The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry

by Patrick Crotty (ed)

  Stand that tawny spindle

  firmly on the piece

  and should you want for texture

  just move the balls down the crease.

  With my two dark balls of wool

  your fibres will interlock:

  our plaid will look amazing

  beside your trim of black.

  Make the frame like I said

  and I will take the strain,

  fulling the piece and plumping it

  over and over again.

  Slaney, daughter of Flanagan,

  you holy church’s abbess,

  lady from Dun Mananan,

  let’s make a right good piece!

  Máirin Ní Dhonnchadha and PC

  Death and the Maiden

  My girl I say be on your guard

  And put folly from your head,

  Take my counsel and be hard,

  Think of me and do not wed.

  Though you scorn advice today

  When your cheeks are bright and red

  And you do not know my way,

  Think of me and do not wed.

  Me? Yourself you do not know,

  Never saw yourself in dread,

  Pillared throat and breasts of snow –

  Think of me and do not wed.

  Give no man your love or hate,

  Leave the foolish words unsaid,

  Spare your kisses, they can wait –

  Think of me and do not wed.

  Think of me and do not wed,

  Let the road be smooth or hard,

  I shall be there when all are fled –

  My girl, I say be on your guard.

  Frank O’Connor

  He Praises His Wife when She Had Gone from Him

  White hands of languorous grace,

  Fair feet of stately pace

  And snowy-shining knees –

  My love was made of these.

  Stars glimmered in her hair,

  Slim was she, satin-fair;

  Dark like seal’s fur her brows

  Shadowed her cheek’s fresh rose.

  What words can match its worth,

  That beauty closed in earth,

  That courteous, stately air

  Winsome and shy and fair!

  To have known all this and be

  Tortured with memory

  – Curse on this waking breath –

  Makes me in love with death.

  Better to sleep than see

  This house now dark to me

  A lonely shell in place

  Of that unrivalled grace.

  Robin Flower

  A Jealous Man

  Listen jealous man

  What they say of you

  That you watch your wife

  Surely isn’t true?

  Such an ugly face

  The light loves disown;

  Much to your surprise

  Your wife is all your own.

  Other men must watch

  Who have wives to shield,

  Why should you put up

  A fence without a field?

  In a hundred none

  Is as safe as you,

  Nobody could think

  Such a thing was true.

  Men cry when they’re hurt,

  Your cry’s out of place,

  Who do you think would want

  Such an ugly face?

  Frank O’Connor

  Two Epigrams

  ANONYMOUS

  Jealousy

  Love like heat and cold

  Pierces and then is gone;

  Jealousy when it strikes

  Sticks in the marrowbone.

  Frank O’Connor

  At Mass

  Ah! light lovely lady with delicate lips aglow,

  With breast more white than a branch heavy-laden with snow,

  When my hand was uplifted at Mass to salute the Host

  I looked at you once, and the half of my soul was lost.

  Robin Flower

  TADHG ÓG Ó HUIGÍNN

  (d.1448)

  A School of Poetry Closes

  Tonight the schools break up,

  The beds will be deserted

  And we who occupied them

  Will weep and separate.

  Too bad so many of us

  Who bedded down last night

  Here in our usual places

  Won’t close an eye tonight.

  My God, how will I bear it?

  My home from home abandoned,

  And all its past fame cancelled.

  What is the sense of it?

  Towards Samhain the poetry class

  Would reassemble always:

  If one man were still with us

  This break-up would not happen.

  Whoever came here to him

  For lodging and art-training

  Would come to hate it, once

  The cuckoo started calling.

  For then the school broke up

  And students headed homeward –

  But now they won’t be back here

  For art or training ever.

  I would think long when that break came,

  I missed my class and master,

  But thinking long won’t soothe me

  For the death of Fearghal Rua.

  Since no one can replace him

  It is better to disperse now:

  Another teacher’s lessons

  Would be like going to prison.

  For thirty years and over –

  Let me be the first to say it –

  His esteem kept me alive.

  Now grief has dug my grave.

  My God, how will I bear it?

  I have drunk a bitter glassful,

  And, God, it is all the sorer

  In the aftermath of pleasure.

  Without fail, every night,

  I was close to him and working:

  I shared the hut with Ó hUigínn

  Until I was fully fledged.

  And if anyone badmouthed me

  Behind backs to my tutor

  He never deigned to notice.

  I basked in his good favour.

  From childhood I was party

  To his every plan and notion

  (Ó hUigínn, God reward you!)

  Then next thing we were parted.

  Whatever poetry teaching

  I give my students now

  Was got from Fearghal Rua,

  But it cannot match his teaching.

