That legend might, and certainly should, be true. None of the ballad, alas, has come down to us. But the man who wrote about the man and dog, the mad one, in Islington, London, may have been remembering and echoing earlier efforts. Anyway why should London have total claim to the piece? Men and mad dogs are the same the whole world over.
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG
Good people, all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wond’rous short,
It cannot hold you long.
In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran,
Whene’er he went to pray.
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.
Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wond’ring neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.
The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light,
That shew’d the rogues they lied:
The man recover’d of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
Which of us has not met, at least once, the ghost of James Clarence Mangan, up the slope there in Summerhill or in a shady corner of Mountjoy Square. Several times I have spoken to him. Or he to me.
He died young and had little or no sense of the passage of time and, after a suggestion from another poet from faraway places, he seemed to think that twenty years was a long time. It all depends on where and how you spend them.
But not really long, I say to him, when you have staggered as far as seventy-two.
But let him speak for himself as most movingly he did:
TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO
O, the rain, the weary, dreary rain,
How it plashes on the window-sill!
Night, I guess too, must be on the wane,
Strass and gass around are grown so still.
Here I sit, with coffee in my cup –
Ah! ’twas rarely I beheld it flow
In the tavern where I loved to sup
Twenty golden years ago!
Twenty years ago, alas! – but stay –
On my life, ’tis half-past twelve o’clock!
After all, the hours do slip away –
Come, here goes to burn another block!
For the night, or morn, is wet and cold;
And my fire is dwindling rather low: –
I had fire enough, when young and bold
Twenty golden years ago.
Dear! I don’t feel well at all, somehow:
Few in Weimar dream how bad I am;
Floods of tears grow common with me now,
High-Dutch floods, that Reason cannot dam.
Doctors think I’ll neither live nor thrive
If I mope at home so – I don’t know –
Am I living now? I was alive
Twenty golden years ago.
Wifeless, friendless, flagonless, alone,
Not quite bookless, though, unless I choose,
Left with nought to do, except to groan,
Not a soul to woo, except the muse –
O! this is hard for me to bear,
Me, who whilome lived so much en haut,
Me, who broke all hearts like china-ware,
Twenty golden years ago!
Perhaps, ’tis better; – time’s defacing waves
Long have quenched the radiance of my brow –
They who curse me nightly from their graves,
Scarce could love me were they living now;
But my loneliness hath darker ills –
Such dull duns as Conscience, Thought and Co.,
Awful Gorgons! worse than tailors’ bills
Twenty golden years ago!
Did I paint a fifth of what I feel,
O, how plaintive you would ween I was!
But I won’t, albeit I have a deal
More to wail about than Kerner has!
Kerner’s tears are kept for withered flowers,
Mine for withered hopes, my scroll of woe
Dates, alas! from youth’s deserted bowers,
Twenty golden years ago!
Yet, may Deutschland’s bardlings flourish long,
Me, I tweak no beak among them; – hawks
Must not pounce on hawks: besides, in song
I could once beat all of them by chalks.
Though you find me as I near my goal,
Sentimentalizing like Rousseau,
O! I had a grand Byronian soul
Twenty golden years ago!
Tick-tick, tick-tick! – not a sound save Time’s,
And the windgust as it drives the rain –
Tortured torturer of reluctant rhymes,
Go to bed, and rest thine aching brain!
Sleep! – no more the dupe of hopes or schemes;
Soon thou sleepest where the thistles blow –
Curious anticlimax to thy dreams
Twenty golden years ago!
And lifting his eyes and his imagination from the poverties and miseries of his life in Dublin, Mangan, with the aid of an ancient Persian poet, looked back to the days of a notable dynasty. Which goes to show that from Dublin, on a clear day and with a clear mind, you can see the world, present and past and, perhaps, to come:
THE TIME OF THE BARMECIDES
My eyes are filmed, my beard is grey,
I am bowed with the weight of years;
I would I were stretched in my bed of clay,
With my long-lost youth’s compeers!
