Of a brute so perverse, with a brain so debased,
That it grazed stony pastures, or fields of bare clay,
When under its nose was a fine feed of hay?
Answer me now, you despicable leech,
And I’ll fathom the depths of your floundering speech!
When you sit down to dinner, what matter to you,
If the lady’s been feasting for one month or two?
Would your acre of spuds be less likely to yield,
If five million Playboys had ploughed the same field?
Do you breathe? Do you feel? Do you shrink at a touch?
Do you think you might want if you want it too much?
And how many gulps do you think it might take,
To empty the Shannon, and drain all its lakes?
How many cupfuls to bail out the ocean?
How deep down its bed, do you have any notion?
Now, don’t be so headstrong, the next time you chat;
As for the two horns, keep them under your hat.
And don’t throw a fit, or fall out of your tree,
At the thought of a girl who is easy and free;
If she spent the day serving a jolly fine crew,
There still would be plenty left over for you.
Bejasus! such jealousy might be allowed
In a stud of some standing, a man well endowed
With panache and pizzazz, full of gusto and go,
With good shots in his locker, and strings to his bow –
A rollicking rover, a noble explorer,
A foraging forward, a dashing top scorer –
But not in a doddering, cack-handed clod,
A grumpy old runt with no bone in his rod!
‘It’s time that I mentioned a puzzle I’ve pondered,
A thorny conundrum that fills me with wonder –
Why priests when ordained in the clerical life
Are enjoined not to join or engage with a wife.
I chafe and I fret, like a bird in a cage;
Great is the patience that tempers my rage
That given the number of girls without men,
From the fellows in black we are forced to abstain.
O pity the maid of an amorous bent,
When she sees such a rosy-cheeked clerical gent,
Of classic proportions, handsome and tall,
Broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, bum nice and small,
Fresh-faced and smiling, his muscles well toned,
In the bloom of his youth, with firm flesh on his bones,
Solidly built, with an upstanding back,
Well able for pleasure, and up for the craic.
At the highest of tables they’re welcome to dine,
With Waterford crystal, the finest of wine;
Downy their pillows, and ample their beds;
Provided with dainties, they’re always well fed,
Most of them young, with their spunk at full flood,
For as we girls can tell you, they’re real flesh and blood.
Were they tittering pansies, or poxy old gets,
Or young whippersnappers, I’d not be upset,
But they’re sporty young fellows with shot in their guns,
Asleep on the job when there’s work to be done!
‘And some, I believe, might well chance their arm
For a wee bit of fun, and if so, what’s the harm?
There’s good and there’s bad, and to give them their due,
You don’t hang the many because of the few,
And to blame the whole order, it just wouldn’t do;
You don’t sink the ship to drown one of the crew.
Now some, it’s well known, have always been rakes,
And others have broken what rules they could break,
And there’s cranky old buggers – they’re not hard to find –
Full of ranting and raving, who hate womankind.
But others unlike them are kindly disposed,
And are touched by the love from which charity flows:
And many’s the girl who had set out her stall
Found it heaving with goods, from a clerical call.
It’s well I remember their members being praised
For the wonderful families their efforts have raised;
It’s often I’ve heard through the breadth of the land
Appreciative words for their principled stand;
It’s often I’ve seen the results of their labours
Being given false names, and brought up by the neighbours.
But it sickens my heart, when they spend all their time
With widows and wives who are well past their prime,
While the maidens of Ireland cry out in their need –
Such a terrible waste of the sanctified seed!
Such woe that is caused to the whole of the nation,
By clerical orders of no propagation!
O Kernel of Knowledge, I want to submit
That the celibate state is a baneful remit,
And that most who endure it have entered it blind.
And if blind I might be, draw the veil from my mind,
Recite, as you can, what the Prophets affirmed,
That same teaching of love the Apostle confirmed –
For where is it written, by what Word Divine,
That the joys of the flesh should in jail be confined?
I don’t think St Paul ever said to a soul
Not to marry, but told us to go out and sow,
To part from our parents, and cleave to a wife,
Two bodies as close as the haft to the knife.
I know it’s presumptuous of me, a mere girl,
To quote scripture to you, O Heavenly Pearl!
For Your Grace can remember the Biblical text,
Every twist, every turn, from each word to the next,
Every pith, every gist, every meaning unfold,
Of the stories that Christ to the multitudes told:
God’s Mother Herself was espoused to a man,
And Woman is big in the Biblical plan.
‘I beg and implore you, O All-knowing Vision!
Descended from heaven, give us a decision!
O Glorious Light! O Queen of the Nation!
