle, lamb in fold;
+ Glimmering thro' the ghostly trees,
+ Gemini and Pleiades.
+ Wounds of Eloim,
+ Weep on me!
+
+ Black-winged vampires flitting by,
+ Curlews crying in the sky;
+ Grey mists wreathing from the ground,
+ Wrapping rath and burial mound.
+ Wounds of Eloim,
+ Weep on me!
+
+ Heard, like some sad Gaelic strain,
+ Ocean's ancient voice in pain;
+ Darkness folding hill and wood,
+ Sorrow drinking at my blood.
+ Wounds of Eloim,
+ Weep on me!
+
+
+
+
+THE DAWN WHITENESS
+
+
+ The dawn whiteness.
+ A bank of slate-grey cloud lying heavily over it.
+ The moon, like a hunted thing, dropping into the cloud.
+
+
+
+
+THE DWARF
+
+
+ Look at him now, the son,
+ And the churchyard twist in his foot,
+ Standing there by his mother's door,
+ As if he had taken root!
+
+ She crossed a grave, they say,
+ On a black day in spring,
+ And bore him in the seventh month--
+ A poor, misshapen thing.
+
+ Kneeling down in the dark
+ She travailed without a cry,
+ And gave him the mothering kiss
+ Between the earth and the sky.
+
+ He licks cuckoo-spittle, they say,
+ And eats the dung of the roads,
+ Mocking the journeymen
+ As they pass by with their loads.
+
+ Look at his little face--
+ As grey as wool is grey--
+ And the cast in his green eye,
+ So wild and far away.
+
+ Does he see Magh-meala?
+ Is his breath human breath?
+ Are his thoughts of the hidden things
+ Untouched by time and death?
+
+ Hanging there by the half-door,
+ Dangling his devil's foot,
+ Stock-still on the threshold,
+ As if he had taken root!
+
+
+
+
+I SEE ALL LOVE IN LOWLY THINGS
+
+
+ I see all love in lowly things,
+ No less than in the lusts of kings:
+ All beauty, shape and comeliness,
+ All valour, strength and gentleness,
+ All genius, wit and holiness.
+
+ Out of corruption comes the flower,
+ The corn is kindred with the clay;
+ The plough-hand is a hand of power,
+ Nobler than gold, brighter than day.
+
+ Then let the leper lift his head,
+ The cripple dance, the captive sing,
+ The beggar reap and eat his bread--
+ He is no baser than a king!
+
+
+
+
+'TIS PRETTY TAE BE IN BAILE-LIOSAN
+
+
+ 'Tis pretty tae be in Baile-liosan,
+ 'Tis pretty tae be in green Magh-luan;
+ 'Tis prettier tae be in Newtownbreda,
+ Beeking under the eaves in June.
+ The cummers are out wi' their knitting and spinning,
+ The thrush sings frae his crib on the wa',
+ And o'er the white road the clachan caddies
+ Play at their marlies and goaling-ba'.
+
+ O, fair are the fields o' Baile-liosan,
+ And fair are the faes o' green Magh-luan;
+ But fairer the flowers o' Newtownbreda,
+ Wet wi' dew in the eves o' June.
+ 'Tis pleasant tae saunter the clachan thoro'
+ When day sinks mellow o'er Dubhais hill,
+ And feel their fragrance sae softly breathing
+ Frae croft and causey and window-sill.
+
+ O, brave are the haughs o' Baile-liosan,
+ And brave are the halds o' green Magh-luan;
+ But braver the hames o' Newtownbreda,
+ Twined about wi' the pinks o' June.
+ And just as the face is sae kindly withouten,
+ The heart within is as guid as gold--
+ Wi' new fair ballants and merry music,
+ And cracks cam' down frae the days of old.
+
+ 'Tis pretty tae be in Baile-liosan,
+ 'Tis pretty tae be in green Magh-luan;
+ 'Tis prettier tae be in Newtownbreda,
+ Beeking under the eaves in June.
+ The cummers are out wi' their knitting and spinning,
+ The thrush sings frae his crib on the wa',
+ And o'er the white road the clachan caddies
+ Play at their marlies and goaling-ba'.
+
+
+
+
+CIARAN, THE MASTER OF HORSES AND LANDS
+
+
+ Ciaran, the master of horses and lands,
+ Once had no more than the horn on his hands.
