The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry

by Patrick Crotty (ed)

  From hence the critic-vermin sprung,

  With harpy claws, and poisonous tongue,

  Who fatten on poetic scraps;

  Too cunning to be caught in traps.

  Dame Nature, as the learned show,

  Provides each animal its foe;

  Hounds hunt the hare, the wily fox

  Devours your geese, the wolf your flocks:

  Thus, envy pleads a natural claim

  To persecute the muses’ fame;

  On poets in all times abusive,

  From Homer down to Pope inclusive.

  from On His Own Deafness

  Deaf, giddy, odious to my friends,

  Now all my consolation ends;

  No more I hear my church’s bell

  Than if it rang out for my knell;

  At thunder now, no more I start

  Than at the rumbling of a cart.

  Nay though I know you would not credit –

  Although a thousand times I said it:

  A scold whom you might hear a mile hence

  No more could reach me than her silence.

  from A Character, Panegyric, and Description of the Legion Club

  As I stroll the city, oft I

  Spy a building large and lofty,

  Not a bow-shot from the College,

  Half a globe from sense and knowledge.

  By the prudent architect

  Placed against the church direct;

  Making good my grandam’s jest,

  Near the church – you know the rest.

  Tell us, what this pile contains?

  Many a head that holds no brains.

  These demoniacs let me dub

  With the name of ‘Legion Club.’

  Such assemblies, you might swear,

  Meet when butchers bait a bear;

  Such a noise, and such haranguing,

  When a brother thief is hanging.

  Such a rout and such a rabble

  Run to hear jack-pudding gabble;

  Such a crowd their ordure throws

  On a far less villain’s nose.

  Could I from the building’s top

  Hear the rattling thunder drop,

  While the devil upon the roof,

  If the devil be thunder-proof,

  Should with poker fiery red

  Crack the stones, and melt the lead;

  Drive them down on every skull,

  While the den of thieves is full,

  Quite destroy that harpies’ nest,

  How might then our isle be blessed?

  For divines allow, that God

  Sometimes makes the devil his rod:

  And the gospel will inform us,

  He can punish sins enormous.

  Yet should Swift endow the schools

  For his lunatics and fools,

  With a rood or two of land,

  I allow the pile may stand.

  You perhaps will ask me, why so?

  But it is with this proviso,

  Since the House is like to last,

  Let a royal grant be passed,

  That the club have right to dwell

  Each within his proper cell;

  With a passage left to creep in,

  And a hole above for peeping.

  Let them, when they once get in

  Sell the nation for a pin;

  While they sit a-picking straws

  Let them rave of making laws;

  While they never hold their tongue,

  Let them dabble in their dung;

  Let them form a grand committee,

  How to plague and starve the city;

  Let them stare and storm and frown,

  When they see a clergy-gown.

  Let them, ’ere they crack a louse,

  Call for the orders of the House;

  Let them with their gosling quills,

  Scribble senseless heads of bills;

  We may, while they strain their throats,

  Wipe our arses with their votes.

  Let Sir Tom, that rampant ass,

  Stuff his guts with flax and grass;

  But before the priest he fleeces

  Tear the bible all to pieces.

  At the parsons, Tom, halloo boy,

  Worthy offspring of a shoe-boy,

  Footman, traitor, vile seducer,

  Perjured rebel, bribed accuser;

  Lay the paltry privilege aside,

  Sprung from papists and a regicide;

  Fall a-working like a mole,

  Raise the dirt about your hole.

  Come, assist me, muse obedient,

  Let us try some new expedient;

  Shift the scene for half an hour,

  Time and place are in thy power.

  Thither, gentle muse, conduct me,

  I shall ask, and thou instruct me.

  See, the muse unbars the gate;

  Hark, the monkeys, how they prate!

  All ye gods, who rule the soul;

  Styx, through hell whose waters roll!

  Let me be allowed to tell

  What I heard in yonder hell.

  Near the door an entrance gapes,

  Crowded round with antic shapes;

  Poverty, and Grief, and Care,

  Causeless Joy, and true Despair;

  Discord periwigged with snakes,

  See the dreadful strides she takes.

  By this odious crew beset,

  I began to rage and fret,

  And resolved to break their pates,

  Ere we entered at the gates;

  Had not Clio in the nick,

  Whispered me, ‘Let down your stick’;

  ‘What,’ said I, ‘is this the madhouse?’

  ‘These,’ she answered, ‘are but shadows,

  Phantoms, bodiless and vain,

  Empty visions of the brain.’

  An Epigram on Scolding

  Great folks are of a finer mould;

  Lord! how politely they can scold;

  While a coarse English tongue will itch,

  For whore and rogue; and dog and bitch.

