The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry

by Patrick Crotty (ed)

And glades decked with ferns of a sylvan motif,

  With flowers and herbs so profusely in train

  It would banish all thoughts of despair from your brain.

  Beat out as I was and in need of a doze,

  I laid myself down where a grassy bank rose

  By the side of a ditch, in arboreal shade,

  Where I stretched out my feet, and pillowed my head.

  So I shut down my brain, and the lids of my eyes,

  With my hat on my face to discourage the flies,

  And dropped off to sleep, quite composed and serene,

  When I found myself sunk in a horrible dream

  That jolted my senses, and grieved my heart sore;

  Lying dead to the world, I was shook to the core.

  Not long was my slumber when nearby, thought I,

  The land rocked and rolled, and a turbulent sky

  Brought a storm from the north, an incredible gale

  That lit up the harbour as fire fell like hail.

  In the blink of an eyelid – a thing I still see –

  A female approached from the side of the quay,

  Broad-arsed and big-bellied, built like a tank,

  And angry as thunder from shoulder to shank.

  Of her stature I made an intelligent guess

  Of some twenty-one feet, while the hem of her dress

  Trailed five yards behind, through the mire and the muck,

  And her mantle was slobbered with horrible guck.

  Majestic and mighty to gaze on her brow,

  Which was furrowed and gullied as if by a plough;

  Formidable, fearsome the leer of her grin,

  Purple-gummed, ulcered, with no teeth within.

  Dear God! how she waved like a wand in her fist

  A flagpole, so fiercely as not to be missed,

  With a brazen plaque stuck to the top of a spike,

  On which were inscribed a bum-bailiff’s rights.

  Then gruffly and roughly she uttered this spake:

  ‘Rouse yourself, stir yourself, sluggard, awake!

  Shame on you, blame on you, slumped on your ear,

  While the court is convened and the thousands draw near!

  Not a court without standing, or statute, or code,

  Nor an imported court of the plundering mode,

  But a court that is ruled by a civilized throng,

  Where the weak are empowered and women are strong;

  And the people of Ireland can hold their heads high

  That the fairy host gathers from far and from nigh

  To argue the case for two days and two nights

  In the many roomed mansion on Moygraney’s heights.

  And great is the grief on the mien of their king,

  And his fairy assembly, ranged ring on ring,

  And all of those others collectively there,

  That the nation has suffered such great disrepair –

  An old race indeed, without freedom or land,

  Without rights to its rent, and its leaders all banned,

  The rich farmlands ruined, their bounty replaced

  By brambles and nettles and fields full of waste.

  The nobles we had are all scattered abroad,

  And upstarts and gangsters now take up the rod,

  Their sport to deceive, and to rob without shame,

  To exploit the blind and the halt and the lame.

  O bleak is the prospect and black is the day,

  When Justice lies shackled, her laws disarrayed,

  The weak so enfeebled, infallibly tied

  To a future of fraud where no fairness abides;

  Duplicitous lawyers, and crooks on the bench,

  Hush money, slush funds, and all conscience quenched,

  Where backhanders buy you a piece of the judge,

  And everyone knows that the law is a fudge.

  Ciaran Carson

  To add to which, the whole assembly

  Decreed on the Bible this very day:

  The youth has failed, declined, gone fallow –

  Bad news and bad marks, sir, for you.

  In living memory, with birth rates fallen

  And marriage in Ireland on the wane,

  The country’s life has been dissipated,

  Pillage and death have combined to waste it.

  Blame arrogant kings, blame emigration,

  But it’s you and your spunkless generation.

  You’re a source blocked off that won’t refill.

  You have failed your women, one and all.

  Think of the way they’re made and moulded,

  The flush and zest in their flesh and blood –

  Those easy ladies half on offer

  And the big strait-laced ones, all ignored.

  Why aren’t they all consoled and gravid,

  In full proud sail with their breasts in bud?

  Say but the word and the clustered fruit

  Will be piled like windfalls round your feet.

  So the meeting pondered the country’s crisis

  And the best opinions agreed on this:

  That one of their own should be deputed

  To come back here to adjudicate.

  Then Aoibheall rises, as Munster’s guardian

  And Craglee’s peerless fairy queen

  And offers to leave the fairy palace

  And go to Thomond to hear the case.

  And, honest princess, she makes a promise

  To come down hard on the law’s abuse.

  Might without right to be defeated

  And right as right reinstated straight.

  So hereinafter, greasing the palm

  Of pimp or madam or sycophant

  Won’t work or avail, for it’s not an inch

  Now that Her Grace is boss of the bench.

  Already at Feakle the court’s in session

  That you must answer. The pressure’s on

  For you to appear. So move. And fast.

  Move or I’ll make you move, you bast—.’

  With that she crooked her staff in my cape

  And hooked me behind and hauled me up

  And we went like hell over glen and hill

  To Moinmoy Church, by the gable wall.

  And there (I am sure) lit torches showed

  A handsome, grand, well-built abode,

  A stately, steadfast, glittering space,

  Accessible and commodious.

