The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry
Page 80
There’s a battery snug in the spinney,
A French seventy-five in the mine,
A big nine-point-two in the village
Three miles to the rear of the line.
The gunners will clean them at dawning
And slumber beside them all day,
But the guns chant a chorus at sunset,
And then you should hear what they say.
CHORUS
Whizz bang! pip squeak! ss-ss-st!
Big guns, little guns waken up to it.
We’re in for heaps of trouble, dug-outs at the double,
And stretcher-bearers ready to tend the boys who’re hit.
And then there’s the little machine-gun, –
A beggar for blood going large.
Go, fill up his belly with iron,
And he’ll spit in the face of a charge.
The foe fixed his ladders at daybreak,
He’s over the top with the sun;
He’s waiting; for ever he’s waiting,
The pert little vigilant gun.
CHORUS
Its tit-tit! tit-tit! tit! tit! tit!
Hark the little terror bristling up to it!
See his victims lying, wounded sore and dying –
Red the field and volume on which his name is writ.
The howitzer lurks in an alley,
(The howitzer isn’t a fool,)
With a bearing of snub-nosed detachment
He squats like a toad on a stool.
He’s a close-lipped and masterly beggar,
A fellow with little to say,
But the little he says he can say in
A most irrepressible way.
CHORUS
OO–plonk! OO–plonk! plonk! plonk! plonk!
The bomb that bears the message riots through the air.
The dug-outs topple over on the foemen under cover,
They’ll slumber through revelly who get the message there!
The battery barks in the spinney,
The howitzer plonks like the deuce,
The big nine-point-two speaks like thunder
And shatters the houses in Loos,
Sharp chatters the little machine-gun,
Oh! when will its chattering stop? –
At dawn, when we swarm up the ladders;
At dawn we go over the top!
CHORUS
Whizz bang! pip squeak! OO–plonk! sst!
Up the ladders! Over! And carry on with it!
The guns all chant their chorus, the shells go whizzing o’er us:–
Forward, hearties! Forward to do our little bit!
BRENDAN BEHAN
(1923–64)
from The Quare Fellow
The Ould Triangle
A hungry feeling came o’er me stealing
And the mice were squealing in my prison cell,
And that old triangle
Went jingle jangle,
Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
To begin the morning
The warder bawling
Get out of bed and clean up your cell,
And that old triangle
Went jingle jangle,
Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
On a fine spring evening,
The lag lay dreaming
The seagulls wheeling high above the wall,
And the old triangle
Went jingle jangle
Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
The screw was peeping
The lag was sleeping,
While he lay weeping for the girl Sal,
And that old triangle
Went jingle jangle,
Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
The wind was rising,
And the day declining
As I lay pining in my prison cell
And that old triangle
Went jingle jangle
Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
The day was dying
And the wind was sighing,
As I lay crying in my prison cell,
And the old triangle
Went jingle jangle
Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
In the female prison
There are seventy women
I wish it was with them that I did dwell,
Then that old triangle
Could jingle jangle
Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
from The Hostage
The Captains and the Kings
I remember in September,
When the final stumps were drawn,
And the shouts of crowds now silent
And the boys to tea were gone.
Let us, oh Lord above us,
Still remember simple things,
When all are dead who love us,
Oh the Captains and the Kings,
When all are dead who love us,
Oh the Captains and the Kings.
We have many goods for export,
Christian ethics and old port,
But our greatest boast is that
The Anglo-Saxon is a sport.
On the playing-fields of Eton
We still do thrilling things,
Do not think we’ll ever weaken
Up the Captains and the Kings!
Do not think we’ll ever weaken
Up the Captains and the Kings!
Far away in dear old Cyprus,
Or in Kenya’s dusty land,
Where all bear the white man’s burden
In many a strange land.
As we look across our shoulder
In West Belfast the school bell rings,
And we sigh for dear old England,
And the Captains and the Kings.
And we sigh for dear old England,
And the Captains and the Kings.
In our dreams we see old Harrow,
And we hear the crow’s loud caw,
At the flower show our big marrow
Takes the prize from Evelyn Waugh.
Cups of tea or some dry sherry,
Vintage cars, these simple things,
So let’s drink up and be merry
Oh, the Captains and the Kings.
So let’s drink up and be merry
Oh, the Captains and the Kings.
I wandered in a nightmare
All around Great Windsor Park,
And what do you think I found there
As I stumbled in the dark?