  AODHAGÁN Ó RATHAILLE

  (c.1670–1729)

  On a Gift of Shoes

  I received jewels of outstanding beauty –

  two shoes, supple and finished smoothly;

  they came from the south – Barbary leather

  brought by the fleet of King Philip hither;

  two shoes decorated with neat trimming,

  two shoes that will last while tramping hill-tops,

  two shoes of well-cut, well-tanned leather,

  two shoes that protect me in rough meadows;

  two shoes noble, and they’re not tight-fitting,

  two shoes stalwart, when hurting foe-men,

  two shoes narrow, without split or wrinkle,

  two shoes well-made, without seam or opening;

  two shoes, hardy and brave in high places,

  of the hide torn from the white cow’s carcass –

  the cow that was guarded in the waste-land

  and tended with care by a giant watchman.

  And a god, he loved her for a season

  and saddened and darkened her brother’s reason;

  till one night she was stolen by a bailiff

  from the hundred-eyed head, that ugly doomed creature.

  Shoes from her hide the rain cannot soften

  nor can heat harden their soles and uppers;

  the wind can’t destroy their lovely lustre

  nor too much heat make them shrink or shrivel.

  The soles and uppers were bound with bristles,

  feather-like, lovely, belonging to Túis,

  brought in a ship by the children of Tuireann

  to Lugh the vigorous, the mighty.

  Better shoes poets never dreamed of

  nor did Achilles get their like for comfort

  in his legacy – which brought grief to Ajax;

  he did not get them, for all his declaiming.
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  The awl that pierced the hide I tell ye of

  was made of the hardest steel that ever was;

  for seven hundred years the demons were

  making its spike with Vulcan’s connivance.

  Black hemp grew on the rim of Acheron

  and was spun by hags, companions of Atropos;

  by this was sewn my fine shoes’ edges,

  by the magic power of the Fates most potent.

  They were once designed for Darius

  till Alexander overcame him;

  they were for a time on mighty Caesar

  till from his feet were robbed the world’s playthings.

  They were owned for a time by the gods of Fáilbhe,

  by famous Lir, and the plunderer, Lughaidh;

  by Bodhbh Dearg, once our supporter,

  by battering Balar who throve in slaughter.

  Long time in Magh Seanaibh’s fairy mansion,

  and Aoibheall had them and men of ancient magic;

  they do not wear out, or lose their appearance –

  from a man of welcomes I received them.

  Kind Domhnall, Cathal’s son – now, hear me –

  he’s a luck-bringing chieftain and true hero

  of the seed of Glenflesk who knelt to no man,

  he presented these shoes to me as a token.

  They cure all pain, all problems and all illness,

  hoarseness, frenzy, falling sickness;

  thirst, starvation, biting hunger,

  torment, torture; the stress of going under.

  Against enemies, in war and conflict,

  with these each breach was charged by Oscar;

  though Goll Mac Mórna was great and famous

  he wanted a loan of them, like all the nation.

  Cúrí had these shoes for a season

  and Cúchulainn who was no mean hero;

  and the once victorious Maedhbh of Cruachan

  and Conall Ceárnach and Niall Glúndubh.

  At Clontarf (they were there for certain)

  Dúnlaing wore them, very contented –

  if he had tied their thongs on him tightly, he would have

  brought Murchadh safe from the fighting.

  Sacred tree of the sunseed of Fianna Fáilbhe,

  of the seers of Cashel kind and manly always,

  is the man of great reputation

  who gave to me my excellent footwear.

  Though he has for some time lived under the foreigners

  he did not learn from them to be heartless or sordid;

  he has no stingy heart – indeed, he is faultless –

  and it grows as he grows, the good gift from his fathers.

  A generous man, and kind to the poets,

  a virtuous man, who deserted no one;

  a man of importance, a giver, bestower,

  a steady and merry man and no surly boaster.

  It’s no false history to broadcast about him

  that eighteen kings were in the roots he came from;

  they were rulers in the land of Fáilbhe

  from Cas of the light to Donnchadh the patron.

  There are not many like them, my shoes, like choicest gems;

  they are just right on roads of fresh blue stones;

  though now sad and sore, I will soon find relief

  since Ó Donnchadha chose for me these uppers and soles.

  Michael Hartnett

  The Glamoured

  Brightening brightness, alone on the road, she appears,

  Crystalline crystal and sparkle of blue in green eyes,

  Sweetness of sweetness in her unembittered young voice

  And a high colour dawning behind the pearl of her face.

  Ringlets and ringlets, a curl in every tress

  Of her fair hair trailing and brushing the dew on the grass;

  And a gem from her birthplace far in the high universe

  Outglittering glass and gracing the groove of her breasts.

  News that was secret she whispered to soothe her aloneness,

  News of one due to return and reclaim his true place,

  News of the ruin of those who had cast him in darkness,

  News that was awesome, too awesome to utter in verse.

  My head got lighter and lighter but still I approached her,

  Enthralled by her thraldom, helplessly held and bewildered,

  Choking and calling Christ’s name: then she fled in a shimmer

  To Luachra Fort where only the glamoured can enter.