  And I saw a lovely vision woman

  Ensconced on the bench of law and freedom,

  And saw her fierce, fleet guard of honour

  Rank upon rank in throngs around her.

  I saw then too rooms filling full,

  Crowding with women from wall to wall,

  And saw this other heavenly beauty

  With her lazy eye, on her dignity,

  Seductive, pouting, with curling locks,

  Biding her time in the witness box.

  Her hair spilled down, loosed tress on tress,

  And a hurt expression marked her face;

  She was full of fight, with a glinting eye,

  Hot on the boil, ill-set and angry –

  Yet for all her spasms, she couldn’t speak

  For her hefts and huffing had made her weak.

  She looked like death or a living death wish

  She was so cried out; but straight as a rush,

  She stood to the fore as a witness stands

  Flailing and wailing and wringing hands.

  And she kept it up; she raved and screeched

  Till sighing restored her powers of speech.

  Then her downlook went, her colour rose,

  She dried her eyes and commenced as follows:

  ‘A thousand welcomes! And bless Your Highness!

  Aoibheall of Crag, our prophetess!

  Our daylight’s light, our moon forever,

  Our hope of life when the weeping’s over!

  O head of all the hosted sisters,
/>   Thomond can thole no more! Assist us!

  My cause, my case, the reason why

  My plea’s prolonged so endlessly

  Until I’m raving and round the twist

  Like a maenad whirled in a swirl of mist –

  The reason why is the unattached

  And unprovided for, unmatched

  Women I know, like flowers in a bed

  Nobody’s dibbled or mulched or weeded

  Or trimmed or watered or ever tended;

  So here they are, unhusbanded,

  Unasked, untouched, beyond conception –

  And, needless to say, I’m no exception.

  I’m scorched and tossed, a sorry case

  Of nerves and drives and neediness,

  Depressed, obsessed, awake at night,

  Unused, unsoothed, disconsolate,

  A throbbing ache, a dumb discord,

  My mind and bed like a kneading board.

  O Warden of the Crag, incline!

  Observe the plight of Ireland’s women,

  For if things go on like this, then fuck it!

  The men will have to be abducted!

  Seamus Heaney

  ‘By the time it strikes them to take a partner

  there isn’t a person left would have them

  – limp, sucked dry, exhausted ancients.

  If it happens at all, in the heat of youth,

  that a man out of seven, on feeling his beard,

  goes out with a girl, it’s never some mild one

  nicely settled in seed and breed,

  well-mannered, gentle, soft, and shapely,

  who can seat herself or make an entrance,

  but an icy dullard or woeful ghost

  with an ill-fitting dowry gathered in pain.

  It’s a scald to my heart and drives me wild

  with my brain worn out and all its broodings

  ill, at an ebb, in pain, exhausted,

  lamenting and wailing – a pitiful leavings –

  when I see a courageous, cordial man,

  busy and bouncing, alive and alert,

  knowing and skilful, sturdy and warm,

  sweet-cheeked, laughing, loving and fine,

  or a firm-footed boy, well-balanced and brisk,

  commanding and proper, well-fashioned and fair,

  bargained and bought and in wedlock bound

  to a worm or a fool, a hag or a half-wit

  slovenly slut of an indolent girl,

  sullen and sulky, a whinge and a shame,

  ignorant, fussy, a gossipy nag,

  nosy and nasty, ill-tempered, inert.

  Destruction and ruin! Some ignorant sulk,

  some trollop all feet, with her hair unfixed,

  is being bound this night, and it burns me sore

  – for where is my fault I’m not chosen first?

  ‘Where is the cause I remain unloved

  and I so slender, fine and shy?

  My mouth so good, and my teeth and smile?

  I’ve a glowing complexion, a tender brow.

  I have delicate eyes and a forelock fine,

  curled and plaited and looped and twined.

  My features, free from dirt or grime,

  are fine-drawn, shapely, timid and bright.

  My throat and bosom, hands and fingers,

  seize between them beauty’s prize.

  Observe my waist! How slight the bones.

  No baldness here. Am I bent, or stiff?

  Bum, body and limbs: no cause for shame.

  And safe under cover my nameless gem.

  I’m no slut of a girl, no slug of a woman,

  but handsome and good, delightful and fair,

  no sloven or slattern or streel in a mess,

  no ill-mannered heap you can’t ease or please,

  no useless hussy or festering mope,

  but a maiden as choice as choice can be!

  ‘If my spirits were sagging like some of the neighbours,

  stupid and slow, without wisdom or wit

  or vision or verve in the use of my looks,

  I’d have cause to be crying, and fall in despair.

  But I never went out in the public gaze,

  at weddings or wakes, with old or young,

  off at the sports or a dance or the races,

  mixing with people all over the plain,

  but I dressed at my ease and with never a flaw

  in the finest of garments from head to foot,

  my hair wound round, with its share of powder,

  the back of my bonnet starched and set,

  with a shiny hood and no shortage of ribbons,

  a gown all speckled and finished with frills;

  and never was missing an airy facing,

  handsome and fine, on my crimson cloak,

  or flowers and fruits and birds in plenty

  on my striped and queenly cambric slip,

  or shaped and slender dainty heels,

  shiny and high, screwed under my shoes,

  or buckles and rings and silken gloves,

  bracelets and hoops or the dearest lace.

