The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry
Page 49
Him I distrust. But not from him or them
Or any present have I aught to fear.
For never have I talked to more than one
Of these executive agents at a time,
Nor let a scrap of writing leave my hand
Could compromise myself with anyone.
And should I – though I don’t expect I shall –
Be brought, at any time, to book for this,
’Twill not be – or I much mistake – because
Of any indiscretion hitherto.
But, somehow, these reflections make me pause
And set me inly questioning myself,
Is it worth while – the crime itself apart –
To pull this settled civil state of life
To pieces, for another just the same,
Only with rawer actors for the posts
Of Judges, Landlords, Masters, Capitalists?
And then, the innocent blood. I’ve half a mind
To trip across this elm-root at my foot,
And turn my ankle.
Oh, he comes at last!
No time for thinking now. My own life pays
Unless I play my part. I see he brings
Another with him, and, I think, the same
I heard them call Lord – something – Cavendish.
If one; two, likely. That can’t now be helped.
Up. Drive on straight, – if I blow my nose
And show my handkerchief in front of them,
And then turn back, what’s that to anyone?
No further, driver. Back to Island Bridge.
No haste. If some acquaintance chanced to pass,
He must not think that we are running away.
I don’t like, but I can’t help looking back.
They meet: my villains pass them. Gracious Powers,
Another failure! No, they turn again
And overtake; and Brady lifts his arm –
I’ll see no more. On – by the Monument.
On – brisker, brisker – but yet leisurely.
By this time all is over with them both.
Ten minutes more, the Castle has the news,
And haughty Downing Street in half an hour
Is struck with palsy. For a moment there,
Among the trees, I wavered. Brady’s knife
Has cut the knot of my perplexities;
Despite myself, my fortune mounts again.
The English rule will soon be overthrown,
And ours established in the place of it.
I’m free again to look, as long as I please,
In Fortune’s show-box. Yes; I see the chain,
I see the gilded coach. God send the boy
May take the polish! There’s but one thing now
That troubles me. These cursed knives at home
That woman brought me, what had best be done
To put them out o’ the way? I have it. Yes,
That old Fitzsimon’s roof’s in need of repairs.
I’ll leave them in his cock-loft. Still in time
To catch the tram, I’ll take a seat a-top –
For no one must suppose I’ve anything
To hide – and show myself in Grafton Street.
JOHN TODHUNTER
(1839–1916)
Under the Whiteboy Acts, 1800: An Old Rector’s Story
Ay, I was once a soldier, as you’ve heard,
A cornet in the Irish Yeomanry.
To say what that meant fifty years ago
Would seem, thank God! to young fellows like you,
Like telling tales about some foreign land
In the dark ages. Yes, my memory
Has its black chamber, where, whene’er I look,
There flicker out, shining with ghastly fire,
Some ugly pictures painted on the wall –
Bad sights!
Now here’s a sample: I was once
Riding at night along a country road,
Patrolling with my troop – one August night.
The moon was full, and surely bright and fair
As when she rose on Eden’s innocence
The night before the Fall. What brought us there,
Out of our beds? Well, in the peasants’ phrase,
‘The Boys was out.’ The Whiteboy scare, in fact,
Was in full cry, and Ireland in the grip,
Under the Whiteboy Acts, of martial law:
Nothing new, mind; the district was proclaimed,
And we patrolled it, to repress the crime
Of being out of doors between the hours
Of sunset and sunrise.
Well, there I sat,
Loose in my saddle, in a kind of dream,
Thinking, I fancy, of the County Ball,
A pretty face – I was a youngster then –
Had made for me a chapter of romance,
To be re-read by that romantic moon.
Oh! but ’twas wonderful, that moonlight, mixed
With woodbine scents, and gusts of meadowsweet.
An Irish boy’s first love, a cornet’s pride
In his new soldiership and uniform!
Why, ’twas sheer ecstasy – I feel it still,
As I remember how, athwart my mood,
The martial noise of our accoutrements,
Clanking and jingling to the chargers’ tramp,
Chimed in a sort of music.
The road turned,
And a stream crossed it. On the further side
There was a man, a scared look in his face,
White in that great moonlight. And there he stood,
And never ran – the creature never ran,
But quavered out some question: ’tis my guess
He said: ‘Is that the sogers?’ Then I saw,
Like a bad dream, the captain of our troop,
(Whom I’ll here name ‘Lord Blank’) ride at him straight,
And cut him down. You, maybe, never saw
A man cut down? Nor I, till that bad hour.
Well, ’twas an ugly sight – a brutal sight.
