Clouds will give way, the tempest will surrender
To all-taming toil when labour wins the spoils.
Heave, men, heave, let echo shout back Heave!
Bear up and we’ll get through – for has the Lord not plucked us
Safe and sound before from fixes worse than this?
Heave, men, heave, let echo shout back Heave!
Our Enemy lies in wait for the quailing of our hearts,
Ready with temptation to shake us to the core.
Think of Christ, men, with thinking minds cry Heave!
So stick to the oar-work, and scorn his ancient wiles,
Protected head to foot in virtue’s gleaming armour.
Think of Christ, men, with thinking minds cry Heave!
Firm faith and blessed zeal will overcome anything: –
The Old One is retreating; see! his darts are broken.
Think of Christ, men, with thinking minds cry Heave!
The King of virtues, height of power, fount of all,
Offers prizes to the striver, rewards the victor always.
Think of Christ, men, with thinking minds cry Heave!
PC
ANONYMOUS
The Good Rule of Bangor
The rule we keep is good
In the monastery at Bangor,
A sight that pleases God,
A just, exalted wonder.
Bangor’s monks are blessed
With faith firm and certain;
By charity possessed,
Cloaked in hope of heaven.
A ship that never lurched
When assailed by deadly storm,
A pure bride come to church
To wed her very Lord.
The one true stock
From the land of Moses;
Founded on a rock,
House of holy joys.
A town to withstand war,
With wall and citadel,
A marvel seen from far,
Set upon a hill.
Ark with sculpted angels
And gold enamelling,
Fit for sacred treasure
That four men carry in.
For Christ a lovely queen
Clothed in rays of sun;
A simple, learned mind
Not to be undone.
A true royal stronghold
With precious stones aglitter;
Christ’s own sheepfold
Protected by the Father.
Virgin full and fertile,
Unviolated mother;
Trembling and yet joyful,
Waiting on the Word;
Her whole life sanctified
By dear God our Father;
Her soul will reside
In a perfect future.
PC
CÚ CHUIMNE OF IONA
(fl. c.740)
Hymn to the Virgin Mary
Let us sing daily
and our measures vary
as we raise to God
a hymn of Our Lady.
Our two-part chorus
praises Mary together
one note strikes one ear
the next the other.
Mary, sprung of Judah
mother of Lord Jesus
held out a cure
for mankind’s sickness.
Gabriel brought the Word
down from God’s bosom
it quickened and grew
in Mary’s womb.
She is high, she is holy
venerable maiden
she did not step back
but embraced her burden.
Never before, never after
was such a one
and never of woman
came such as her Son.
For a tree and a woman
the world first was lost
another woman’s virtue
restores it to us.
Brave new mother
delivered of her father
who – baptism over –
we believe our Saviour.
She nourished a pearl
(no phantom was this)
for which good Christians
trade all they possess.
She wove a coat
without any seam
which at His death
fell prize to a game.
Raise weapons of light
the shield and the spear
perfect us for God
through Mary’s prayer.
Our repeated amens
through Christ’s noble bearer
ask reprieve from the flame
of the funeral pyre.
We call on Christ’s name
and the angels aver it
may we thrive, written down
in heavenly script!
COLLECT:
Holy Mary, we implore
your merit and dignity
may we be fit
to dwell in glory.
Kit Fryatt
Middle Irish
MAELÍSA Ó BROLCHÁIN
(c.970–1038)
Deus Meus
Deus meus adiuva me,fn1
Give me Thy love, O Christ, I pray,
Give me Thy love, O Christ, I pray,
Deus meus adiuva me.
In meum cor ut sanum sit,fn2
Pour loving King, Thy love in it,
Pour loving King, Thy love in it,
In meum cor ut sanum sit.
Domine, da ut peto a te,fn3
O, pure bright sun, give, give today,
O, pure bright sun, give, give today,
Domine, da ut peto a te.
Hanc spero rem et quæro quamfn4
Thy love to have where’er I am,
Thy love to have where’er I am,
Hanc spero rem et quæro quam.
