Who is happy in hedgerow
Or meadow as he is?
Paying no dues to the parish,
He argues in logic
And has no care of cattle
But a satchel and stick.
The showery airs grow softer,
He profits from his ploughland
For the share of the schoolmen
Is a pen in hand.
When midday hides the reaping,
He sleeps by a river
Or comes to the stone plain
Where the saints live.
But in winter by the big fires,
The ignorant hear his fiddle,
And he battles on the chessboard,
As the land lords bid him.
Austin Clarke
The Curse
You brindled beast through whom I’ve lost her!
Out of my sight! the devil take you!
And, ’pon my soul! this is no jest,
This year I’ll rest not till I break you.
Satanic Ananias blast you!
Is that the way you learned to carry?
Your master in the mud to hurl
Before the girl he meant to marry.
The everlasting night fiend ride you!
My curse cling closer than your saddle!
Hell’s ravens pick your eyes like eggs!
You scarecrow with your legs astraddle!
And it was only yesterday too
I gave the stable-boy a shilling
To stuff your belly full of hay
For fear you’d play this trick, you villain!
I gave you oats, you thankless devil!
And saved your life, you graceless fiend, you!
From ragged mane to scrubby tail
I combed and brushed and scraped and cleaned you.
You brute! the devil scorch and burn you!
You had a decent mare for mother,
And many a pound I’ve spent on hay
To feed you one day and another.
The best of reins, the finest saddle,
Good crupper and good pad together,
Stout hempen girth – for these I’ve paid,
And breastplate made of Spanish leather.
What’s the excuse? What blindness caused it?
That bias in your indirections
That made a windmill of your legs
And lost for good my Meg’s affections.
With my left spur I’ll slash and stab you
And run it through the heart within you
And with the right I’ll take great lumps
Out of your rumps until I skin you.
If ever again I go a-courting
Across your back – may Hellfire melt you! –
Then may I split my fork in twain
And lose the girl again as well too!
Robin Flower
III
* * *
CIVILIZATIONS: 1601–1800
Ionmholta malairt bhisigh (‘A turn for the better’)
Eochaidh Ó hEodhasa, ‘The New Poetry’
EOCHAIDH Ó HEODHASA
(c.1565–1612)
O’Hussey’s Ode to the Maguire
Where is my Chief, my Master, this bleak night, mavrone!
O, cold, cold, miserably cold is this bleak night for Hugh,
It’s showery, arrowy, speary sleet pierceth one through and through,
Pierceth one to the very bone!
Rolls real thunder? Or was that red, livid light
Only a meteor? I scarce know; but through the midnight dim
The pitiless ice-wind streams. Except the hate that persecutes him
Nothing hath crueller venomy might.
An awful, a tremendous night is this, meseems!
The flood-gates of the rivers of heaven, I think, have been burst wide –
Down from the overcharged clouds, like unto headlong ocean’s tide,
Descends grey rain in roaring streams.
Though he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods,
Though he were even a pleasant salmon in the unchainable sea,
Though he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he,
This sharp, sore sleet, these howling floods.
O, mournful is my soul this night for Hugh Maguire!
Darkly, as in a dream, he strays! Before him and behind
Triumphs the tyrannous anger of the wounding wind,
The wounding wind, that burns as fire!
It is my bitter grief – it cuts me to the heart –
That in the country of Clan Darry this should be his fate!
O, woe is me, where is he? Wandering, houseless, desolate,
Alone, without or guide or chart!
Medreams I see just now his face, the strawberry bright,
Uplifted to the blackened heavens, while the tempestuous winds
Blow fiercely over and round him, and the smiting sleet-shower blinds
The hero of Galang tonight!
Large, large affliction unto me and mine it is,
That one of his majestic bearing, his fair, stately form,
Should thus be tortured and o’erborne – that this unsparing storm
Should wreak its wrath on head like his!
That his great hand, so oft the avenger of the oppressed,
Should this chill, churlish night, perchance, be paralysed by frost –
While through some icicle-hung thicket – as one lorn and lost –
He walks and wanders without rest.
The tempest-driven torrent deluges the mead,
It overflows the low banks of the rivulets and ponds –
The lawns and pasture-grounds lie locked in icy bonds
So that the cattle cannot feed.
The pale bright margins of the streams are seen by none.
Rushes and sweeps along the untameable flood on every side –
It penetrates and fills the cottagers’ dwellings far and wide –
Water and land are blent in one.