The strangest thing was that the man seemed dazed,
Made no attempt to run, or dodge the sword,
Shrank rather from the wind of the horse, I thought,
His hands held out in a groping sort of way;
But never raised, I saw, to guard his head,
Till the blow sent him reeling, with a shriek:
‘O Lord have mercy!’ Then he plunged, face down,
Clutching and wallowing in a pool of blood.
He spoke no more – just moaned. ’Twas horrible,
And all the more for something half grotesque;
You’d never think a man’s last agony
Could look so like a joker’s antics, played
To raise a laugh. Yet no one laughed, I think.
We had pushed across the stream. I saw them lift
His head, with long grey hair dabbled with blood.
The sword had caught him under the right ear,
And through the gash his poor, scared, struggling heart
Simply pumped out his life. ’Twas over soon.
They laid him down, stone dead, with staring eyes;
And then I saw it all – the man was blind.
Then someone said: ‘Lord save us! Sure it’s Tom –
It’s ould blind Tom, the fiddler! Sure enough,
He lives just here in the boreen beyant.’
Another said: ‘He’s due to play today
In Ballintogher Fair. He must ha’ thought
’Twas mornin’, an’ come here to clane himself,
Here in the sthrame. Poor Tom! ’Twas just your luck,
Misfort’nate craythur that ye always wor!
Well, you’ll chune up no more; God rest your sowl!’
We found his stick, indeed, beside the stream.
Then we rode on and left him lying there
Upon a grassy tussock by the r
oad.
An ugly business that. I never knew
How My Lord felt about that sad mistake:
Such things will happen under martial law,
And ill-judged deeds, done through excess of zeal,
The King’s Commission covers in such times.
We heard no more of it. But all that night
I felt myself next door to a murderer,
And rode with a sick chill about my heart.
No more pride in my uniform; no more
Delight under that ghastly, glaring moon
That showed me Tom’s dead face.
Perhaps you’ll think
This made me sick of soldiering? Well, not quite.
The young mistrust their instinct, sir, when first
Thrust forth new fledged into the great rough world.
I was shocked, surely; but was half ashamed
To be so shocked.
Then I saw other things
My conscience quite convinced me went beyond
The necessary horrors of this life. For me I felt
From that time forth the uniform I wore
Smother my soul in shame. I changed it soon
For this poor cassock, which, though not so smart,
I find more comfortable every way.
EMILY LAWLESS
(1845–1913)
Clare Coast
c. 1720
See, cold island, we stand
Here tonight on your shore,
Tonight, but never again;
Lingering a moment more.
See, beneath us our boat
Tugs at its tightening chain,
Holds out its sail to the breeze,
Pants to be gone again.
Off then with shouts and mirth,
Off with laughter and jests,
Mirth and song on our lips,
Hearts like lead in our breasts.
Death and the grave behind,
Death and a traitor’s bier;
Honour and fame before,
Why do we linger here?
Why do we stand and gaze,
Fools, whom fools despise,
Fools untaught by the years,
Fools renounced by the wise?
Heartsick, a moment more,
Heartsick, sorry, fierce,
Lingering, lingering on,
Dreaming the dreams of yore;
Dreaming the dreams of our youth,
Dreaming the days when we stood
Joyous, expectant, serene,
Glad, exultant of mood,
Singing with hearts afire,
Singing with joyous strain,
Singing aloud in our pride,
‘We shall redeem her again!’
Ah, not tonight that strain, –
Silent tonight we stand,
A scanty, a toil-worn crew,
Strangers, foes in the land!
Gone the light of our youth,
Gone for ever, and gone
Hope with the beautiful eyes,
Who laughed as she lured us on;
Lured us to danger and death,
To honour, perchance to fame, –
Empty fame at the best,
Glory half dimmed with shame.
War-battered dogs are we,
Fighters in every clime,
Fillers of trench and of grave,
Mockers, bemocked by time.
War-dogs, hungry and grey,
Gnawing a naked bone,
Fighters in every clime,
Every cause but our own.
See us, cold isle of our love!
Coldest, saddest of isles –
Cold as the hopes of our youth,
Cold as your own wan smiles.
Coldly your streams outpour,
Each apart on the height,
Trickling, indifferent, slow,
Lost in the hush of the night.
Colder, sadder the clouds,
Comfortless bringers of rain;
Desolate daughters of air,
Sweep o’er your sad grey plain
Hiding the form of your hills,
Hiding your low sand dunes;
But coldest, saddest, oh isle!
Are the homeless hearts of your sons.