Tuum amorem sicut uis,fn5
Give to me swiftly, strongly, this,
Give to me swiftly, strongly, this,
Tuum amorem sicut uis.
Quæro, postulo, peto a tefn6
That I in heaven, dear Christ, may stay,
That I in heaven, dear Christ, may stay,
Quæro, postulo, peto a te.
Domine, Domine, exaudi me,fn7
Fill my soul, Lord, with Thy love’s ray,
Fill my soul, Lord, with Thy love’s ray,
Domine, Domine, exaudi me.
Deus meus adiuva me,
Deus meus adiuva me.
George Sigerson
Irish
ANONYMOUS
Donal Óg
It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.
You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.
You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.
You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.
When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.
It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.
My mother said to me not to be talking with
you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.
My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith’s forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you put that darkness over my life.
You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!
Lady Augusta Gregory
The Stars Stand Up in the Air
The stars stand up in the air,
The sun and the moon are gone,
The strand of its waters is bare,
And her sway is swept from the swan.
The cuckoo was calling all day,
Hid in the branches above,
How my stóirín is fled far away –
’Tis my grief that I give her my love!
Three things through love I see,
Sorrow and sin and death –
And my mind reminding me
That this doom I breathe with my breath.
But sweeter than violin or lute
Is my love, and she left me behind –
I wish that all music were mute,
And I to my beauty were blind.
She’s more shapely than swan by the strand,
She’s more radiant than grass after dew,
She’s more fair than the stars where they stand –
’Tis my grief that her ever I knew!
Thomas MacDonagh
From the Cold Sod that’s o’er You
From the cold sod that’s o’er you
I never shall sever;
Were my hands twined in yours, Love,
I’d hold them for ever.
My fondest, my fairest,
We may now sleep together!
I’ve the cold earth’s damp odour,
And I’m worn from the weather.
This heart filled with fondness
Is wounded and weary;
A dark gulf beneath it
Yawns jet-black and dreary.
When death comes, a victor,
In mercy to greet me,
On the wings of the whirlwind
In the wild wastes you’ll meet me.
When the folk of my household
Suppose I am sleeping,
On your cold grave till morning
The lone watch I’m keeping.
My grief to the night wind
For the mild maid to render,
Who was my betrothed
Since infancy tender.
Remember the lone night
I last spent with you, Love,
Beneath the dark sloe-tree
When the icy wind blew, Love.
High praise to thy Saviour
No sin-stain had found you,
That your virginal glory
Shines brightly around you.
The priests and the friars
Are ceaselessly chiding,
That I love a young maiden
In life not abiding.
O! I’d shelter and shield you
If wild storms were swelling!
And O, my wrecked hope,
That the cold earth’s your dwelling!
Edward Walsh
Dear Dark Head
Put your head, darling, darling, darling,
Your darling black head my heart above;
Oh, mouth of honey, with the thyme for fragrance,
Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love?
Oh, many and many a young girl for me is pining,
Letting her locks of gold to the cold wind free,
For me, the foremost of our gay young fellows;
But I’d leave a hundred, pure love, for thee!
Then put your head, darling, darling, darling,
Your darling black head my heart above;
Oh, mouth of honey, with the thyme for fragrance,
Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love?
Samuel Ferguson
Cashel of Munster
I’d wed you without herds, without money, or rich array,
And I’d wed you on a dewy morning at day-dawn grey;
My bitter woe it is, love, that we are not far away
In Cashel town, though the bare deal board were our marriage-bed this day!
Oh, fair maid, remember the green hill side,
Remember how I hunted about the valleys wide;
Time now has worn me; my locks are turn’d to grey,
The year is scarce and I am poor, but send me not, love, away!
Oh, deem not my blood is of base strain, my girl,
Oh, deem not my birth was as the birth of the churl;
Marry me, and prove me, and say soon you will,
That noble blood is written on my right side still!
My purse holds no red gold, no coin of the silver white,
No herds are mine to drive through the long twilight!