Through some dark woods, ’mid bones of monsters, Hugh now strays,
As he confronts the storm with anguished heart, but manly brow –
O! what a sword-wound to that tender heart of his were now
A backward glance at peaceful days.
But other thoughts are his – thoughts that can still inspire
With joy and an onward-bounding hope the bosom of MacNee –
Thoughts of his warriors charging like bright billows of the sea,
Borne on the wind’s wings, flashing fire!
And though frost glaze tonight the clear dew of his eyes,
And white ice-gauntlets glove his noble fine fair fingers o’er,
A warm dress is to him that lightning-garb he ever wore,
The lightning of the soul, not skies.
Hugh marched forth to the fight – I grieved to see him so depart;
And lo! tonight he wanders frozen, rain-drenched, sad, betrayed –
But the memory of the lime-white mansions his right hand hath laid
In ashes warms the hero’s heart!
James Clarence Mangan
Poem in the Guise of Cú Chonnacht Óg Mág Uidhir to Brighid Chill Dara
Is it because I’m a stranger, friends,
you all step back in alarm?
An incubus? Or a clay-cold spirit
incapable of harm?
Does it seem when you look closer
I have a body at all?
Or am I just a wraith,
deceiving, ethereal?
I see now there’s nothing
I owe to anyone;
true friends, if such you were,
might have grieved to hear I was gone.
And oh what a pity, people,
you lost all you had to give –
what animates my name now
doesn’t breathe or truly live.
I am not what you think I am,
see me but do not believe,<
br />
a paltry poor ghost best not
crossed – if you want to survive.
Of all the folk who’ve lived on earth
how few of them have had
two chances at it like I’ve enjoyed,
your two-timing ghostly lad!
No upright man could claim
I haven’t passed away;
it’s less a time for telling lies
than a time to kneel and pray
for my soul; the precise instant
it left I remember well
despite the prattle of doubters
who argue I’m alive still.
No wound or sad mishap
undid me, but a rush of joy;
no fit of gloom – is anything worse? –
no plague, no disease laid me low.
If by an angelic creature
in a celestial dream
the soul was snatched from my body
how strange my mourning must seem!
After I’d glimpsed her, Lord,
how could I still desire life?
From one who goes round killing men
only the dead are safe.
No tidal wave of sadness
nor hatred for anyone here
nor no love of earthly thing
killed me, in fact, but terror.
On coming to my senses,
though still consumed by dread,
I soon got wind of the rumour
that said I wasn’t dead.
Though I do not know her features
(on them no eye can gaze)
across the front of my mind
her radiant image strays.
I’m enchanted still, a changeling,
at home in perplexity;
let the eye of no ill-willed person
see the human frame you see.
And may God protect me from her
if she try to restore my breath:
what I’ve endured so far is nothing
to thoughts of a second death.
My name and its meaning were both
well known before I died:
ask for a hound, cunning and swift,
with nowhere left to hide.
PC
The New Poetry
Praise be! A turn for the better,
A sudden shift in the weather.
If I don’t tap into this new racket
I could end up out of pocket.
Good riddance, then, to the old measures,
To those fussy rules and strictures.
This method’s cushier, more enlightened,
And might usher me into the limelight.
Those erstwhile ornamented poems
Fell on deaf ears only – lofty odes
Sailing over the heads of the people,
Like caviar thrown at the general.
If verse of mine from now to the last trump
Perplex the brain of one Ulster dunce
I’ll give back – it’s a hefty wager –
Every last farthing of my retainer.
Free verse and the open road!
It’s what pops the money ball.
I’ll soon be paying off my loans
Courtesy of Earl Tyrconnell.
No one’s going to best yours truly
When it comes to pap and vacuity.
I’ll be out there on the fairground
In all weathers pulling in the crowds.
I’ve scuppered – what a relief! –
That top-heavy worm-eaten ball-breaking craft.
Though if the Earl gets wind of my drift
He’s bound to piss himself laughing.
Let me not ruin a hard-won reputation
For mastery of bardic scholarship and skill.
I’ll make sure the Earl (or former Chieftain)
Isn’t in town when I give a recital.
The thing is I’m quite a draw,
Flavour of the month in certain quarters.
I’d be gone down that path like a rat from hell,
But I’m wary of the Earl –
Not to mention it was the same Aodh’s son
Who once dubbed my strict verse ‘easy’.
Thank God he’s sojourning with the Saxon.