  Through his death I realize

  How I value poetry:

  O hut of our mystery, empty

  And isolated always.

  Áine’s son is dead.

  Poetry is daunted.

  A stave of the barrel is smashed

  And the wall of learning broken.

  Seamus Heaney

  ANONYMOUS

  Complaints of Gormlaith

  (15th century or earlier)

  The Empty Fort

  Empty tonight, Dún Cearmna

  puts high Tara in danger,

  the earth weaves a spell

  over pale lonely walls.

  Kings unstinting as courageous

  made happy use of this fortress.

  What a state I’m in –

  to be here, with them gone.

  Not long now – Tuathal

  and Tara will dwindle.

  Their emblem and exemplar

  the night, and empty Dún Cearmna.

  Kit Fryatt

  The Ragged Dress

  Ragged, much-patched scrap!

  No one will wonder that

  a chatelaine’s canny hand

  never worked this tawdry tat.

  And I was in Tara.

  Niall of Emain’s green downs

  pledged me in joy

  our shared cup was his own.

  And I was in Limerick

  beside kind Niall of Ailech;

  I showed off in sumptuous stuff

  before the knights
of the west.

  The sparks of the Uí Néill

  loved of old to race foals;

  I drank their wine from carved

  horn cups, by the skinful.

  Seven score waiting-women

  assembled on the lawn

  and the colts’ thundering –

  spotless Niall’s escutcheon!

  I am a woman of Leinster

  a daughter of Meath

  but those places don’t grip me.

  Ulster has my heart’s truth.

  The brambles take hold

  of my shoddy rags;

  the thorn is my enemy,

  the briar a rogue.

  Kit Fryatt

  At Niall’s Grave

  Monk, back off. Move

  away from Niall’s grave.

  You heap earth on his head;

  I shared his bed.

  Long time you’ve piled clods,

  monk, on the royal corpse.

  Too long already Niall’s lain still,

  the pit unfilled.

  Aed’s son liked his booze.

  Now he’s cold under a cross.

  Lay that slab flush enough,

  and, monk, back off.

  Just as I do Deirdre stood

  weeping over Uisnech’s lads.

  Her heart was great with grief

  so, monk, back off.

  I am Gormlaith, maker of verses,

  my father was Flann of Dún Rois.

  Dig my bed here, broad and soft

  then, monk, back off.

  Kit Fryatt

  3 × 30, 9 × 9

  Three thirties, nine times nine

  have been lovers of mine

  I could take on twenty lads –

  or more, the number makes no odds.

  I threw them all over for Niall

  alone to do his will.

  And why not indeed

  for my life’s liege, that’s dead.

  Of all the northern champions

  Niall was the greatest; he always won.

  But considering my troubles,

  better I’d married a churl.

  He had golden rings and cloaks of purple

  the kingdom’s best-stocked stable,

  but fortune’s flood, once full, is turned,

  substance wasted and withdrawn.

  Between heaven and earth I possess

  one black shawl and one grey dress.

  In Kells of the hundred kings

  no one cares I’m starving.

  One holy day I stood with Niall

  in the churchyard, by the bell.

  In Kells of the high rood

  we decided the northern tribute.

  I was at his left hand; he gave

  me the gentlest little shove

  in the small of my back:

  ‘Go to Mass; you’ll have all the luck!’

  Truth then, we went together

  a pack of girls – in walked Mór

  ahead of me, flower among the few

  she took the buckle from my shoe.

  I gave a golden chain and ball

  to handsome Abbot Colum’s girl.

  I gave her the forty cows

  that graze the north church close.

  I gave her an outlandish blue hood,

  a horn-shrine for a holy book,

  thirty ounces of gold – and what

  did Little Miss Big do? Kept the lot.

  Tonight she gave alms to me –

  grace matching generosity –

  two measures of gritty porridge,

  two eggs from her tight clutches.

  By Him who brought light to the world!

  If Niall Black-knee still walked,

  you abbot’s drab from Tullylease

  could stuff your eggs and oats!

  I got from her a comb, a bonnet,

  some linen with no dress left in it.

  The Slight Red Steed my gift

  to her, and sun-gold apples in a dish.

  My curse on big spenders,

  my curse on misers (hey, Mór!);

  before I lost my wealth and looks

  all the poets were on my books.

  Horses in exchange for verses –

  patrons are among God’s blessed.

  I praise Niall, but I’m an amateur –

  the pros would do it nine times better.

  Kit Fryatt

  Gormlaith’s Last Complaint

  It is time our weeping ceased for Niall,

  Aed’s son, who brought such steeds to heel.

  Pitiful, O Lord, the plight

  that I endure between death and life.

