The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 10
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 –