+
+ But Ciaran is rich now, and Ciaran is great,
+ And rides with the air of a squire of estate.
+
+ O Christ! and to see the man up on the back
+ Of a thoroughbred stallion, a bay or a black!
+
+ There's not a horsebreeder from Banna to Laoi
+ Can handle the snaffle so pretty as he!
+
+ And Ciaran, for all, has the wit of a child,
+ A heart just as soft, and an eye just as mild.
+
+ No maker of ballads puts curse at his door:
+ He handsels the singer, and harbours the poor.
+
+ For Ciaran, the master of horses and lands,
+ Once had no more than the horn on his hands.
+
+
+
+
+DEEP WAYS AND DRIPPING BOUGHS
+
+
+ Deep ways and dripping boughs,
+ The fog falling drearily;
+ Cowherds calling on their cows,
+ And I crying wearily,
+ Wearily, wearily, out-a-door,
+ Houseless, hearthless, coatless, kindless,
+ Poorest of the wandering poor.
+
+ I am the beggar Christ--
+ Christ that calmed the castling flood!
+ Cross and thorn have not sufficed
+ To punish me as you would;
+ But out-a-door in wind and rain,
+ Houseless, hearthless, coatless, kindless,
+ You keep me wandering in pain.
+
+
+
+
+NIGHT, AND I TRAVELLING
+
+
+ Night, and I travelling.
+ An open door by the wayside,
+ Throwing out a shaft of warm yellow light.
+ A whiff of peat-smoke;
+ A gleam of delf on the dresser within;
+ A woman's voice crooning, as if to a child.
+ I pass on into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+NIGHT-PIECE
+
+
+ Fill me, O stars,
+ As with an olden tune.
+ Look thro' your cloudy bars,
+ O summer moon;
+ Look thro', and drench in silver light
+ My soul this night.
+
+ O brief, enchanted dream
+ Of sea and sky,
+ Of ploughland, meadow, stream,
+ And twilight loth to die,
+ Of fire and dew--
+ My soul is one with you!
+
+
+
+
+AT MORNING TIDE
+
+
+ At morning tide,
+ Upon the hill of Sliabh-na-mBan,
+ I saw the dead Christ glorified!
+ His body, like the risen sun,
+ Was all too bright to look upon:
+ The blue air burned
+ About him: in his side
+ And hands and feet there shone
+ (Thro' stabs and gashes gaping wide)
+ The golden glory of his blood:
+ The gilly stood
+ Upon his right hand: at his feet
+ The fishers, Peter, James and John,
+ Knelt worshipping
+ With outstretched arms, and eyes
+ To heaven turned:
+ And Maria, his mother sweet,
+ (The partner of his mysteries),
+ And Magdalen and Salome
+ Came thro' the doorway of the day
+ Behind him, weeping.
+ . . . . Then a cloud came o'er
+ My senses, and I saw and heard no more!
+
+
+
+
+THE MAY-FIRE
+
+
+ Come away, O Maire Ban,
+ Come away, come away
+ Where the heads of _ceanabhan_
+ Tremble in the twilight air,
+ And the rushes nod and sway,
+ And no other sound is heard
+ But the swaying of the rushes,
+ And the shouts from Croc-an-air,
+ And the singing of the fidils,
+ And the laughing of the dancers
+ Round about the yellow fire,
+ And the scream of the water-bird.
+
+ Come away, O life of me,
+ O bone of me, O blood of me--
+ Feilim has a tale to tell:
+ He would own his love for thee,
+ Smitten first at Mura's well,
+ Bitten at the Lammas pattern,
+ By the blessed Mura's well.
+ He would tell thee, Maire Ban,
+ How his pulses leap and thrill
+ Quicker than the old men's fidils,
+ Singing out from yonder hill.
+
+ Come away, O heart's desire,
+ From the ruddy-featured circle,
+ From the story-telling circle,
+ By the wreathing Bealtein fire.
+ Come away, come away,
+ Come away, O Maire Ban,
+ Where the heads of _ceanabhan_
+ Tremble in the twilight air,
+ And the voice of love is heard
+ Whispering o'er the bending rushes
+ Like a hidden, holy bird.