For back to the Past, though the thought brings woe,
My memory ever glides –
To the old, old time, long, long ago,
The time of the Barmecides!
To the old, old time, long, long ago,
The time of the Barmecides.
Then Youth was mine, and a fierce wild will,
And an iron arm in war,
And a fleet foot high upon Ishkar’s hill,
When the watch-light glimmered afar,
And a barb as fiery as any I know
That Khoord or Beddaween rides,
Ere my friends lay low – long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides,
Ere my friends lay low – long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides.
One golden goblet illumed my board,
One silver dish was there;
At hand my tried Karamanian sword
Lay always bright and bare,
For those were the days when the angry blow
Supplanted the word that chides –
When hearts could glow – long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides,
When hearts could glow – long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides.
Through city and desert my mates and I
Were free to rove and roam,
Our diapered canopy the deep of the sky,
Or the roof of the palace-dome –
Oh! ours was that vivid life to and fro
Which only sloth derides: –
Men spent Life so, long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides,
Men spent Life so, long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides.
&
nbsp; I see rich Baghdad once again,
With its turrets of Moorish mould,
And the Khalif’s s twice five hundred men
Whose binishes flamed with gold;
I call up many a gorgeous show
Which the Pall of Oblivion hides –
All passed like snow, long, long ago,
With the time of the Barmecides;
All passed like snow, long, long ago,
With the time of the Barmecides!
But mine eye is dim, and my beard is gray,
And I bend with the weight of years –
May I soon go down to the House of Clay
Where slumber my Youth’s compeers!
For with them and the Past, though the thought wakes woe,
My memory ever abides,
And I mourn for the Times gone long ago,
For the Times of the Barmecides!
I mourn for the Times gone long ago,
For the Times of the Barmecides!
But much closer to Dublin, and from the seventeenth-century Irish, Mangan re-echoed that imperishable poem, and song, about the proud and wealthy woman: ‘The Woman of Three Cows’. Once upon a time I asked the great Colm Ó Lochlainn to what tune this could be sung. He said (I forget what the year was) that I was listening to the tune every day on the radio and the words that went with it were about Ghost Riders in the Sky. But the original was, he told me, a dance-tune called ‘My Love is in America’.
And thus, as Tennyson hinted, the whole round earth is, every way, bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
Anyway, go ahead and sing:
O Woman of Three Cows, a-gradh! don’t let your tongue thus rattle!
O don’t be saucy, don’t be stiff, because you may have cattle,
I have seen – and, here’s my hand to you, I only say what’s true –
A many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as you.
Good luck to you, don’t scorn the poor, and don’t be their despiser;
For worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the very miser:
And death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty human brows,
Then don’t be stiff, and don’t be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!
See where Momonia’s heroes lie, proud Owen More’s descendants,
’Tis they that won the glorious name, and had the grand attendants,
If they were forced to bow to Fate, as every mortal bows,
Can you be proud, can you be stiff, my Woman of Three Cows?
The brave sons of the Lords of Clare, they left the land to mourning;
Mo bhrón! for they were banished, with no hope of their returning –
Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were driven to house?
Yet you can give yourself these airs, O Woman of Three Cows!
Think of O’Donnell of the ships, the Chief whom nothing daunted –
See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled, unchanted!
He sleeps, the great O’Sullivan, where thunder cannot rouse –
Then ask yourself, should you be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!
O’Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names are shrined in story –
Think how their high achievements once made Erin’s greatest glory –
Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress boughs,
And so, for all your pride, will yours, O Woman of Three Cows!
The O’Carrolls, also, famed when fame was only for the boldest,
Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin’s best and oldest;
Yet who so great as they of yore in battle or carouse?
Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows!
Your neighbour’s poor, and you, it sems, are big with vain ideas,
Because, an eadh! you’ve got three cows, one more, I see, than she has;
That tongue of yours wags more at times than charity allows –
But, if you’re strong, be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows!
Now, there you go! You still, of course, keep up your scornful bearing,
And I’m too poor to hinder you; but, by the cloak I’m wearing,
If I had but four cows myself, even though you were my spouse,
I’d thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman of Three Cows!
