The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Read online

  I did not get this wounded heart

  from fostering just anyone;

  Jesu and his heavenly gang

  curl up with me when day is done.

  Jesukin gives me every good

  and he gets a just return;

  you try praying to any other

  and in eternity you’ll burn.

  No Partholán, Aedh or corner boy

  is nurtured in my secret shade

  but Jesu, bright angel-headed

  son of the Judaean maid.

  Sons of puffed-up priests and chiefs

  plead for my sweet fostering

  but how can I have time for them

  when all my care is Jesukin?

  You owe your most tuneful praise,

  you girls with tender voices,

  to Him who reigns in heaven’s height

  – and under my pierced breast rejoices.

  PC

  St Brigit’s Housewarming

  What I would like

  is the mother of all parties

  for the King and his mates

  drinking late into eternity;

  what I would like

  is one pure malt of faith

  and to chase it I’d like

  a penitential flail;

  what I would like

  is heaven’s men in my kitchen

  and to serve them I’d like

  casks brimming with patience;

  what I would like

  is to fill cups with charity

  and to wash them down I’d like

  bumpers spilling over with mercy;

  what I would like

  is plenty for all of us

  and in our midst I’d like

  my own dear Jesus;

  what I would like

  is the three Maries in my parlour

  and friends joining them I’d like

  from heaven’s every quarter;

  what I would like

  is to be the vassal of my Lord,

  suffering sorrow for his sake,

  servant to his living word.

  PC

  CORMAC, KING BISHOP OF CASHEL

  (837–903)

  The Heavenly Pilot

  Wilt Thou steer my frail black bark

  O’er the dark broad ocean’s foam?

  Wilt Thou come, Lord, to my boat,

  Where afloat, my will would roam?

  Thine the mighty: Thine the small:

  Thine to mark men fall, like rain;

  God! wilt Thou grant aid to me

  Who come o’er th’ upheaving main?

  George Sigerson

  Poems Relating to Colum Cille (Columba) (521–593/7)

  DALLÁN FORGAILL

  (d.598)

  from Amra Colm Cille (Lament for Colum Cille)

  I

  Not newsless is Níall’s land.

  No slight sigh from one plain,

  but great woe, great outcry.

  Unbearable the tale this verse tells:

  Colum, lifeless, churchless.

  How will a fool tell him – even Neire –

  the prophet has settled at God’s right hand in Sion.

  Now he is not, nothing is left to us, no relief for a soul, our sage.

  For he has died to us, the leader of nations who guarded the living,

  he has died to us, who was our chief of the needy,

  he has died to us, who was our messenger of the Lord;

  for we do not have the seer who used to keep fears from us,

  for he does not return to us, he who would explain the true Word,

  for we do not have the teacher who would teach the tribes of the Tay.

  The whole world, it was his:

  It is a harp without a key,

  it is a church without an abbot.

  II

  By the grace of God Colum rose to exalted companionship;

  awaiting bright signs, he kept watch while he lived.

  His lifetime was short,

  scant portions filled him.

  He was learning’s pillar in every stronghold,

  he was foremost at the book of complex Law.

  The northern land shone,

  the western people blazed,

  he lit up the east

  with chaste clerics.

  Good the legacy of God’s angel

  when he glorified him.

  V

  He ran the course which runs past hatred to right action.

  The teacher wove the word.

  By his wisdom he made glosses clear.

  He fixed the Psalms,

  he made known the books of Law,

  those books Cassian loved.

  He won battles with gluttony.

  The books of Solomon, he followed them.

  Seasons and calculations he set in motion.

  He separated the elements according to figures among the books of the Law.

  He read mysteries and distributed the Scriptures among the schools,

  and he put together the harmony concerning the course of the moon,

  the course which it ran with the rayed sun,

  and the course of the sea.

  He could number the stars of heaven, the one who could tell all the rest

  which we have heard from Colum Cille.

  Thomas Owen Clancy

  COLUM CILLE

  (attrib.)

  The Maker on High

  ANCIENT exalted seed-scatterer whom time gave no progenitor:

  he knew no moment of creation in his primordial foundation

  he is and will be all places in all time and all ages

  with Christ his first-born only-born and the holy spirit co-borne

  throughout the high eternity of glorious divinity:

  three gods we do not promulgate one God we state and intimate

  salvific faith victorious: three persons very glorious.

  BENEVOLENCE created angels and all the orders of archangels

  thrones and principalities powers virtues qualities

  denying otiosity to the excellence and majesty

  of the not-inactive trinity in all labours of bounty

  when it mustered heavenly creatures whose well devised natures

  received its lavish proffer through power-word for ever.