+ Come away, O Maire Ban--
+ Feilim's face is fairy-wan,
+ Feilim's heart is sick and pale,
+ Languishing for love of thee.
+
+
+
+
+I LOVE THE DIN OF BEATING DRUMS
+
+
+ I love the din of beating drums,
+ The bellowing pipe, the shrieking fife:
+ The discord and the dissonance is my blood, my breath, my life!
+ The discord and the dissonance is my life!
+
+ Away with flutes and dancing lutes--
+ Such music likes but lovers' ears:
+ Give me the beating battledrum,
+ The gunpeal and the cheers!
+ The bellowing pipe and battledrum,
+ The gunpeal and the cheers!
+
+
+
+
+THREE COLTS EXERCISING IN A SIX-ACRE
+
+
+ Three colts exercising in a six-acre,
+ A hilly sweep of unfenced grass over the road.
+
+ What a picture they make against the skyline!
+ Necks stretched, hocks moving royally, tails flying;
+ Farm-lads up, and they crouching low on their withers.
+
+ I have a journey to go--
+ A lawyer to see, and a paper to sign in the Tontine--
+ But I slacken my pace to watch them.
+
+
+
+
+THE NATURAL
+
+
+ "Lend us the loan of a halfpenny, sir!"--
+ And he passed with his splendid nose in the air.
+
+ A gaunt, grey carcase of skin and bones,
+ As cold as the river, as hard as the stones.
+
+ To him the highway was table and bed,
+ Shift for the newborn and sheet for the dead.
+
+ The wind that blew from Beola crest
+ Seemed fire to fetter his wild unrest.
+
+ The rain that beat on his neck and face,
+ A goad to quicken him in his pace.
+
+ But sorrow a step he changed, and his prayer
+ Was still--"Lend us the loan of a halfpenny, sir!"
+
+
+
+
+ON THE TOP-STONE
+
+
+ On the top-stone.
+ A nipping wind blowing.
+ Winter dusk closing in from the south Ards.
+ The moon rising, white and fantastic, over the loch and the town below.
+ I take off my hat, salute her, and descend into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMEN AT THEIR DOORS
+
+
+ The babes were asleep in their cradles,
+ And the day's drudge was done,
+ And the women brought their suppers out
+ To eat them in the sun.
+
+ "To-night I will set my needles, Aine,
+ And Eoghan will have stockings to wear:
+ I spun the wool of the horny ewe
+ He bought at the hiring fair. . . .
+
+ "But what is that sound I hear, Nabla?--
+ It is like the cheering of men.
+ God keep our kind from the devil's snare!"
+ And the women answered, "Amen!"
+
+ Then the moon rose over the valley,
+ And the cheering died away,
+ And the women went within their doors
+ At the mouth of the summer day.
+
+ And no men came in at midnight,
+ And no men came in at the dawn,
+ And the women keened by their ashy fires
+ Till their faces were haggard and wan.
+
+ For they knew they had gone to the trysting
+ With pike and musketoon,
+ To fight for their hearths and altars
+ At the rising of the moon!
+
+
+
+
+MY LITTLE DARK LOVE
+
+
+ My little dark love is a wineberry,
+ As swarth and as sweet, I hold;
+ But as the dew on the wineberry
+ Her heart is a-cold.
+
+ I would her love were as warm as the light
+ That lives in her eye of grey,
+ And then my heart would know the peace
+ It dreams in the hills away.
+
+ I would her love were as red as the rose
+ That blows on her cheek of brown,
+ And then my sunless soul would laugh
+ At the woe that weighs it down.
+
+ She dwells in the valley, my little dark love,
+ Where the river sings to the sea,
+ And an ogham-stone sits by her door,
+ And nigh to it hazels three.
+
+ And oft when the purple twilight comes,
+ And the blind bats flit in the air,
+ I wander down from the quiet hills
+ To seek my sweetheart there.
+
+ But she comes never--she loves not me,
+ Nor ever will love, I hold;
+ For tho' my heart is a peat of fire,
+ Her heart is a-cold!
+
+
+
+
+I HEARD A PIPER PIPING
+
+
+ I heard a piper piping
+ The blue hills among--
+ And never did I hear
+ So plaintive a song.