  I hurtled and hurled myself madly following after

  Over keshes and marshes and mosses and treacherous moors

  And arrived at that stronghold unsure about how I had got there,

  That earthwork of earth the orders of magic once reared.

  A gang of thick louts were shouting loud insults and jeering

  And a curly-haired coven in fits of sniggers and sneers:

  Next thing I was taken and cruelly shackled in fetters

  As the breasts of the maiden were groped by a thick-witted boor.

  I tried then as hard as I could to make her hear truth,

  How wrong she was to be linked to that lazarous swine

  When the pride of the pure Scottish stock, a prince of the blood,

  Was ardent and eager to wed her and make her his bride.

  When she heard me, she started to weep, but pride was the cause

  Of those tears that came wetting her cheeks and shone in her eyes;

  Then she sent me a guard to guide me out of the fortress,

  Who’d appeared to me, lone on the road, a brightening brightness.

  (…)

  Calamity, shock, collapse, heartbreak and grief

  To think of her sweetness, her beauty, her mildness, her life

  Defiled at the hands of a hornmaster sprung from riff-raff,

  And no hope of redress till the lions ride back on the wave.

  Seamus Heaney

  A Grey Eye Weeping

  That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom,

  That foreign devils have made our land a tomb,

  That the sun that was Munster’s glory has gone down

  Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.

  That royal Cashel is bare of house and guest,

  That Brian’s turreted home is the otter’s nest,

  That the kings of the land have neither land nor crown

  Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.

  Garnish away in the west with its master banned,

  Hamburg the refuge of him who has lost his land,

  An old grey eye, weeping for lost renown,

  Have made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.

  Frank O’Connor

  The Ruin that Befell the Great Families of Ireland

  My pity, that Carthy’s heirs are weaklings,

  this poor land’s people without a leader;

  no man to free her, locked up and keyless,

  and shieldless now in this land of chieftains.

  Land with no prince of her ancient people,

  land made helpless from foreigners’ beatings;

  land stretched out beneath the feet of treason,

  land chained down – it is the death of reason.

  Land lonely, tortured, broken and beaten,

  land sonless, manless, wifeless, and weeping;

  land lifeless, soulless, and without hearing,

  land where the poor are only ill-treated.

  Land without churches, massless and priestless,

  land that the wolves have spitefully eaten;

  land of misery and obedience

  to tyrant robbers, greedy and thieving.

  Land that produces nothing of sweetness,

  land so sunless, so starless and so streamless;

  land stripped naked, left leafless and treeless,

  land stripped naked by the English bleaters.

  Land in anguish –
and drained of its heroes,

  land for its children forever weeping;

  a widow wounded, crying and keening,

  humbled, degraded, and torn to pieces.

  The white of her cheeks is never tearless,

  and her hair falls down in rainshowers gleaming;

  blood from her eyes in torrents comes streaming

  and black as coal is her appearance.

  Her limbs are shrunken, bound and bleeding;

  around her waist is no satin weaving,

  but iron from Hades blackly gleaming,

  forged by henchmen who are Vulcan’s demons.

  Red pools are filled by her poor heart’s bleeding

  and dogs from Bristol lap it up greedily –

  her body is being pulled to pieces

  by Saxon curs with their bloody teeth full.

  Her branches rotten, her forests leafless,

  the frosts of Heaven have killed her streams now;

  the sunlight shines on her lands but weakly,

  the fog of the forge is on her peaks now.

  Her quarries, her mines, are exploited freely,

  the rape of her trees is pointless, greedy;

  her growing plants are all scattered seawards

  to foreign countries to seek for freedom.

  Griffin and Hedges, the upstart keepers

  of the Earl’s holdings – it is painful speaking –

  Blarney, where only bold wolves are sleeping,

  Ráth Luirc is plundered, naked and fearful.

  The Laune is taken, has lost its fierceness,

  Shannon and Maine and Liffey are bleeding;

  Kingly Tara lacks the seed of Niall Dubh,

  No Raighleann hero is alive and breathing.

  O’Doherty is gone – and his people,

  and the Moores are gone, that once were heroes;

  O’Flaherty is gone – and his people,

  and O’Brien has joined the English cheaters.

  Of the brave O’Rourke there is none speaking,

  O’Donnell’s fame has none to repeat it,

  and all the Geraldines, they lie speechless,

  and Walsh of the slender ships is needy.

  Hear, oh Trinity, my poor beseeching:

  take this sorrow from my broken people,

  from the seed of Conn and Ír and Eibhear –

  restore their lands to my broken people.

  They are my tormenting sorrow,

  brave men broken by this rain,

  and fat pirates in bed

  in the place of older tribes of fame,

  and the tribes that have fled

  and who cared for poets’ lives, defamed.

  This great crime has me led

  shoeless, bare,