Incline to my pleading, and further our station;
Weigh in your mind all our feminine needs,
The thousands of fields without husband or seed,
For the number of females is on the increase,
Falling over each other like flocks of young geese.
And the urchins you see running wild on the street –
Skinny wee lassies with dirty wee feet –
Will be healthy and fat in a month and a day
Should you feed them with greens and big mugfuls of whey,
Till they put on a spurt of unstoppable force,
And they blossom and bud as their blood takes its course.
It sickens my happiness! Look for a mate?
When I have to contend with a river in spate?
Hope for a tumble, a wee bit of fun,
When the girls are outnumbered by men three to one?
The province of Munster is utterly sunk,
And the wastrels of Munster are wasting their spunk;
The weeds are increasing, the country is spent,
Its youth growing feeble and agèd and bent.
Unmarried, impatient, deprived of coition,
I’m looking to you to improve my position:
So get me a man, and like birds of a feather
We’ll make a fine couplet in harness together!’
Ciaran Carson
Bathed in an aura of morning light,
Her Grace on the bench got up to her feet;
Beautiful, youthful, full of poise,
She cleared her throat and raised her voice,
Then clenched her fists with definite menace
And ordered the bailiff to call for silence.
The court complied; they sat entranced
As her lovely fluent lips pronounced:
‘To my mind, girl, you’ve stated your case
With point and force. You deserve redress.
So I here enact a law for women:
Unmated men turned twenty-one
To be sought, pursued, and hunted down,
Tied to this tree beside the headstone,
Their vests stripped off, their jackets ripped,
Their backs and asses scourged and whipped.
But the long-in-the-tooth and the dry-in-marrow,
The ones whose harrow-pins won’t harrow,
Who pen the pent and lock away
The ram that’s rampant in their body,
Keeping in hand what should go the rounds
And fencing off the pleasure grounds –
Their nemesis I leave to you
Whose hearths they’d neither fan nor blow.
Dear natural sexual women, think!
Consult your gender, mind and instinct.
Take cognizance. Co-operate.
For I here invest you with the right
(To be exercised to the breaking point)
And powers of violent punishment.
‘Yet who gives a damn in the end of all
For them and their dribbling stroup and fall?
With forks collapsed and the feeling gone,
Their hardest part is a pubic bone.
So let them connive, sing dumb and smile
If ever a young man rings their bell
For it seems to me that the best solution
For men past making a contribution
Is not to resent their conjugal plight
But stand by their wives when they put it about,
Facilitate their womanly drives
And lend their name when the baby arrives.
And that, for the moment, will have to do.
I’m on the circuit, and overdue
In another part of Munster. So:
My verdict’s short because I go.
But I’ll be back, and God help then
Recalcitrant, male-bonded men.’
She stopped, but still her starry gaze
Transfixed me in a kind of daze
I couldn’t shake off. My head went light,
I suffered cramps and a fainting fit.
The whole earth seemed to tilt and swing,
My two ears sang from the tongue-lashing
And then the awful targe who’d brought me,
The plank-armed bailiff, reached and caught me
Up by the ears and scruff of the neck
And dragged me struggling into the dock.
Where next comes skipping, clapping hands,
The lass who had aired her love-demands
And says to my face, ‘You hardened chaw,
I’ve waited long, now I’ll curry you raw!
You’ve had your warnings, you cold-rifed blirt.
But now you’re caught in a woman’s court
And nobody’s here to plead your case.
Where is the credit you’ve earned with us?
Is there anyone here your action’s eased?
One that your input’s roused or pleased?
Observe him closely, Madam Judge.
From head to toe, he’s your average
Passable male – no paragon
But nothing a woman wouldn’t take on.
Unshapely, yes, and off the plumb,
But with all his kit of tools about him.
A shade whey-faced and pale and wan,
But what about it? There’s bone and brawn.
For it’s him and his likes with their humps and stoops
Can shoulder doors and flutter the coops;
As long as a man is randy and game,
Who gives a damn if he’s bandy or lame?
So why is he single? Some secret wound
Or problem back in the family background?
And him the quality’s darling boy,
All smiles and friends with everybody,
Playing his tunes, on sprees and batters
With his intellectual and social betters.
Wining and dining, day in, day out –
The creep, I can see why they think he’s great!
A star bucklepper, the very man
You’d be apt to nickname “merry man”,
But the kind of man I would sweep away,
The virgin merry, going grey.
It bothers me deeply. I’ve come to hate
His plausible, capable, charming note
And his beaming, bland, unfurrowed forehead:
Thirty years old, and never bedded.
‘So hear me now, long-suffering judge!
