The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Read online

  on high with God, who always watched him, morning, evening.

  Shepherd of monks, judge of clerics, finer than things,

  than kingly gates, than sounds of plagues, than battalions.

  Colum Cille, candle brightening legal theory;

  the race he ran pierced the midnight of Erc’s region.

  The skies’ kind one, he tends the clouds of harsh heaven;

  my soul’s shelter, my poetry’s fort, Conal’s descendant.

  Fame with virtues, a good life, his: barque of treasure,

  sea of knowledge, Conal’s offspring, people’s counsellor.

  Leafy oak-tree, soul’s protection, rock of safety,

  the sun of monks, mighty ruler, Colum Cille.

  Beloved of God, he lived against a stringent rock,

  a rough struggle, the place one could find Colum’s bed.

  He crucified his body, left behind sleek sides;

  he chose learning, embraced stone slabs, gave up bedding.

  He gave up beds, abandoned sleep, finest actions;

  conquered angers, was ecstatic, sleeping little.

  He possessed books, renounced fully claims of kinship:

  for love of learning he gave up wars, gave up strongholds.

  He left chariots, he loved ships, foe to falsehood;

  sun-like exile, sailing, he left fame’s steel bindings.

  Colum Cille, Colum who was, Colum who will be,

  constant Colum, not he a protector to be lamented.

  Colum, we sing, until death’s tryst, after, before,

  by poetry’s rules, which gives welcome to him we serve.

  I pray a great prayer to Eithne’s son – better than treasure –

  my soul to his right hand, to heaven, before the world’s people.

  He worked for God, kingly prayer, within church ramparts,

  with angels’ will, Conal’s household’s child, in vestments.

  Triumphant plea: adoring God, nightly, daily,

  with hands outstretched, with splendid alms, with right actions.

  Fine his body, Colum Cille, heaven’s cleric –

  a widowed crowd – well-spoken just one, tongue triumphant.

  Thomas Owen Clancy

  Epigrams

  ANONYMOUS

  The Blackbird of Belfast Lough

  The small bird

  chirp-chirruped:

  yellow neb,

  a note-spurt.

  Blackbird over

  Lagan water.

  Clumps of yellow

  whin-burst!

  Seamus Heaney

  Bee

  A tremor of yellow from blossom to blossom

  the day-shift bee stays out with the sun

  then booms across the darkening valley

  to his happy date with the honeycomb.

  PC

  Parsimony

  Don’t expect horses

  from him for your verses

  just what befits the louse –

  cows.

  PC

  An Ill Wind

  With that fierce storm out there

  whipping to frenzy the ocean’s hair,

  my mind is quiet as the placid sea

  the Norseman needs to get to me.

  PC

  The King of Connacht

  ‘Have you seen Hugh,

  The Connacht king in the field?’

  ‘All that we saw

  Was his shadow under his shield.’

  Frank O’Connor

  Sunset

  In Lough Leane

  a queen went swimming;

  a redgold salmon

  flowed into her

  at full of evening.

  John Montague

  ‘He is my love’

  He is my love,

  my sweet nutgrove:

  a boy he is –

  for him a kiss.

  Michael Hartnett

  World and Otherworld

  ANONYMOUS

  Storm at Sea

  Tempest on the plain of Lir

  Bursts its barriers far and near,

  And upon the rising tide

  Wind and noisy winter ride –

  Winter throws a shining spear.

  When the wind blows from the east

  All the billows seem possessed,

  To the west they storm away

  To the farthest, wildest bay

  Where the light turns to its rest.

  When the wind is from the north

  The fierce and shadowy waves go forth,

  Leaping, snarling at the sky,

  To the southern world they fly

  And the confines of the earth.

  When the wind is from the west

  All the waves that cannot rest

  To the east must thunder on

  Where the bright tree of the sun

  Is rooted in the ocean’s breast.

  When the wind is from the south

  The waves turn to a devil’s broth,

  Crash in foam on Skiddy’s beach,

  For Caladnet’s summit reach,

  Batter Limerick’s grey-green mouth.

  Ocean’s full! The sea’s in flood,

  Beautiful is the ships’ abode;

  In the Bay of the Two Beasts

  The sandy wind in eddies twists,

  The rudder holds a shifting road.

  Every bay in Ireland booms

  When the flood against it comes –

  Winter throws a spear of fire!

  Round Scotland’s shores and by Cantyre

  A mountainous surging chaos glooms.

  God’s Son of hosts that none can tell

  The fury of the storm repel!

  Dread Lord of the sacrament,

  Save me from the wind’s intent,

  Spare me from the blast of Hell.

  Frank O’Connor

  Summer Has Come

  Summer has come, healthy and free,

  Whence the brown wood is aslope;

  The slender nimble deer leap,

  And the path of seals is smooth.