+
+ It seemed but a part
+ Of the hills' melancholy:
+ No piper living there
+ Could ever be jolly!
+
+ And still the piper piped
+ The blue hills among,
+ And all the birds were quiet
+ To listen to his song.
+
+
+
+
+THE CLOUDS GO BY AND BY
+
+
+ The clouds go by and by,
+ The heron sings in the blue--
+ And I lie dreaming, dreaming
+ Ever of you.
+
+ The stag on the hill is free,
+ And the wind is blowing sweet--
+ But I lie bound a prisoner
+ At your feet.
+
+
+
+
+DAVY DAW
+
+
+ Woa! are you there my bonny mare?
+ Your whinny seems to say--
+ "By Bealach forge and Creagach fair
+ We'll gallop hard to-day!"
+ You champ your snaffle all to foam,
+ And fleck your counter bright;
+ But now we bid adieu to home
+ Until the fall of night.
+ Davy Daw, Davy Daw, with his early horn,
+ His hunting-crop and bag of corn--
+ His heart's as merry as a mottle-thrush
+ That sings all day in the hawthorn bush.
+
+ Come hither, Bran of ancient seed,
+ And lick your master's hand;
+ I swear no dog of purer breed
+ Is found in all the land.
+ Brave scion of Cuchullain's branch,
+ Well do you, hound, uphold
+ The prowess and the courage staunch
+ That marked your line of old.
+ Davy Daw, Davy Daw, my merry man,
+ I love toast crab in a pewter can.
+ Our tastes are like as like can be--
+ But a measure of ale in the can for me!
+
+ The wind is low and scent is good,
+ And Mada's on the green:
+ He hid his head in Cratla Wood
+ Since early yestere'en.
+ You beat the bush from peep of light,
+ And set the whins afire;
+ And now the tory is in sight,
+ You've got your heart's desire.
+ Davy Daw, Davy Daw, for a crab well-browned
+ In the smiling flood of a cruiscin drowned.
+ Give me, sirree, my crab and ale,
+ And bog or batter, my heart won't fail!
+
+ The sun is out, and Davy's up,
+ And hounds are on the run:
+ It's hard he'll earn his stirrup-cup
+ Before the day is done!
+ A jolly life we hunters lead
+ Upon the saddle high:
+ We see no devil in the bead,
+ And drain our noggins dry.
+ Davy Daw, Davy Daw is a huntsman bold;
+ He's more to me than a kingdom's gold.
+ A hind for dinner and a hare to sup--
+ O that's what I get when Davy's up!
+
+ The fox is fast upon the hill,
+ He's wary in the dale;
+ But I will ride to Penny Mill
+ Before I lose his tail.
+ That brush was born to make a cap
+ For gallant Eoin Og;
+ And I will have it, hang-or-hap,
+ As sure as I'm a rogue.
+ Davy Daw, Davy Daw, for a morning chase,
+ With an Irish blood to make the pace:
+ He's last to check and first to view,
+ And hard to the death he leads his queue.
+
+ Day in we hunt the spinney fox,
+ Day out the rapparee;
+ _His_ cave is in the broken rocks
+ Above the Correi-buidhe.
+ A shameful thing, the ladies say,
+ To hunt your fellow-man;
+ But follow him till hard at bay
+ It's just the ladies can!
+ Davy Daw, Davy Daw, the brush is won!
+ A good job, sir, our work is done.
+ Whitefoot went lame this side o' the mill,
+ And I'm as dry as an old lime-kiln.
+
+ Red rogue, he'll kill his goose no more:
+ Close work it was, for the light is o'er.
+ Just _close_ work, sir, but the Dub's _close to_,
+ With a can for me and a crab for you!
+
+
+
+
+BLACK SILE OF THE SILVER EYE
+
+
+ As I rode down to Gartan fair
+ I met a girl upon the way:
+ The winter night was on her hair,
+ The summer dawn was in her eye.
+
+ And O, she stepped with such a gait,
+ And bore her round black head so high,
+ And tossed it so, I knew her straight
+ For Sile of the Silver Eye.
+
+ "God save you, Sile, love," says I:
+ "God save you kindly," murmured she--
+ And love was welling in her eye
+ As she dropped me the courtesy.