My own long hurt and ingrown grudge
Have me desolated. I hereby claim
A woman’s right to punish him.
And you, dear women, you must assist.
So rope him, Una, and all the rest –
Anna, Maura – take hold and bind him.
Double twist his arms behind him.
Remember all the sentence called for
And execute it to the letter.
Maeve and Sive and Sheila! Maureen!
Knot the rope till it tears the skin.
Let Mr Brian take what we give,
Let him have it. Flay him alive
And don’t draw back when you’re drawing blood.
Test all of your whips against his manhood.
Cut deep. No mercy. Make him squeal.
Leave him in strips from head to heel
Until every single mother’s son
In the land of Ireland learns the lesson.
‘And it only seems both right and fitting
To note the date of this special sitting
So calm your nerves and start computing:
A thousand minus a hundred and ten –
Take what that gives you, double it, then
Your product’s the year.’ She’d lifted her pen
And her hand was poised to ratify
The fate that was looking me straight in the eye.
She was writing it down, the household guard
Sat at attention, staring hard
As I stared back. Then my dreaming ceased
And I started up, awake, released.
Seamus Heaney
WILLIAM DRENNAN
(1754–1820)
The Wake of William Orr
Here our murdered brother lies:
Wake him not with women’s cries;
Mourn the way that manhood ought;
Sit in silent trance of thought.
Write his merits on your mind:
Morals pure and manners kind;
In his head, as on a hill,
Virtue placed her citadel.
Why cut off in palmy youth?
Truth he spoke, and acted truth:
‘Countrymen, unite!’ he cried,
And died – for what his Saviour died.
God of Peace, and God of Love,
Let it not thy vengeance move,
Let it not thy lightnings draw –
A nation guillotined by law!
Hapless nation! rent and torn,
Thou wert early taught to mourn,
Warfare of six hundred years –
Epochs marked with blood and tears!
Hunted through thy native grounds,
Or flung reward to human hounds;
Each one pulled and tore his share,
Heedless of thy deep despair.
Hapless nation – hapless land,
Heap of uncementing sand
Crumbled by a foreign weight;
And by worse – domestic hate.
God of mercy! God of peace!
Make the mad confusion cease;
O’er the mental chaos move,
Through it speak the light of love.
Monstrous and unhappy sight!
Broth
ers’ blood will not unite;
Holy oil and holy water
Mix, and fill the world with slaughter.
Who is she with aspect wild?
The widowed mother with her child,
Child new stirring in the womb,
Husband waiting for the tomb!
Angel of this sacred place,
Calm her soul and whisper peace;
Cord, or axe, or guillotine
Make the sentence – not the sin.
Here we watch our brother’s sleep:
Watch with us, but do not weep;
Watch with us through dead of night,
But expect the morning light.
Conquer fortune – persevere! –
Lo! it breaks, the morning clear!
The cheerful cock awakes the skies,
The day is come – arise! – arise!
PAT O’KELLY
(1754–c.1812)
The Litany for Doneraile
Alas! how dismal is my Tale,
I lost my Watch in Doneraile.
My Dublin Watch, my Chain and Seal,
Pilfered at once in Doneraile.
May Fire and Brimstone never fail
To fall in Showers on Doneraile.
May all the leading Fiends assail
The thieving Town of Doneraile.
As Light’ning’s Flash across the vale,
So down to Hell with Doneraile.
The fate of Pompey at Pharsale,
Be that the Curse for Doneraile.
May Beef or Mutton, Lamb or Veal,
Be never found in Doneraile,
But Garlic Soup and scurvy Cale
Be still the food for Doneraile.
And forward as the creeping Snail
Th’Industry be of Doneraile.
May Heav’n a chosen Curse entail
On rigid, rotten Doneraile.
May Sun and Moon for ever fail
To beam their lights on Doneraile.
May every pestilential Gale
Blast that cursed spot called Doneraile.
May no Cuckoo, Thrush or Quail,
Be ever heard in Doneraile.
May Patriots, Kings, and Commonweal
Despise and harass Doneraile.
May every Post, Gazette and Mail,
Sad Tidings bring of Doneraile.
May loudest Thunders ring a Peal
To blind and deafen Doneraile.
May vengeance fall at head and tail
From North to South at Doneraile.
May Profit light and tardy Sale
Still damp the Trade of Doneraile.
May Egypt’s plagues at once prevail
To thin the Knaves at Doneraile.
May Frost and Snow, and Sleet and Hail
Benumb each joint in Doneraile.
May Wolves and Bloodhounds trace and trail
The cursed Crew of Doneraile.
The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 34