  For thirty-one years, no word of a lie,

  since this righteous chieftain died

  the tears for him in which I’ve foundered

  have nightly numbered seven hundred.

  After prayers last night I heard

  from Niall himself a bitter word:

  ‘Give over, Gormlaith, with your tears

  before the Lord’s own anger flares’,

  and all peace routed from my mind.

  To the dead man I for once complained:

  ‘Why should the Lord God take offence

  at me, whose life is one long penance?’

  ‘But fair Gormlaith, it was God

  made heaven and mankind who bade

  us share in his delight, not raise

  a floodtide to him from our eyes.’

  If Niall thought to turn his back

  I let out an almighty shriek

  at such perversion of our love

  from beyond the afterlife

  and springing in his wake I threw

  myself on a bedpost carved from yew

  and pierced my breast and still pressed down

  and rent the heart within in twain.

  Tonight I ask the Son of God

  who formed my flesh to strike me dead,

  send me to Niall and let us both,

  Lord Jesus, walk the selfsame path.

  Hundreds of horses and cows were showered

  on me by Cerball of the sword,

  and never slow with a generous touch

  Cormac gave me twice as much,

  but from whom could I conceal

  the riches that I had from Niall?

  All that I had from that pair ever

  I had in a month from him thrice over.

  David Wheatley

  LOCHLAINN ÓG Ó DÁLAIGH

  (fl. mid-16th century)

  Praise for the Young O’Briens

  Proud I am to praise young men,

  Three who’ve won my favour,

  The newest sons in Blod’s long line,

  Comely lads schooled in valour.

  Slim boys who came to my chamber

  To bind an old allegiance,

  Three young males, softly spoken,

  Of distinguished countenance.

  I have pledged them each a gift,

  In accord with their high birth

  And destiny as warriors:

  A poem well-worked in their honour.

  The oldest, Tadg, is Donal’s heir,

  Chieftain of Tal and its clan.

  Trained in the art of warfare,

  True branch from the root of Brian.

  Conor the sons of Cash will head.

  He’ll be their chief in Thomond.

  I give this pledge under God,

  Lest there come an interloper.

  The third kernel in this cluster

  Is Murty’s son, Tadg Junior.

  Now a friend to poets in youth,

  His fame will grow in men’s mouths.

  These three will make a fosse

  To shield the children of Cash.

  No one but a poet shall broach

  The triple-fence of thriving oaks.

  Three hawks darkening the sky,

  Unerring in vengeful flight.

  Sprung from our native forest,

  Swift birds from t
he one roost.

  Three ruggèd bears in the maul,

  Defenders of Maicnia’s fort.

  Three spearheads in the assault,

  A match for Munster’s foes.

  Three plunderers of Fionn’s salmon,

  Three seeds from the gold-skinned apple,

  Three buds blossoming into verse,

  Three mirrors for a girl’s kiss.

  Three hazels from the nutgrove,

  Three streams fresh from granite caves,

  Fruit of the ancient vineyard,

  Runnels of juice from the orchard.

  Before long their javelins

  Will whistle throughout Conn’s Half.

  In fights where wounds are given

  Blood will stain their knives.

  Soon they’ll swap hurling-sticks

  For blades with ivory hilts.

  It will make a fair exchange,

  Bringing concord to the Maigue.

  These young men meet at my side,

  Three warriors in youth’s attire.

  Three horsemen from Brian’s stable

  Who’ll ride with golden bridles.

  White sparks from the firing-kiln

  They’ll shoot through Banba’s realm.

  Men will follow in their steps,

  Fearless to join the contest.

  It’s no flaw in finished gold

  To start out molten at the forge.

  To be pliable from the fire

  Brands them as O’Briens.

  Their torsos white as spindrift,

  Six strong and supple calves,

  Six feet swift and nimble,

  Six fine hands to kindle love.

  Six cheeks that never blushed,

  Six eyes quietly observant.

  Not known to spurn suppliants,

  Crowds hang upon their words.

  Conor with the fair complexion,

  Two Tadgs, the poets’ patrons,

  Each with a royal bard at ease,

  Three I’ve singled out for praise.

  The Trinity grant them strength,

  Stewardship of our holy ground.

  May they bring the people wealth.

  To have praised them makes me proud.

  Maurice Riordan

  RICHARD STANIHURST

  (1547–1618)

  Upon thee death of thee right honourable Lord Girald fitz Girald L. Baron of Offalye, who deceased at S. Albans in thee yeere 1580. thee last of Iune, thee xxj. yeere of his adge

  Sometyme liv’lye Girald in grave now liv’les is harbourd.

  A mathchlesse gallant, in byrth and auncestrye nobil.

  His nobil linnadge Kyldaer with Mountegue warrants.