The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry

by Patrick Crotty (ed)

  How clear they are, how dark they are! they give me many a shock.

  Red rowans warm in sunshine and wetted with a shower,

  Could ne’er express the charming lip that has me in its power.

  Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up,

  Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup,

  Her hair’s the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine;

  It’s rolling down upon her neck, and gather’d in a twine.

  The dance o’ last Whit-Monday night exceeded all before,

  No pretty girl for miles about was missing from the floor;

  But Mary kept the belt of love, and O but she was gay!

  She danced a jig, she sung a song, that took my heart away.

  When she stood up for dancing, her steps were so complete,

  The music nearly killed itself to listen to her feet;

  The fiddler moan’d his blindness, he heard her so much praised,

  But bless’d his luck to not be deaf when once her voice she raised.

  And evermore I’m whistling or lilting what you sung,

  Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue;

  But you’ve as many sweethearts as you’d count on both your hands,

  And for myself there’s not a thumb or little finger stands.

  Oh, you’re the flower o’ womankind in country or in town;

  The higher I exalt you, the lower I’m cast down.

  If some great lord should come this way, and see your beauty bright,

  And you to be his lady, I’d own it was but right.

  O might we live together in a lofty palace hall,

  Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall!

  O might we live together in a cottage mean and small,

  With sods o’ grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!

  O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty’s my distress,

  It’s far too beauteous to be mine, but I’ll never wish it less.

  The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low;

  But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go!

  ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES

  (1846–1931)

  My Love’s an Arbutus

  My love’s an arbutus

  By the borders of Lene,

  So slender and shapely

  In her girdle of green;

  And I measure the pleasure

  Of her eye’s sapphire sheen

  By the blue skies that sparkle

  Through that soft branching screen.

  But though ruddy the berry

  And snowy the flower

  That brighten together

  The arbutus bower,

  Perfuming and blooming

  Through sunshine and shower,

  Give me her bright lips

  And her laugh’s pearly dower.

  Alas! fruit and blossom

  Shall scatter the lea,

  And Time’s jealous fingers

  Dim your young charms, machree.

  But unranging, unchanging,

  You’ll still cling to me,

  Like the evergreen leaf

  To the arbutus tree.

  PERCY FRENCH

  (1854–1920)

  McBreen’s Heifer

  McBreen had two daughters, and each one in turn

  Was offered in marriage to Jamsey O’Burn.

  Now Kitty was pretty but Jane she was plain,

  So to make up the differ, McBreen would explain,

  He’d give the best heifer he had on the land,

  As a sort of a bonus with Jane, understand.

  But then Kitty would charrum a bird off a bush,

  And that left the lad in a horrid non-plush.

  CHORUS

  Now there’s no denyin’ Kitty was remarkably pretty,

  Tho’ I can’t say the same for Jane,

  But still there’s not the differ of the price of a heifer,

  Between the pretty and the plain.

  Entirely bothered was Jamsey O’Burn,

  He thought that he’d give the schoolmaster a turn.

  Sez he to wed Kitty is very good fun,

  Still a heifer’s a heifer when all’s said an’ done.

  A girl she might lose her good looks anyhow,

  And a heifer might grow to an elegant cow.

  But still there’s no price for the stock, d’ye mind,

  And Jane has a face that the Divil designed.

  CHORUS

  Now there’s no denyin’ Kitty was remarkably pretty,

  Tho’ I can’t say the same for Jane,

  But still there’s not the differ of the price of a heifer,

  Between the pretty and the plain.

  The schoolmaster said, with a good deal of sinse,

  We’ll reduce the two girls to shillin’s an’ pence;

  Add the price of the heifer, then Jane, I’ll be bound,

  Will come out the top by a couple o’ pound.

  But still I’m forgettin’ that down in Glengall,

  The stock is just goin’ for nothin’ at all.

  So Jim thought he’d wait till the end of the year,

  Till girls might be cheaper or stock might be dear.

  CHORUS

  But when he came for Kitty, she was married to McVittie,

  And McBlane had appropriated Jane,

  So whether there’s the differ of the price of a heifer,

  Is a thing that he never could explain.

  WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

  Down by the Salley Gardens

  Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;

  She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

  She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;

  But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

  In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

  And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.

  She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

  But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

  JOSEPH CAMPBELL

  My Lagan Love

  Where Lagan stream sings lullaby,

  There blows a lily fair;

  The twilight gleam is in her eye,

  The night is on her hair.