  The cuckoo sings sweet music,

  Whence there is smooth restful sleep;

  Gentle birds leap upon the hill,

  And swift grey stags.

  Heat has laid hold of the rest of the deer –

  The lovely cry of curly packs!

  The white extent of the strand smiles,

  There the swift sea is.

  A sound of playful breezes in the tops

  Of a black oakwood is Drum Daill,

  The noble hornless herd runs,

  To whom Cuan-wood is a shelter.

  Green bursts out on every herb,

  The top of the green oakwood is bushy,

  Summer has come, winter has gone,

  Twisted hollies wound the hound.

  The blackbird sings a loud strain,

  To him the live wood is a heritage,

  The sad angry sea is fallen asleep,

  The speckled salmon leaps.

  The sun smiles over every land, –

  A parting for me from the brood of cares:

  Hounds bark, stags tryst,

  Ravens flourish, summer has come!

  Kuno Meyer

  Gaze North-East

  Gaze north-east

  over heaving crest

  with sea press

  ceaseless:

  seals’ road

  for sleek sport

  the tide run to

  fulness.

  John Montague

  Winter

  Chill, chill!

  All Moylurg is cold and still,

  Where can deer a-hungered go

  When the snow lies like a hill?

  Cold till doom!

  All the world obeys its rule,

  Every track become a stream,

  Every ford become a pool.

  Every pool become a lake,

  Every lake become a sea,

  Even horses cannot cros
s

  The ford at Ross so how can we?

  All the fish in Ireland stray

  When the cold winds smite the bay,

  In the towns no voice is heard,

  Bell and bird have had their say.

  Even the wolves in Cuan Wood

  Cannot find a place to rest

  When the small wren of Lon Hill

  Is not still within her nest.

  The small quire of birds has passed

  In cold snow and icy blast,

  And the blackbird of Cuan Wood

  Finds no shelter that holds fast.

  Nothing’s easy but our pot,

  Our old shack on the hill is not,

  For in woodlands crushed with snow

  On Ben Bo the trail’s forgot.

  The old eagle of Glen Rye,

  Even he forgets to fly,

  With ice crusted on his beak,

  He is now too weak to cry.

  Best lie still

  In wool and feathers, take your fill,

  Ice is thick on every ford

  And the word I chose is ‘chill’.

  Frank O’Connor

  World Gone Wrong

  An evil world is now at hand:

  In which men shall be in bondage, women free;

  Mast wanting, woods smooth, blossom bad;

  Winds many, wet summer, green corn;

  Much cattle, scant milk;

  Dependants burdensome in every country!

  Hogs lean, chiefs wicked;

  Bad faith, chronic killings:

  A world withered, graves in number.

  Standish Hayes O’Grady

  from The Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal, to the Land of the Living

  The Sea-God’s Address To Bran

  Then on the morrow Bran went upon the sea. When he had been at sea two days and two nights, he saw a man in a chariot coming towards him over the sea. It was Manannan, the son of Ler, who sang these quatrains to him.

  To Bran in his coracle it seems

  A marvellous beauty across the clear sea:

  To me in my chariot from afar

  It is a flowery plain on which he rides.

  What is a clear sea

  For the prowed skiff in which Bran is,

  That to me in my chariot of two wheels

  Is a delightful plain with a wealth of flowers.

  Bran sees

  A mass of waves beating across the clear sea:

  I see myself in the Plain of Sports

  Red-headed flowers that have no fault.

  Sea-horses glisten in summer

  As far as Bran can stretch his glance:

  Rivers pour forth a stream of honey

  In the land of Manannan, son of Ler.

  The sheen of the main on which thou art,

  The dazzling white of the sea on which thou rowest about –

  Yellow and azure are spread out,

  It is a light and airy land.

  Speckled salmon leap from the womb

  Out of the white sea on which thou lookest:

  They are calves, they are lambs of fair hue,

  With truce, without mutual slaughter.

  Though thou seest but one chariot-rider

  In the Pleasant Plain of many flowers,

  There are many steeds on its surface,

  Though them thou seest not.

  Large is the plain, numerous is the host,

  Colours shine with pure glory,

  A white stream of silver, stairs of gold

  Afford a welcome with all abundance.

  An enchanting game, most delicious,

  They play over the luscious wine,

  Men and gentle women under a bush,

  Without sin, without transgression.

  Along the top of a wood

  Thy coracle has swum across ridges,

  There is a wood laden with beautiful fruit

  Under the prow of thy little skiff.

  A wood with blossom and with fruit

  On which is the vine’s veritable fragrance,

  A wood without decay, without defect,

  On which is a foliage of a golden hue.

  We are from the beginning of creation

  Without old age, without consummation of clay,

  Hence we expect not there might be frailty –

  Transgression has not come to us.