+
+ The mountain boys upon the road
+ Were at themselves for jealousy
+ When they saw Seamus win the nod
+ From Sile of the Silver Eye.
+
+ We rode together to the fair,
+ We danced together on the green;
+ And, faith, they say a suppler pair
+ Was ne'er before a piper seen.
+
+ Black Sile of the Silver Eye
+ Has been my wife for twenty year,
+ And still her sloe-black head is high,
+ And still her eye is silver clear.
+
+ And, God be praised, we have a girl,
+ As like her as like well can be--
+ The round black head, the roguish curl,
+ The soft tongue and the silver eye.
+
+ God bless the old, God bless the new,
+ And send them stout posterity--
+ Old Sile and young Sile, too--
+ Both "Sile of the Silver Eye!"
+
+
+
+
+A SHEEPDOG BARKS ON THE MOUNTAIN
+
+
+ A sheepdog barks on the mountain,
+ The night is fallen cold;
+ The shepherd blinks at his fire,
+ The sheep are in the fold.
+
+ The moon comes white and quiet
+ Into the winter sky;
+ And nothing walks the valley
+ To-night but you and I.
+
+
+
+
+DEAD OAKLEAVES EVERYWHERE
+
+
+ Dead oakleaves everywhere
+ Under my feet,
+ Filling the forest air
+ With odours sweet.
+
+ Acorns, three, four and five,
+ Falling apace.
+ Thank God I am alive
+ This day of grace!
+
+
+
+
+A NIGHT PRAYER
+
+
+ Pray for me, Seachnal,
+ Pray for me, Mel:
+ Save me from sin
+ And the cold stone of hell!
+
+ Brigid and Ita
+ And Eithne the Red,
+ Spread out your mantles
+ And cover my bed!
+
+ For rann and gospel
+ Have gone from my mind,
+ And devils are walking
+ Abroad in the wind!
+
+
+
+
+I AM THE MOUNTAINY SINGER
+
+
+ I am the mountainy singer,
+ And I would sing of the Christ
+ Who followed the paths thro' the mountains
+ To eat at the people's tryst.
+
+ He loved the sun-dark people
+ As the young man loves his bride,
+ And he moved among their thatches,
+ And for them he was crucified.
+
+ And the people loved him, also,
+ More than their houses or lands,
+ For they had known his pity
+ And felt the touch of his hands.
+
+ And they dreamed with him in the mountains,
+ And they walked with him on the sea,
+ And they prayed with him in the garden,
+ And bled with him on the tree.
+
+ Not ever by longing and dreaming
+ May they come to him now,
+ But by the thorns of sorrow
+ That bruised his kingly brow.
+
+
+
+
+THE RAINBOW SPANNING A PLANET SHOWER
+
+
+ The rainbow spanning a planet shower,
+ The sloe in berry, the flax in flower.
+
+ The scholar's satchel, the beggar's staff,
+ The ploughman's whistle, the tinker's laugh.
+
+ The stranded hooker, the breaking wave,
+ The sunrise gilding the carn of Medb.
+
+ The strength of mountains, the swiftness of wind
+ Blowing over the leagues behind.
+
+ The hot lips sealing the spoken word,
+ The song in gentle places heard.
+
+ The wildgoose trumpeting in the blue,
+ The postcar stuck in a drift of snow.
+
+ The bogslide moving, the seaward leap,
+ The cry, the townland whelmed in sleep.
+
+ The sock on the anvil, the thread in the loom,
+ The Host on the altar, the child in the womb.
+
+ The wayside murder, the whispered name,
+ The hanging body, the hidden shame.
+
+ And more--if you but listen and look--
+ In this, my elemental book!
+
+
+
+
+I WILL GO WITH MY FATHER A-PLOUGHING
+
+
+ I will go with my father a-ploughing
+ To the green field by the sea,
+ And the rooks and the crows and the seagulls
+ Will come flocking after me.
+ I will sing to the patient horses
+ With the lark in the white of the air,
+ And my father will sing the plough-song
+ That blesses the cleaving share.
+
+ I will go with my father a-sowing
+ To the red field by the sea,
+ And the rooks and the gulls and the starlings
+ Will come flocking after me.
+ I will sing to the striding sowers
+ With the finch on the greening sloe,
+ And my father will sing the seed-song
+ That only the wise men know.