  But like a love-sick leanannsidhe,

  She has my heart in thrall.

  No life I own nor liberty,

  For love is lord of all.

  And often when the beetle’s horn

  Has lulled the eve to sleep;

  I steal up to her sheiling lorn

  And through the dooring peep;

  There by the cricket’s singing-stone

  She spares the bogwood fire,

  And sings in sad sweet undertone,

  The song of heart’s desire.

  PADRAIC COLUM

  She Moved through the Fair

  My young love said to me, ‘My brothers won’t mind,

  And my parents won’t slight you for your lack of kind.’

  Then she stepped away from me, and this she did say

  ‘It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.’

  She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair,

  And fondly I watched her go here and go there,

  Then she went her way homeward with one star awake,

  As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

  The people were saying no two were e’er wed

  But one had a sorrow that never was said,

  And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear,

  And that was the last that I saw of my dear.

  I dreamt it last night that my young love came in,

  So softly she entered, her feet made no din;

  She came close beside me, and this she did say

  ‘ It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.’

&nb
sp; PATRICK KAVANAGH

  On Raglan Road

  On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew

  That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;

  I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,

  And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

  On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge

  Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion’s pledge,

  The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay –

  O I loved too much and by such, by such, is happiness thrown away.

  I gave her gifts of the mind, I gave her the secret sign that’s known

  To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone

  And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say

  With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May.

  On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now

  Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow

  That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay –

  When the angel woos the clay he’d lose his wings at the dawn of day.

  DOMINIC BEHAN

  (1928–90)

  Liverpool Lou

  Oh Liverpool Lou, lovely Liverpool Lou,

  Why don’t you behave, love, like other girls do?

  Why must my poor heart keep following you?

  Stay home and love me, my Liverpool Lou.

  When I go a-walking, I hear people talking,

  Schoolchildren playing, I hear what they’re saying:

  They’re saying you’ll grieve me, that you will deceive me,

  Some morning you’ll leave me, all woke up and gone.

  Oh Liverpool Lou, etc.

  The sounds from the river keep telling me ever

  That I should forget you, like I’d never met you;

  Tell me their song, love, was never more wrong, love;

  Say I belong, love, to my Liverpool Lou.

  Oh Liverpool Lou, etc.

  MACDARA WOODS

  (b.1942)

  The Dark Sobrietee

  In the confines of the public park

  and the blooming of sandragon trees

  I met a fair-haired woman

  who said soldier follow me

  Ah then no my love I answered

  for I know love’s company

  they would fix me and fact-find me

  in the dark sobriety

  By the confines of the ocean

  and the serpentining sea

  I met a dark-haired woman

  who said sailor sail for me

  Ah then no my love I answered

  there are seven riding seas

  and the course is reckoned dead dear

  by the dark sobriety

  In the confines of the city

  and the evening flying free

  I met the rarest woman

  who said poet follow me

  Ah then no my love I answered

  I have prayed and drunk the lees

  and what’s left me now is searching

  for the dark sobriety

  War, Politics, Prison

  ANONYMOUS

  Blarney Castle

  Tune: ‘O, hold your tongue, dear Sally!’

  O! Blarney Castle, my darling, you’re nothing at all but cold stone!

  With a small little taste of old ivy, that up your side has grown.

  Och, it’s you that was once strong and ancient, and you kept all the Sassenachs down:

  And you sheltered the Lord of Clancarty, who then lived in Dublin town.

  Bad cess to that robber, old Cromwell, and to all his long battering train,

  Who rolled over here like a porpoise, in two or three hookers, from Spain!

  And because that he was a Freemason, he mounted a battering-ram,

  And he loaded it up of dumb-powder, which in at its mouth he did cram.

  It was now the poor boys of the Castle looked over the battlement wall,

  And they there saw that ruffian, old Cromwell, a-feeding on powder and ball;

  And the fellow that married his daughter, with a great big grape-shot in his jaw,

  ’Twas bold I-ER-TON they called him, and he was his brother-in-law.

  So they fired the bullet like thunder, and it flew through the air like a snake;

  And they hit the high walls of the Castle, which, like a young curlew, did shake;

  While the Irish had nothing to fire, but their bows and their arrows – ‘the sowls!’

  Poor tools for shooting the Sassenachs, though mighty good for wild fowls.

  Now one of the boys in the Castle, he took up a Sassenach’s shot,

  And he covered it up in turf ashes, and he watched it till it was red-hot.

