An Drinaun Donn
A HUNDRED men think I am theirs when with them I
drink ale,
But their presence fades away from me and their high spirits fail
When I think upon your converse kind by the meadow
and the linn,
And your form smoother than the silk on the Mountain of O'Flynn.
Oh, Paddy, is it pain to you that I'm wasting night and day,
And, Paddy, is it grief to you that I'll soon be in the clay?
My first love with the winning mouth, my treasure you'll abide,
Till the narrow coffin closes me and the grass grows through my side.
The man who strains to leap the wall, we think him
foolish still,
When to his hand is the easy ditch to vault across at will;
The rowan tree is fine and high, but bitter its berries grow,
While blackberries and raspberries are on shrubs that blossom low.
Farewell, farewell, forever, to yon town amongst the trees;
Farewell, the town that draws me on mornings and on
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poem by Padraic Colum
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A Connachtman
IT'S my fear that my wake won't be quiet,
Nor my wake house a silent place :
For who would keep back the hundreds
Who would touch my breast and my face?
For the good men were always my friends,
From Galway back into Clare;
In strength, in sport, and in spending,
I was foremost at the fair;
In music, in song, and in friendship,
In contests by night and by day,
By all who knew it was given to me
That I bore the branch away.
Now let Manus Joyce, my friend
(If he be at all in the place),
Make smooth the boards of the coffin
They will put above my face.
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Hawaiian
SANDALWOOD, you say, and in your thoughts it chimes
With Tyre and Solomon; to me it rhymes
With places bare upon Pacific mountains,
With spaces empty in the minds of men.
Sandalwood!
The Kings of Hawaii call out their men,
The men go up the mountains in files;
Hands that knew only the stone axe now wield the iron axe:
The sandalwood trees go down.
More sandalwood is called for:
The men who hunt the whale will buy sandalwood;
The Kings would change canoes for ships.
Men come down from the mountains carrying sandalwood on their backs;
More and more men are levied;
They go up the mountains in files; they leave their taropatches so that famine comes down on the land.
But this sandalwood grows upon other trees, a parasite;
It needs a growing thing to grow upon;
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The Furrow And The Hearth
I
STRIDE the hill, Sower,
Up to the sky ridge,
Flinging the seed,
Scattering, exultant!
Mouthing great rhythms
To the long sea-beats
On the wide shore, behind
The ridge of the hillside.
Below in the darkness
The slumber of mothers,
The cradles at rest,
The fire-seed sleeping
Deep in white ashes!
Give to darkness and sleep,
O Sower, O Seer!
Give me to the earth
With the seed I would enter!
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Sojourning and Wandering
AUTUMN
A GOOD stay-at-home season is Autumn: then there's
work to be joined in by all:
Though the fawns, where the brackens make covert, may range away undeterred,
The stags that were lone upon hillocks now give heed to the call,
To the bellowing call of the hinds, and they draw back to the herd.
A good stay-at-home season is Autumn; the brown world's marked into fields;
The corn is up to its growth; the acorns teem in the wood;
By the side of the down-fallen fort even the thorn-bush yields
A crop, and there by the rath the hazel nuts drop from a load.
SPRING
Now, coming on Spring, the days will be growing,
And after Saint Bride's Day my sail I will throw;
Since the thought has come to me I fain would be going,
Till I stand in the middle of the County Mayo!
The first of my days will be spent in Claremorris,
And in Balla, beside it, I'll have drinking and sport,
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The Knitters
IN companies or lone
They bend their heads, their hands
They busy with their gear,
Accomplishing the stitch
That turns the stocking-heel,
Or closes up the toe,
These knitters at their doors.
Their talk 's of nothing else
But what was told before
Sundown and gone sundown,
While goats bleat from the hill,
And men are tramping home,
By knitters at their doors.
And we who go this way
A benediction take
From hands that ply this task
For the ten thousandth time
Of knitters at their doors.
Since we who deem our days
Most varied, come to own
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The Wayfarer
I. THE TREES
THERE is no glory of the sunset here!
Heavy the clouds upon the darkening road,
And heavy, too, the wind upon the trees!
The trees sway, making moan
Continuous, like breaking seas.
impotent, bare things,
You give at last the very cry of earth!
I walk this darkening road in solemn mood:
Within deep hell came Dante to a wood
Like him I marvel at the crying trees!
II. THE STAR
A mighty star anear has drawn and now
Is vibrant on the air
The half-divested, trembling trees of his
Bright presence are aware
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A Ballad Maker
ONCE I loved a maiden fair,
Over the hills and jar away,
Lands she had and lovers to spare,
Over the hills and far away.
And I was stooped and troubled sore,
And my face was pale, and the coat I wore
Was thin as my supper the night before
Over the hills and far away.
Once I passed in the Autumn late,
Over the hills and jar away,
Her bawn and barn and painted gate,
Over the hills and jar away.
She was leaning there in the twilight space,
Sweet sorrow was on her fair young face,
And her wistful eyes were away from the place,
Over the hills and jar away.
Maybe she thought as she watched me come,
Over the hills and jar away,
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The Landing
THE great ship lantern-girdled.
The tender standing by;
The waning stars cloud-shrouded,
The land that we descry!
That pale land is our homeland,
And we are bound therefor;
On her lawns nor in her coppice
No birds as yet make stir.
But birds are
flying round us,
The white birds of the sea
It is the breeze of morning,
This that comes hummingly.
And like the talk that comes from
A room where a babe is born
Such clearness and such mystery
Are in words said on the morn,
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The Toy-Maker
I AM the Toy-maker; I have brought from the town
As much in my plack as should fetch a whole crown,
I'll array for you now my stock of renown
And man's the raree will show you.
Here's a horse that is rearing to bound through the smoke
Of cannon and musket, and, face to that ruck,
The horseman with sword ready-held for the stroke,
Lord Lucan, maybe, or Prince Charlie.
An old woman sitting and waiting for call,
With her baskets of cockles and apples and all;
A one-legged sailor attending a ball,
And a tailor and nailer busy.
Or would you have these? A goose ganging by,
With head up in challenge to all who come nigh;
A cock with a comb dangling over his eye,
And a hen on a clutch nicely sitting;
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