+
+ I will go with my father a-reaping
+ To the brown field by the sea,
+ And the geese and the crows and the children
+ Will come flocking after me.
+ I will sing to the tanfaced reapers
+ With the wren in the heat of the sun,
+ And my father will sing the scythe-song
+ That joys for the harvest done.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHINING SPACES OF THE SOUTH
+
+
+ The shining spaces of the south,
+ The circle of the year, the sea,
+ The blowing rose, the maiden's mouth,
+ The love, the hate, the ecstasy,
+ The golden wood, the shadowed stream,
+ The dew, the light, the wind, the rain,
+ The man's desire, the woman's dream,
+ The bed embrace, the childing pain,
+ The sound of music heard afar,
+ The breathing grass, the broken sod,
+ The sun, the moon, the twilight star--
+ Do all proclaim the mind of God.
+ Then why should I, who am but clay,
+ Think otherwise, or answer nay?
+
+
+
+
+LIKE A TUFT OF CEANABHAN
+
+
+ Like a tuft of _ceanabhan_
+ Blowing in the wind
+ Is my slender Aine Ban--
+ White and soft and kind.
+
+ Kind her heart is, but her clann's
+ Cold as clay or stone.
+ Would that I had herds and lands
+ To take her for my own!
+
+
+
+
+THE HERB-LEECH
+
+
+ I have gathered _luss_
+ At the wane of the moon,
+ And supped its sap
+ With a yewen spoon.
+ I have sat a spell
+ By the carn of Medb,
+ And smelt the mould
+ Of the red queen's grave.
+ I have dreamed a dearth
+ In the darkened sun,
+ And felt the hand
+ Of the Evil One.
+ I have fathomed war
+ In the comet's tail,
+ And heard the crying
+ Of Gall and Gael.
+ I have seen the spume
+ On the dead priest's lips,
+ And the "holy fire"
+ On the spars of ships;
+ And the shooting stars
+ On Barthelmy's Night,
+ Blanching the dark
+ With ghostly light;
+ And the corpse-candle
+ Of the seer's dream,
+ Bigger in girth
+ Than a weaver's beam;
+ And the shy hearth-fairies
+ About the grate,
+ Blowing the turves
+ To a whiter heat.
+ All things on earth
+ To me are known,
+ For I have the gift
+ Of the Murrain Stone!
+
+
+
+
+WHO BUYS LAND
+
+
+ Who buys land buys many stones,
+ Who buys flesh buys many bones;
+ Who buys eggs buys many shells,
+ Who buys love buys nothing else.
+
+ Love is a burr upon the floor,
+ Love is a thief behind the door;
+ Who loves leman for her breath
+ May quench his fire and cry for death!
+
+ Love is a bridle, love is a load,
+ Love is a thorn upon the road;
+ Love is the fly that flits its hour,
+ Love is the shining venom-flower.
+
+ Love is a net, love is a snare,
+ Love is a bubble blown with air;
+ Love starts hot, and waning cold,
+ Is withered in the grave's mould!
+
+
+
+
+THE POET LOOSED A WINGED SONG
+
+
+ The poet loosed a winged song
+ Against the hulk of England's wrong.
+ Were poisoned words at his command,
+ 'Twould not avail for Ireland.
+
+ The soldier lifted up a sword,
+ And on the hills in battle poured
+ His life-blood like an ebbing sea--
+ And still we pine for liberty.
+
+ The friar spoke his bitter hope,
+ And danced upon the gallows rope.
+ Were he to dance that dance again
+ A hundred times, 'twould be in vain.
+
+ Christ save us! only thou canst save!
+ The nation staggers to the grave.
+ Can genius, valour, faith be given,
+ And win no recompense of heaven?
+
+ No, Christ! by Ireland's martyrs, no!
+ 'Twas not for this we suffered so.
+ Die, die again on Calvary tree,
+ If needs be, Christ, to set us free!
+ To set us free!
+
+
+
+
+SIC TRANSIT
+
+
+ I lit my tallow
+ An hour ago,
+ And now it is burning
+ Dark and low.
+
+ The glimmer lengthens
+ And turns about,
+ Sinks in the sconce--
+ Then flickers out!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Mountainy Singer, by Seosamh MacCathmhaoil
+
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