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.
The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 11