For the time being, I have a breather.
Those poems I pummelled into shape before
Damn near broke my heart.
The new softer more accessible approach
Will prove a tonic for my health.
And what if the Earl (the ex-Chieftain)
Quibbles now and then with a quatrain –
Aren’t there plenty goons about
Who’ll shout the pedant down?
Maurice Riordan
ANONYMOUS
On the Death of a Poet (composed during the last illness of Eochaidh Ó hEodhasa)
Poetry is touched by decline:
how can we come to her aid?
She is sure all hope is gone
in her poorly state.
Consider poetry’s plight,
fit only for the sickbed
as word of Eochaidh’s death is brought
to her who was his bride.
It is hard to witness the honour
once hers turn to scorn:
woeful indignity drawing near,
the cloud of abasement come down.
To Eochaidh above all men she gave
the flower in its prime
of her artistry and love;
and all to nourish him.
The hidden ore of his poet’s craft
burned with a gemlike flame
lighting up the art he left;
much died with his name.
Well he knew the schoolmen’s work,
who sat among the wise;
poet of the golden cloak,
a great lament shall be his.
He stumbled on the hazel of knowledge
in its secret grove,
and left its branches hung with flesh,
stripping the nutshells off.
Out of words both dark and subtle
the poet makes his art
with perfect ease, and in recital
omits no part.
It is no small help to his work
to add the gold relief
of learning to his every word:
such is the way of the beehive.
Bees all over brim their hoard
with the juice they collect
from the oozings of a milky gourd
or a flower unpacked.
They are examples to the bard
whose craft none can match;
no flower or fruit, soft or hard,
escapes his search.
It is he resolves the doubts
of those already skilled;
he who settles all debates,
he to whom all yield.
Who has not been touched by sorrow
at the master’s loss of life?
This disease goes to the marrow
and pierces like a spike.
Like a cow parted from her calf,
my wits are overthrown;
I make melody from my grief,
I am an orphan;
and poetry is a widow unless
Maoilseachlainn’s son returns;
no one can make good her loss
but the man she mourns.
David Wheatley
GIOLLA BRIGHDE (BONAVENTURA) Ó HEODHASA
(c.1570–1614)
In Memoriam Richard Nugent
It is hard to sleep on a friend’s hurt.
Any friend untroubled
by his comrade’s wound
is nearer to an enemy.
Who could take his ease
beside a wounded friend? A heart
untainted by another’s grief,
uncut, is hardly pure.
For true friends grow of one
unbroken root. Their troubles
and their pains, their joys
/>
and triumphs shared are one.
So could you doubt
my suffering, dear sister,
as your own wound’s venom
bites my mind afresh?
Your sighs grow more
than I can bear to hear;
each tear, beloved,
draws my own heart’s blood.
Could I displace your sorrow
by my own; with this coin
of my pain earn you relief –
I’d put my care to work.
A horror: to have lost a son.
Your family’s dear ambition
and your comfort. Your own
lustrous boy; and only, Janet.
Green with Delvin’s hopes,
bright as the hills that bred him,
child of warriors, your champion
and guardian, brave Richard.
Sheltering bloom of the Island
of the Fair, Richard Nugent,
finely formed in heart and deed,
fierce tender of great Marward’s line.
So noble was your grown boy,
no one wonders at the fathom
of your loss. He blazed through life;
a fighter, leader, sage.
Who learned all things in their
inner selves, the working parts
of heaven and its deep, moist earth –
and all he cared for flourished.
Don’t they tell the stories still
of how he travelled in the stars’
wake, pole to pole, and proved
himself, the world, unshakable?
And though it stings you hard
to hear it, don’t resent Him,
who first yielded to your care
the fruits you’ve lost.
Our father God, old master
who made Richard for himself,
has just reclaimed that pure, bright
hand from your safekeeping.
A man’s death is the door to life.
We have no business fretting
over one who dies a blessed death,
whose grace is clear and sure.
Open up your shrouded face,
and dry your gleaming cheek.
I send my prayer to draw
the splinter from your heart, there.
Tiffany Atkinson
RICHARD NUGENT
(fl. 1604)
To His Cousin Master Richard Nugent of Dunower
Mine owne Dicke Nugent, if thou list to know
The cause that makes me shun my western home,
And how my tedious time here I bestow,
While angry Thetis ’gainst her bounds doth foam,
Wert that to ease that never-healing wound
The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 22