  Then he carried it up in his fingers, and he threw it right over the wall;

  He’d have burned their tents all to tinder, if on them it happened to fall.

  The old Castle, it trembled all over, as you’d see a horse do in July,

  When just near the tail in his crupper, he’s teased by a pestering fly.

  Black Cromwell, he made a dark signal, for in the black arts he was deep;

  So, though the eyes in the people stood open, they found themselves all fast asleep.

  With his jack-boots he stepped on the water, and he marched right over the lake;

  And his soldiers they all followed after, as dry as a duck or a drake;

  And he gave Squire Jeffreys the Castle, and the loch and the rock close, they say;

  Who both died there, and lived there in quiet, as his ancestors do to this day.

  The Relief of Derry, 1 August (old style) 1689

  Tune: ‘My ain kind dearie, O’

  The gloomy hour of trial’s o’er,

  No longer cannons rattle O;

  The tyrant’s flag is seen no more,

  And James has lost the battle, O.

  And here we are, renowned and free,

  By maiden walls surrounded O;

  While all the knaves who’d make us slaves,

  Are baffled and confounded, O.

  The Dartmouth spreads her snow-white sail,

  Her purple pendant flying, O;

  While we the gallant Browning hail,

  Who saved us all from dying, O.

  Like Noah’s dove, sent from above,

  While foes would starve and grieve us, O,

  Through floods and flame, an angel came,

  To comfort and relieve us, O.

  Oh! when the vessel struck the boom,

  And pitched, and reeled, and stranded, O,

  With shouts the foe denounced our doom,

  And open gates demanded, O.

  And shrill and high arose the cry,

  Of anguish, grief and pity, O;

  While, black with care, and deep despair,

  We mourned our falling city, O.

  But, Heaven, her guide, with one broadside,

  The laden bark rebounded, O;

  A favouring gale soon filled the sail,

  While hills and vales resounded, O.

  The joy-bells ring, ‘Long-live the King,’

  Adieu to grief and sadness, O;

  To Heaven we raise the voice of praise,

  In heartfelt joy and gladness, O.

  The Cow Ate the Piper

  In the year ’98, when our troubles were great,

  It was treason to be a Milesian.

  I can never forget the big black-whiskered set,

  The history books tell us were Hessians.

  In them heart breaking times we had all sorts of crimes,

  And murdering never was rifer.

  On the hill of Glencree, not an acre from me,

  Lived bould Dinny Byrne, the piper.

  Neither wedding nor wake was worth an old shake,

  If Dinny was not first invited,


  For at emptying kegs or squeezing the bags,

  He astonished as well as delighted.

  In such times poor Dinny could not earn a penny,

  Martial law had a sting like a viper –

  It kept Dinny within till his bones and his skin

  Were a-grin through the rags of the piper.

  ’Twas one heavenly night, with the moon shining bright,

  Coming home from the fair of Rathangan.

  He happened to see, from the branch of a tree,

  The corpse of a Hessian there hanging;

  Says Dinny, ‘These rogues have fine boots, I’ve no brogues,’

  He laid on the heels such a griper,

  They were so gallus tight, and he pulled with such might,

  Legs and boots came away with the piper.

  So he tucked up the legs and he took to his pegs,

  Till he came to Tim Kavanagh’s cabin,

  ‘By the powers,’ says Tim, ‘I can’t let you in,

  You’ll be shot if you stop out there rappin’.’

  He went round to the shed, where the cow was in bed,

  With a wisp he began for to wipe her –

  They lay down together on the seven foot feather,

  And the cow fell to hugging the piper.

  The daylight soon dawned, Dinny got up and yawned,

  Then he pulled on the boots of the Hessian;

  The legs, by the law! he threw on the straw,

  And he gave them leg-bail on his mission.

  When Tim’s breakfast was done he sent out his son

  To make Dinny lep like a lamp-lighter –

  When the two legs he saw, he roared like a daw

  ‘Oh Daddy, the cow ate de piper!’

  ‘Sweet bad luck to the baste, she’d a musical taste,’

  Says Tim, ‘to go eat such a chanter,

  Here Padraic, avic, take this lump of a stick,

  Drive her up to Glenealy, I’ll cant her.’

  Mrs Kavanagh bawled – the neighbours were called,

  They began for to humbug and jibe her,

  To the churchyard she walks with the legs in a box,

  Crying out, ‘We’ll be hanged for the piper.’

  The cow then was drove just a mile or two off,