Coldest, and saddest there,
In yon sun-lit land of the south,
Where we sicken, and sorrow, and pine,
And the jest flies from mouth to mouth,
And the church bells crash overhead,
And the idle hours flit by,
And the beaded wine-cups clink.
And the sun burns fierce in the sky;
And your exiles, the merry of heart,
Laugh and boast with the best, –
Boast, and extol their part,
Boast, till some lifted brow,
Crossed with a line severe,
Seems with displeasure to ask,
‘Are these loud braggarts we hear,
Are they the sons of the West,
The wept-for, the theme of songs,
The exiled, the injured, the banned,
The men of a thousand wrongs?’
Fool, did you never hear
Of sunshine which broke through rain?
Sunshine which came with storm?
Laughter that rang of pain?
Boastings begotten of grief,
Vauntings to hide a smart,
Braggings with trembling lip,
Tricks of a broken heart?
Sudden some wayward gleam,
Sudden some passing sound, –
The careless splash of an oar,
The idle bark of a hound,
A shadow crossing the sun,
An unknown step in the hall,
A nothing, a folly, a straw! –
Back it returns – all – all!
Back with the rush of a storm,
Back the old anguish and ill,
The sad, green landscape of home,
The small grey house by the hill,
The wide grey shores of the lake,
The low sky, seeming to weave
Its tender pitiful arms
Round the sick lone landscape at eve.
Back with its pains and its wrongs,
Back with its toils and its strife,
Back with its struggle and woe,
Back flows the stream of our life.
Darkened with treason and wrong,
Darkened with anguish and ruth,
Bitter, tumultuous, fierce,
Yet glad in the light of our youth.
So, cold island, we stand
Here tonight on your shore, –
Tonight, but never again,
Lingering a moment more.
See, beneath us our boat
Tugs at its tightening chain,
Holds out its sail to the breeze,
Pants to be gone again.
Off then with shouts and mirth,
Off with laughter and jests,
Jests and song on our lips,
Hearts like lead in our breasts.
A Retort
Not hers your vast imperial mart,
Where myriad hopes on fears are hurled,
Where furious rivals meet and part
To woo a world.
Not hers your vast imperial town,
Your mighty mammoth piles of gain,
Your loaded vessels sweeping down
To glut the main.
Unused, unseen, her rivers flow,
From mountain tarn to ocean tide;
Wide vacant leagues the sunbeams show,
The rain-clouds hide.
You swept them vacant! Your decree
Bid all her budding commerce cease;
You drove her from your subject sea,
To starve in peace!
Well, be it peace! Resigned they flow,
No laden fleet adown them glides,
But wheeling salmon sometimes show
Their silvered
sides.
And sometimes through the long still day
The breeding herons slowly rise,
Lifting grey tranquil wings away,
To tranquil skies.
Stud all your shores with prosperous towns!
Blacken your hill-sides, mile on mile!
Redden with bricks your patient downs!
And proudly smile!
A day will come before you guess,
A day when men, with clearer light,
Will rue that deed beyond redress,
Will loathe that sight.
And, loathing, fly the hateful place,
And, shuddering, quit the hideous thing,
For where unblackened rivers race,
And skylarks sing.
For where, remote from smoke and noise,
Old Leisure sits knee-deep in grass;
Where simple days bring simple joys,
And lovers pass.
I see her in those coming days,
Still young, still gay; her unbound hair
Crowned with a crown of starlike rays,
Serenely fair.
I see an envied haunt of peace,
Calm and untouched; remote from roar,
Where wearied men may from their burdens cease
On a still shore.
WILLIAM LARMINIE
(1849–1900)
from Fand
(Emer warns Cuhoolin against Fand)
Heed her not, O Cuhoolin, husband mine;
Delusive is the bliss she offers thee –
Bliss that will to torment turn,
Like one bright colour for ever before thine eyes,
Since of mortal race thou art.
Man is the shadow of a changing world;
As the image of a tree
By the breeze swayed to and fro
On the grass, so changeth he;
Night and day are in his breast;
Winter and summer, all the change
Of light and darkness and the seasons marching;
Flowers that bud and fade,
Tides that rise and fall.
Even with the waxing and the waning moon
His being beats in tune;
The air that is his life
Inhales he with alternate heaving breath;
Joyous to him is effort, sweet is rest;
Life he hath and death.
Then seek not thou too soon that permanence
Of changeless joy that suits unchanging gods,
In whom no tides of being ebb and flow.
Out of the flux and reflux of the world
Slowly man’s soul doth gather to itself,
Atom by atom, the hard elements –
Firm, incorruptible, indestructible –
Whereof, when all his being is compact,
No more it wastes nor hungers, but endures,
Needing not any food of changing things,