’Twas an apple half-bitten,
And sweetest of all things,
Five baby teeth had written
Of the Captain and the Kings.
Five baby teeth had written
Of the Captains and the Kings.
By the moon that shines above us
In the misty morn and night,
Let us cease to run ourselves down
But praise God that we are white.
And better still we’re English –
Tea and toast and muffin rings,
Old ladies with stern faces,
And the Captains and the Kings.
Old ladies with stern faces,
And the Captains and the Kings.
DOMINIC BEHAN
The Patriot Game
Come all you young rebels, and list while I sing,
For the love of one’s country is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And it makes us all part of the patriot game.
My name is O’Hanlon, and I’ve just turned sixteen.
My home is in Monaghan, that’s where I was weaned.
I learned all my life cruel England to blame,
So now I am part of the patriot game.
It’s nearly two years since I wandered away
With the local battalion of the bold IRA,
For I read of our heroes, and wanted the same
To play out my part in the patriot game.
I
joined a battalion from dear Ballybay
And gave up my boyhood so happy and gay.
For now as a soldier I’d drill and I’d train
To play my full part in the patriot game.
They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair,
His wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare,
His fine body twisted, all battered and lame:
They soon made me part of the patriot game.
This Ireland of ours has long been half free.
Six counties are under John Bull’s tyranny.
But still De Valera is greatly to blame
For shirking his part in the patriot game.
I don’t mind a bit if I shoot down police
They are lackeys for war, never guardians of peace;
And yet at deserters I’m never let aim,
The rebels who sold out the patriot game.
And now as I lie here, my body all holes,
I think of those traitors who bargained and sold
And I wish that my rifle had given the same
To those Quislings who sold out the patriot game.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Craig’s Dragoons
Air: ‘Dolly’s Brae’
Come all ye Ulster loyalists and in full chorus join,
Think on the deeds of Craig’s Dragoons who strike below the groin,
And drink a toast to the truncheon and the armoured water-hose
That mowed a swathe through civil rights and spat on Papish clothes.
We’ve gerrymandered Derry but Croppy won’t lie down,
He calls himself a citizen and wants votes in the town.
But that Saturday in Duke Street we slipped the velvet glove –
The iron hand of Craig’s Dragoons soon crunched a croppy dove.
Big McAteer and Currie, Gerry Fitt and others too,
Were fool enough to lead the van, expecting to get through.
But our hero commandos, let loose at last to play,
Did annihilate the rights of man in noontime of a day.
They downed women with children, for Teagues all over-breed,
They used the baton on men’s heads, for Craig would pay no heed,
And then the boys placed in plain clothes, they lent a loyal hand
To massacre those Derry ligs behind a Crossley van.
O William Craig, you are our love, our lily and our sash,
You have the boys who fear no noise, who’ll batter and who’ll bash.
They’ll cordon and they’ll baton-charge, they’ll silence protest tunes,
They are the hounds of Ulster, boys, sweet William Craig’s Dragoons.
Society
ANONYMOUS
In Praise of the City of Mullingar
Ye may strain your muscles
To brag of Brussels,
Of London, Paris or Timbuktu,
Constantinople,
Or Sebastabopal,
Vienna, Naples, or Tongataboo,
Of Copenhagen,
Madrid, Kilbeggan,
Or the Capital of the Rooshian Czar;
But they’re all inferior
To the superior
And gorgeous city of Mullingar.
That fair metropolis,
So great and populous,
Adorns the region of sweet Westmeath,
That fertile county
Which nature’s bounty
Has richly gifted with bog and heath.
Them scenes so charming,
Where snipes a-swarming
Attract the sportsman that comes from far;
And whoever wishes
May catch fine fishes
In deep Loch Owel near Mullingar.
I could stray for ever
By Brusna’s river,
And watch its waters in their sparkling fall,
And the ganders swimmin’
And lightly skimmin’
O’er the crystal bosom of the Royal Canal;
Or on Thursdays wander,
’Mid pigs so tender,
And geese and turkeys on many a car,
Exchangin’ pleasantry
With the fine bold peasantry
That throng the market at Mullingar.
Ye Nine, inspire me,
And with rapture fire me
To sing the buildings, both old and new,
The majestic courthouse,
And spacious workhouse,
And the church and steeple which adorn the view;
Then there’s barracks airy
For the military,
Where the brave repose from the toils of war;
Five schools, a nunnery,
And a thrivin’ tannery,
In the gorgeous city of Mullingar.