  CAME down from heaven summit down from angelic limit

  dazzling in his brilliance beauty’s very likeness

  Lucifer downfalling (once woke at heaven’s calling)

  apostate angels sharing the deadly downfaring

  of the author of high arrogance and indurated enviousness

  the rest still continuing safe in their dominions.

  DAUNTINGLY huge and horrible the dragon ancient and terrible

  known as the lubric serpent subtler in his element

  than all the beasts and every fierce thing living earthly

  dragged a third – so many – stars to his gehenna

  down to infernal regions not devoid of dungeons

  benighted ones hell’s own parasite hurled headlong.

  EXCELLENT promethean armoury structuring world harmony

  had created earth and heaven and wet acres of ocean

  also sprouting vegetation shrubs groves plantations

  sun moon stars to ferry fire and all things necessary

  birds fish and cattle and every animal imaginable

  but lastly the second promethean the protoplast human being.

  FAST upon the starry finishing the lights high shimmering

  the angels convened and celebrated for the wonders just created

  the Lord the only artificer of that enormous vault of matter

  with loud and well judged voices unwavering in their praises

  an unexampled symphony of gratitude and sympathy

  sung not by force of nature but freely lovingly grateful.

  GUILTY of assault and seduction of our parents in the garden

  the devil has a second falling togeth
er with his followers

  whose faces set in horror and wingbeats whistling hollow

  would petrify frail creatures into stricken fearers

  but what men perceive bodily must preclude luckily

  those now bound and bundled in dungeons of the underworld.

  HE Zabulus was driven by the Lord from mid heaven

  and with him the airy spaces were choked like drains with faeces

  as the turgid rump of rebels fell but fell invisible

  in case the grossest villains became willy-nilly

  with neither walls nor fences preventing curious glances

  tempters to sin greatly openly emulatingly.

  IRRIGATING clouds showering wet winter from sea-fountains

  from floods of the abysses three-fourths down through fishes

  up to the skyey purlieus in deep blue whirlpools

  good rain then for cornfields vineyard-bloom and grain-yields

  driven by blasts emerging from their airy treasuring

  desiccating not the land-marches but the facing sea-marshes.

  KINGS of the world we live in: their glories are uneven

  brittle tyrannies disembodied by a frown from God’s forehead:

  giants too underwater groaning in great horror

  forced to burn like torches cut by painful tortures

  pounded in the millstones of underworld maelstroms

  roughed rubbed out buried in a frenzy of flints and billows.

  LETTING the waters be sifted from where the clouds are lifted

  the Lord often prevented the flood he once attempted

  leaving the conduits utterly full and rich as udders

  slowly trickling and panning through the tracts of this planet

  freezing if cold was called for warm in the cells of summer

  keeping our rivers everywhere running forward for ever.

  MAGISTERIAL are his powers as the great God poises

  the earth ball encircled by the great deep so firmly

  supported by an almighty robust nieve so tightly

  that you would think pillar and column held it strong and solemn

  the capes and cliffs stationed on solidest foundations

  fixed uniquely in their place as if on immovable bases.

  NO one needs to show us: a hell lies deep below us

  where there is said to be darkness worms beasts carnage

  where there are fires of sulphur burning to make us suffer

  where men are gnashing roaring weeping wailing deploring

  where groans mount from gehennas terrible never-ending

  where parched and fiery horror feeds thirst and hunger.

  OFTEN on their knees at prayer are many said to be there

  under the earth books tell us they do not repel us

  though they found it unavailing the scroll not unrolling

  whose fixed seals were seven when Christ warning from heaven

  unsealed it with the gesture of a resurrected victor

  fulfilling the prophets’ foreseeing of his coming and his decreeing.

  PARADISE was planted primally as God wanted

  we read in sublime verses entering into Genesis

  its fountain’s rich waters feed four flowing rivers

  its heart abounds with flowers where the tree of life towers

  with foliage never fading for the healing of the nations

  and delights indescribable abundantly fruitful.

  QUIZ sacred Sinai: who is it has climbed so high?

  Who has heard the thunder-cracks vast in the sky-tracts?

  Who has heard the enormous bullroaring of the war-horns?

  Who has seen the lightning flashing round the night-ring?

  Who has seen javelins flambeaus a rock-face in shambles?

  Only to Moses is this real only to the judge of Israel.

  RUE God’s day arriving righteous high king’s assizing

  dies irae day of the vindex day of cloud and day of cinders

  day of the dumbfoundering day of great thundering

  day of lamentation of anguish of confusion

  with all the love and yearning of women unreturning

  as all men’s striving and lust for worldly living.

  STANDING in fear and trembling with divine judgement assembling

  we shall stammer what we expended before our life was ended

  faced by rolling videos of our crimes however hideous

  forced to read the pages of the conscience book of ages

  we shall burst out into weeping sobbing bitter and unceasing now

  that all means of action have tholed the last retraction.