  Steadily then let Bran row!

  It is not far to the Land of Women:

  Evna with manifold bounteousness

  He will reach before the sun is set.

  Kuno Meyer

  The Voyage of Maeldune

  (Founded on an Irish legend, AD 700)

  I

  I was the chief of the race – he had stricken my father dead –

  But I gather’d my fellows together, I swore I would strike off his head.

  Each of them look’d like a king, and was noble in birth as in worth,

  And each of them boasted he sprang from the oldest race upon earth.

  Each was as brave in the fight as the bravest hero of song,

  And each of them liefer had died than have done one another a wrong.

  He lived on an isle in the ocean – we sail’d on a Friday morn –

  He that had slain my father the day before I was born.

  II

  And we came to the isle in the ocean, and there on the shore was he.

  But a sudden blast blew us out and away thro’ a boundless sea.

  III

  And we came to the Silent Isle that we never had touch’d at before,

  Where a silent ocean always broke on a silent shore,

  And the brooks glitter’d on in the light without sound, and the long waterfalls

  Pour’d in a thunderless plunge to the base of the mountain walls,

  And the poplar and cypress unshaken by storm flourish’d up beyond sight,

  And the pine shot aloft from the crag to an unbelievable height,

  And high in the heaven above it there flicker’d a songless lark,

  And the cock couldn’t crow, and the bull couldn’t low, and the dog couldn’t bark.

  And round it we went, and thro’ it, but never a murmur, a breath –

  It was all of it fair as life, it was all of it quiet as death,

  And we hated the beautiful Isle, for whenever we strove to speak

  Our voices were thinner and fainter than any flittermouse-shriek;

  And the men that were mighty of tongue and could raise such a battle-cry

  That a hundred who heard it would rush on a thousand lances and die –

  O they to be dumb’d by the charm! – so fluster’d with anger were they

  They almost fell on each other; but after we sail’d away.

  IV

  And we came to the Isle of Shouting, we landed, a score of wild birds

  Cried from the topmost summit with human voices and words;

  Once in an hour they cried, and whenever their voices peal’d

  The steer fell down at the plow and the harvest died from the field,

  And the men dropt dead in the valleys and half of the cattle went lame,

  And the roof sank in on the hearth, and the dwelling broke into flame;

  And the shouting of these wild birds ran into the hearts of my crew,

  Till they shouted along with the shouting and seized one another and slew;

  But I drew them the one from the other; I saw that we could not stay,

  And we left the dead to the birds and we sail’d with our wounded away.

  V

  And we came to the Isle of Flowers: their breath met us out on the seas,

  For the Spring and the middle Summer sat each on the lap of the breeze;

  And the red passion-flower to the cliffs, and the darkblue clematis clung,

  And starr’d with a myriad blossom the long convolvulus hung;

  And the topmost spire of the mountain was lilies in lieu of snow,

  And the lilies like
glaciers winded down, running out below

  Thro’ the fire of the tulip and poppy, the blaze of gorse, and the blush

  Of millions of roses that sprang without leaf or a thorn from the bush;

  And the whole isle-side flashing down from the peak without ever a tree

  Swept like a torrent of gems from the sky to the blue of the sea;

  And we roll’d upon capes of crocus and vaunted our kith and our kin,

  And we wallow’d in beds of lilies, and chanted the triumph of Finn,

  Till each like a golden image was pollen’d from head to feet

  And each was as dry as a cricket, with thirst in the middle-day heat.

  Blossom and blossom, and promise of blossom, but never a fruit!

  And we hated the Flowering Isle, as we hated the isle that was mute,

  And we tore up the flowers by the million and flung them in bight and bay,

  And we left but a naked rock, and in anger we sail’d away.

  VI

  And we came to the Isle of Fruits: all round from the cliffs and the capes,

  Purple or amber, dangled a hundred fathom of grapes,

  And the warm melon lay like a little sun on the tawny sand,

  And the fig ran up from the beach and rioted over the land,

  And the mountain arose like a jewell’d throne thro’ the fragrant air,

  Glowing with all-colour’d plums and with golden masses of pear,

  And the crimson and scarlet of berries that flamed upon bine and vine,

  But in every berry and fruit was the poisonous pleasure of wine;

  And the peak of the mountain was apples, the hugest that ever were seen,

  And they prest, as they grew, on each other, with hardly a leaflet between,

  And all of them redder than rosiest health or than utterest shame,

  And setting, when Even descended, the very sunset aflame;

  And we stay’d three days, and we gorged and we madden’d, till every one drew

  His sword on his fellow to slay him, and ever they struck and they slew;

  And myself, I had eaten but sparely, and fought till I sunder’d the fray,

  Then I bade them remember my father’s death, and we sail’d away.