But the pretty girl that would take me, all bare though I be and lone,
Oh, I’d take her with me kindly to the county Tyrone.
Oh, my girl, I can see ’tis in trouble you are,
And, oh, my girl, I see ’tis your people’s reproach you bear:
‘I am a girl in trouble for his sake with whom I fly,
And, oh, may no other maiden know such reproach as I!’
Samuel Ferguson
My Grief on the Sea
My grief on the sea,
How the waves of it roll!
For they heave between me
And the love of my soul!
Abandoned, forsaken,
To grief and to care,
Will the sea ever waken
Relief from despair?
My grief and my trouble!
Would he and I were
In the province of Leinster,
Or county of Clare!
Were I and my darling –
Oh, heart-bitter wound! –
On board of the ship
For America bound!
On a green bed of rushes
All last night I lay,
And I flung it abroad
With the heat of the day.
And my love came behind me –
He came from the South;
His breast to my bosom,
His mouth to my mouth.
Douglas Hyde
TOMÁS Ó FLANNGHAILE
(fl. mid-17th century)
The County of Mayo
On the deck of Patrick Lynch’s boat I sat in woeful plight,
Through my sighing all the weary day and weeping all the night.
Were it not that full of sorrow from my people forth I go,
By the blessed sun, ’tis royally I’d sing thy praise, Mayo.
When I dwelt at home in plenty, and my gold did much abound,
In the company of fair young maids the Spanish ale went round.
’Tis a bitter change from those gay days that now I’m forced to go,
And must leave my bones in Santa Cruz, far from my own Mayo.
They’re altered girls in Irrul now; ’tis proud they’re grown and high,
With their hair-bags and their top-knots – for I pass their buckles by.
But it’s little now I heed their airs, for God will have it so,
That I must depart for foreign lands, and leave my sweet Mayo.
’Tis my grief that Patrick Loughlin is not Earl in Irrul still,
And that Brian Duff no longer rules as Lord upon the Hill;
And that Colonel Hugh MacGrady should be lying dead and low,
And I sailing, sailing swiftly from the county of Mayo.
George Fox
ANONYM
OUS
Shaun O’Dwyer of the Glen
AD 1651
Oft, at pleasant morning,
Sunshine all adorning,
I’ve heard the horn give warning
With bird’s mellow call –
Badgers flee before us,
Woodcocks startle o’er us,
Guns make ringing chorus,
’Mid the echoes all;
The fox run higher and higher,
Horsemen shouting nigher,
The maiden mourning by her
Fowl he left in gore.
Now, they fell the wild-wood:
Farewell, home of childhood,
Ah, Shaun O’Dwyer a’ Glanna, –
Thy day is o’er!
It is my sorrow sorest,
Woe, – the falling forest!
The north wind gives me no rest,
And Death’s in the sky:
My faithful hound’s tied tightly,
Never sporting brightly,
Who’d make a child laugh lightly,
With tears in his eye.
The antlered, noble-hearted
Stags are never started,
Never chased nor parted
From the furzy hills.
If peace came, but a small way,
I’d journey down on Galway,
And leave, tho’ not for alway,
My Erinn of Ills.
The land of streamy valleys
Hath no head nor rallies –
In city, camp, or palace,
They never toast her name.
Alas, no warrior column, –
From Cloyne to peaks of Colum,
O’er wasted fields and solemn,
The shy hares grow tame:
O! when shall come the routing,
The flight of churls and flouting?
We hear no joyous shouting
From the blackbird brave;
More warlike is the omen,
Justice comes to no men,
Priests must flee the foemen
To the mountain cave.
It is my woe and ruin
That sinless death’s undoing
Came not, ere the strewing
Of all my bright hopes.
How oft, at sunny morning,
I’ve watched the Spring returning,
The Autumn apples burning,
And dew on woodland slopes!
Now my lands are plunder,
Far my friends asunder,
I must hide me under
Branch and bramble screen –
If soon I cannot save me
By flight from foes who crave me,
O Death, at last I’ll brave thee
The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 36