The railway station
With admiration
I next must mention in terms of praise,
Where trains a-rollin’
And engines howlin’
Strike each beholder with wild amaze;
And then there’s Main Street
That broad and clean street,
With its rows of gas-lamps that shine afar;
I could speak a lecture
On the architecture
Of the gorgeous city of Mullingar.
The men of genius,
Contemporaneous
Approach spontaneous this favoured spot,
Where good society
And great variety
Of entertainment are still their lot.
The neighbouring quality
For hospitality
And conviviality unequalled are;
And from December
Until November
There’s still diversion in Mullingar.
Now, in conclusion,
I make allusion
To the beauteous females that here abound;
Celestial creatures
With lovely features,
And taper ankles that skim the ground;
But this suspends me,
The theme transcends me,
My muse’s powers are too weak by far;
It would take Catullus,
Likewise Tibullus,
To sing the beauties of Mullingar.
The Nightcap
Jolly Phœbus his car to the coach-house had driven,
And unharnessed his high-mettled horses of light;
He gave them a feed from the manger of heaven,
And rubbed them and littered them up for the night.
Then down to the kitchen he leisurely strode,
Where Thetis, the housemaid, was sipping her tea;
He swore he was tired with that damn’d up-hill road,
He’d have none of her slops nor hot water, not he.
So she took from the corner a little cruiskeen
Well filled with the nectar Apollo loves best;
(From the neat Bog of Allen, some pretty poteen),
And he tippled his quantum and staggered to rest.
His many-caped box-coat around him he threw,
For his bed, faith, ’twas dampish, and none of the best;
All above him the clouds their bright fringed curtains drew,
And the tuft of his nightcap lay red in the west.
Nell Flaherty’s Drake
Oh, my name it is Nell, quite candid I tell,
And I live near Clonmel, I will never deny,
I had a large drake, the truth for to speak,
My grandmother left me, and she going to die;
He was wholesome and sound, and he weighed twenty pound,
And the universe round I would rove for his sake.
Bad luck to the robber, whether drunken or sober,
That murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake.
His neck it was green, he was rare to be seen,
He was fit for a queen of the highest degree.
His body so white, it would give you delight,
He was fat, plump and heavy, and brisk as
a bee.
My dear little fellow, his legs, they were yellow,
He would fly like a swallow, and swim like a hake.
But some wicked savage, to grease his white cabbage,
Has murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake.
May his pig never grunt, may his cat never hunt,
May a ghost him still haunt in the dead of the night.
May his hen never lay, may his ass never bray,
May his coat fly away like an old paper kite;
May the lice and the fleas the wretch ever tease,
And a bitter north breeze make him tremble and shake,
May a four-year-old bug make a nest in the lug
Of the monster that murdered Nell Flaherty’s Drake.
May his cock never crow, may his bellows not blow,
His potatoes never grow – no not even one;
May his cradle not rock, may his chest have no lock,
May his wife have no smock to shield her back bone.
May his duck never quack, may his goose be turned black
And pull down his stack with her long yellow beak.
May scurvy and itch not depart from the breech
Of the monster that murdered Nell Flaherty’s Drake.
May his pipe never smoke, may his teapot be broke,
And to add to the joke may his kettle not boil,
May he lie in his bed till the moment he’s dead,
May he always be fed on lob-scouse and oil,
May he swell with the gout, may his grinders fall out,
May he roar, bawl and shout, with the horrid toothache.
May his temples wear horns, and all his toes corns,
The monster that murdered Nell Flaherty’s Drake.
May his spade never dig, may his sow never pig,
May each nit in his wig be as big as a snail,
May his house have no thatch and his door have no latch,
May his turkey not hatch, may the rats eat his meal;
May every old fairy from Cork to Dunleary,
Dip him in snug and airy in pond or in lake,
Where the eel and the trout may dine out on the snout
Of the monster that murdered Nell Flaherty’s Drake.
May his dog yelp and growl with hunger and cold,
May his wife always scold till his brain goes astray,
May the curse of each hag that ever carried a bag
Light on the wag till his beard it turns grey,
May monkeys still bite him, and mad dogs affright him,
And everyone slight him asleep or awake.