  ‘Careful, then; I’m not fearful or shy,

  a sheepish child or a witless fool,

  lonely and worried or crying in fear,

  feeble or touched, unbalanced or blind.

  I won’t be dodging the people’s gaze;

  my face and my brow are proud and high.

  And I’m certainly always on display

  at every field where the game’s fought hard,

  at dances, hurling, races, courting,

  bone-fires, gossip and dissipation,

  at fairs and markets and Sunday Mass

  to see and be seen, and choose a man.

  But I’ve wasted my sense in the hopeless hunt;

  they deceived me ever and wrung my guts

  after my wooing and lapse and love

  and all I’ve suffered of awful anguish,

  and all I spent on tossing the cups,

  on muttering women, and hags with cards!

  ‘There isn’t a trick you can hear or read of

  when the moon is new, or reaches the full,

  at Shrovetide, Samhain – the whole year through –

  but I’ve found it silly to seek for sense in it.

  I never could settle me down to sleep

  without fruit in a sock beneath my ear;

  I found it no trouble to fast devoutly

  – three vigils I’d swallow no bite or sup;

  I’d rinse my shift against the stream

  for a whisper in dream from my future spouse;

  many a time I have swept the corn-stack,

  I’ve left my nails and my hair in the ash,

  I’d place the flail behind the fork

  and quietly under my pillow, a spade;

  in the kiln by the ford, I’d place my distaff,

  in Raghnall’s lime-kiln, my ball of thread,

  out in the street, a seed of flax,

  and under my bedding a head of cabbage.

  There isn’t a trick I have just related

  but I prayed of the Devil and all his brethren!

  But the point and purpose of my tale

  is I’ve done my best and I’ve still no man;

  hence, alas, my long recital!

  In the knot of the years I am tangled tight,

  I am heading hard for my days of grey

  and I fear that I’ll die without anyone asking.

  ‘O Pearl of Heaven! I call and cry,

  I beg and beseech! My soul upon you!

  Don’t let me wander and streel about,

  a slovenly hag without vigour or bloom,

  stale and unwanted at stingy hearths,

  without family, friends, relief or rest.

  Thunder and lightning! Jesus’ blood!

  I was fooled – an idiot: whole, entire –

  while the pick of the worst and the fools of Fódla

 
; got their hands on the goods before my eyes:

  Sadhbh has a rich and restful brute,

  Muireann is merry, her face to her mate,

  Mór and Marcella are buried in comfort,

  jeering between them and joking about me.

  Sláine and Síle are skittish and easy

  and Áine and Cecily, their litters around them;

  and more, likewise, of the nation’s women,

  and me as I am, without issue or milk,

  a long time useless, worn by weakness.

  ‘But grant me time – the cure is at hand:

  a matter of herbs decayed and devilish

  and magical charms, to gain me yet

  a handsome boy, some elegant heir,

  and win me over his love and affection.

  A lot of the kind I have seen employed

  and I could make use of the same devices …

  A sterling aid in arranging pairs

  is the bite of an apple, or powdered herbs

  – little Balls-of-Joy or Lumps-of-Dung,

  the Shining Splicer, or Hammer-the-Hole,

  Nannygoat’s-Bait or Maiden’s Dart,

  Goldenlove – all lustful spells,

  the burning up of leaves in secret,

  and more of the like that shouldn’t be learned.

  It’s a thing of great wonder, Thomond over,

  that the maiden yonder obtained a spouse

  – but she told me at Shrove, in confidence

  (and the wedding occurred on the verge of Samhain!)

  that she ate and drank, this lady fair,

  nothing but bog-flies burnt in ale!

  I’m a long time waiting. I need release.

  Enough delay. Spur on with speed!

  If your circuit-round can’t cure my colic

  serious measures I’ll have to take!’

  Thomas Kinsella

  Then up there jumps from a neighbouring chair

  A little old man with a spiteful air,

  Staggering legs and panting breath,

  And a look in his eye like poison and death;

  And this apparition stumps up the hall

  And says to the girl in the hearing of all:

  ‘Damnation take you, you bastard’s bitch,

  Got by a tinkerman under a ditch!

  No wonder the seasons are all upsot,

  Nor every beating Ireland got;

  Decline in decency and manners,

  And the cows gone dry and the price of bonhams!

  Mavrone! what more can we expect

  With Doll and Moll and the way they’re decked?

  You slut of ill-fame, allow your betters

  To tell the court how you learned your letters!

  Your seed and breed for all your brag

  Were tramps to a man with rag and bag;

  I knew your da and what passed for his wife,

  And he shouldered his traps to the end of his life,

  An aimless lout without friend or neighbour,