  THE archangelic trumpet-blast is loud and great at every fastness

  the hardest vaults spring open the catacombs are broken

  the dead of the world are thawing their cold rigor withdrawing

  the bones are running and flying to the joints of the undying

  their souls hurry to meet them and celestially to greet them

  returning both together to be one not one another.

  VAGRANT Orion driven from the crucial hinge of heaven

  leaves the Pleiades receding most splendidly beneath him

  tests the ocean boundaries the oriental quandaries

  as Vesper circling steadily returns home readily

  the rising Lucifer of the morning after two years mourning:

  these things are to be taken as type and trope and token.

  X SPIKES and flashes like the Lord’s cross marching

  down with him from heaven as the last sign is given

  moonlight and sunlight are finally murdered

  stars fall from dignity like fruits from a fig-tree

  the world’s whole surface burns like a furnace

  armies are crouching in caves in the mountains.

  YOU know then the singing of hymns finely ringing

  thousands of angels advancing spring up in sacred dances

  quartet of beasts gaze from numberless eyes in praise

  two dozen elders as happiness compels them

  throw all their crowns down to the Lamb who surmounts them

  ‘Holy holy holy’ binds the eternal trinity.

  ZABULUS burns to ashes all those adversaries

  who deny that the Saviour was Son to the Father

  but we shall fly to meet him and immediately greet him

  and be with him in the dignity of all such diversity

  as our deeds make deserved and we without swerve

  shall live beyond history in the state of glory.

  Edwin Morgan (Latin)

  Colum Cille’s Exile

  This were pleasant, O Son of God,

  with wondrous coursing

  to sail across the swelling torrent

  back to Ireland.

  To Eólarg’s plain, past Benevanagh,

  across Loch Feval,

  and there to hear the swans in chorus

  chanting music.

  And when my boat, the Derg Drúchtach,

  at last made harbour

  in Port na Ferg the joyful Foyle-folk

  would sound a welcome.

  I ever long for the land of Ireland

  where I had power,

  an exile now in midst of strangers,

  sad and tearful.

  Woe that journey forced upon me,

  O King of Secrets;

  would to God I’d never gone there,

  to Cooldrevne.

  Well it is for son of Dímma

  in his cloister,

  and happy I but were I hearing

  with him in Durrow

  the wind that ever plays us music

  in the elm-trees,

  and sudden cry of startled blackbird,

  wing a-beating.

  And listen early in Ros Grencha

  to stags a-belling,

  and when cuckoo, at brink of summer,

  joins in chorus.

  I have loved the l
and of Ireland

  – I cry for parting;

  to sleep at Comgall’s, visit Canice,

  this were pleasant.

  James Carney

  He Sets His Back on Ireland

  A grey eye

  will look on Ireland with a sigh;

  for never will it see again

  Ireland’s women or her men.

  PC

  He Remembers Derry

  Three reasons I love Derry:

  it is calm, it is bright,

  it is a thoroughfare for angels

  all day and all night.

  PC

  ‘My hand is weary with writing’

  My hand is weary with writing,

  My sharp quill is not steady,

  My slender-beaked pen juts forth

  A black draught of shining dark-blue ink.

  A stream of the wisdom of blessed God

  Springs from my fair-brown shapely hand:

  On the page it squirts its draught

  Of ink of the green-skinned holly.

  My little dripping pen travels

  Across the plain of shining books,

  Without ceasing for the wealth of the great –

  Whence my hand is weary with writing.

  Kuno Meyer

  BECCÁN THE HERMIT

  (d.677)

  Last Verses in Praise of Colum Cille

  He brings northward to meet the Lord a bright crowd of chancels –

  Colum Cille, kirks for hundreds, widespread candle.

  Wonderful news: a realm with God after the race,

  a grand kingdom, since He’s set out my life’s progress.

  He broke passions, brought to ruin secure prisons;

  Colum Cille overcame them with bright actions.

  Connacht’s candle, Britain’s candle, splendid ruler;

  in scores of curraghs with an army of wretches he crossed the long-haired sea.

  He crossed the wave-strewn wild region, foam-flecked, seal-filled,

  savage, bounding, seething, white-tipped, pleasing, doleful.

  Wisdom’s champion all round Ireland, he was exalted;

  excellent name: Europe is nursed, Britain’s sated.

  Stout post, milk of meditation, with broad actions,

  Colum Cille, perfect customs, fairer than trappings.

  On the loud sea he cried to the King who rules thousands,

  who rules the plain above cleared fields, kings and countries.

  In the Trinity’s care he sought a ship – good his leaving –