Far, far away from the proud woman and her thundering herds was the poet when he looked to the East and meditated on mortality and the vanity of all human ambition and, from the streets of Dublin, asked some hard questions of King Solomon:
GONE IN THE WIND
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Like the swift shadows of Noon, like the dreams of the Blind,
Vanish the glories and pomp of the earth in the wind.
Man! canst thou build upon aught in the pride of thy mind?
Wisdom will teach thee that nothing can tarry behind;
Though there be thousand bright actions embalmed and enshrined,
Myriads and millions of brighter are snow in the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
All that the genius of man hath achieved or designed
Waits but its hour to be dealt with as dust by the wind.
Say, what is Pleasure? A phantom, a mask undefined.
Science? An almond, whereof we can pierce but the rind.
Honour and Affluence? Firmans that Fortune hath signed
Only to glitter and pass on the wings of the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! Where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Who is the Fortunate? He who in anguish hath pined!
He shall rejoice when his relics are dust in the wind!
Moral! be careful with what thy best hopes are entwined;
Woe to the miners for Truth – where the Lampless have mined!
Woe to the seekers on earth for – what none ever find!
They and their trust shall be scattered like leaves on the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! Where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Happy in death they only whose hearts have consigned
All Earth’s affections and longings and cares to the wind.
Pity, thou, reader! the madness of poor Humankind,
Raving of Knowledge, – and Satan so busy to blind!
Raving of Glory, – like me, – for the garlands I bind
(Garlands of song) are but gathered, and – strewn in the wind!
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! Where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
I, Abul-Namez, must rest, for my fire hath declined,
And I hear voices from Hades like bells on the wind!
If you are looking for ghosts in the neighbourhood of Dublin you must encounter first of all, and with all due respects to Saint Patrick and King Sitric, that shrewd invader from Limerick, Brian Boru or Brian na Boroimhe, of the Tributes.
It has happened to me that I was not barred but excommunicated from a certain licensed premises in Donnybrook for proclaiming in a loud voice, and in a heated argument with some learned colleagues, that Brian of the Tributes was a tax-collector from Limerick and that the Danes were decent men trying to do something practical: and that, in the end, one of them was driven to hitting him with a hatchet, when he was supposed to be saying his prayers.
May his saintly ghost, and the outraged publican, forgive me.
And here let Brian speak for himself as William Kennelly heard him speaking before the ruckus at Clontarf.
KING BRIAN BEFORE THE BATTLE
Stand ye now for Erin’s glory! Stand ye now for Erin’s cause!
Long ye’ve groaned beneath the r
igour of the Northmen’s savage laws.
What, though brothers league against us? What, though myriads be the foe?
Victory will be more honoured in the myriads’ overthrow.
Proud Connacians! oft we’ve wrangled, in our petty feuds of yore;
Now we fight against the robber Dane, upon our native shore;
May our hearts unite in friendship, as our blood in one red tide,
While we crush their mail-clad legions, and annihilate their pride!
Brave Eugenians! Erin triumphs in the sight she sees today –
Desmond’s homesteads all deserted for the muster and the fray!
Cluan’s vale and Galtee’s summit send their bravest and their best –
May such hearts be theirs forever, for the Freedom of the West!
Chiefs and Kerne of Dalcassia! Brothers of my past career,
Oft we’ve trodden on the pirate-flag that flaunts below us here,
You remember Iniscattery, how we bounded on the foe,
As the torrent of the mountain bursts upon the plain below!
They have razed our proudest castles – spoiled the Temples of the Lord –
Burnt to dust the sacred relics – put the Peaceful to the sword –
Desecrated all things holy – as they soon may do again,
If their power to-day we smite not – if to-day we be not men!
Slaughtered pilgrims is the story at St Kevin’s rocky cell,
And on the southern sea-shore, at Isle Helig’s holy well;
E’en the anchorets are hunted, poor and peaceful though they be,
And not one of them left living, in their caves beside the sea!
As I Rode by Granard Moat Page 13