The Mountainy Singer

This book is made up of a selection from the Author’s early books, with many new poems added.

A LINE’S A SPEECH

A line’s a speech;
So here’s a line
To say this pedlar’s pack
Of mine
Is not a book —
But a journey thro’
Mountainy places,
Ever in view
Of the sea and the fields,
With the rough wind
Blowing over the leagues
Behind!

I AM THE MOUNTAINY SINGER

I am the mountainy singer —
The voice of the peasant’s dream,
The cry of the wind on the wooded hill,
The leap of the fish in the stream.

Quiet and love I sing —
The carn on the mountain crest,
The cailin in her lover’s arms,
The child at its mother’s breast.

Beauty and peace I sing —
The fire on the open hearth,
The cailleach spinning at her wheel,
The plough in the broken earth.

Travail and pain I sing —
The bride on the childing bed,
The dark man labouring at his rhymes,
The ewe in the lambing shed.

Sorrow and death I sing —
The canker come on the corn,
The fisher lost in the mountain loch,
The cry at the mouth of morn.

No other life I sing,
For I am sprung of the stock
That broke the hilly land for bread,
And built the nest in the rock!

WHEN ROOKS FLY HOMEWARD

When rooks fly homeward
And shadows fall,
When roses fold
On the hay-yard wall,
When blind moths flutter
By door and tree,
Then comes the quiet
Of Christ to me.

When stars look out
On the Children’s Path
And grey mists gather
On carn and rath,
When night is one
With the brooding sea,
Then comes the quiet
Of Christ to me.

I SPIN MY GOLDEN WEB

I spin my golden web in the sun:
The cherries tremble, the light is done.

A sudden wind sweeps over the bay,
And carries my golden web away!

CHERRY VALLEY

In Cherry Valley the cherries blow:
The valley paths are white as snow.

And in their time with clusters red
The scented boughs are crimsonèd.

Even now the moon is looking thro’
The glimmer of the honey dew.

A petal trembles to the grass,
The feet of fairies pass and pass.

By them, I know, all beauty comes
To me, a habitan of slums.

I sing no rune, I say no line:
The gift of second sight is mine!

DARKNESS

Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole —
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.

MY FIDIL IS SINGING

My fidil is singing
Into the air;
The wind is stirring,
The moon is fair.

A shadow wanders
Along the road;
It stops to listen,
And drops its load.

Dreams for a space
Upon the moon,
Then passes, humming
My mountain tune.

THE GOAT-DEALER

Did you see the goat-dealer
All in his jacket green?
I met him on the rocky road
’Twixt this and Baile-doirin.

A hundred nannies ran before,
And a she-ass behind,
And then the old wanderer himself,
Burnt red with sun and wind.

He gave me the time-a-day
And doitered over the hill,
Walloping his gay ashplant
And shouting his fill.

I think I hear him yet,
Tho’ it’s a giant’s cry
From where I hailed him first,
Standing up to the sky.

Is that Puck Green I see beyond?
It is, and the stir is there.
By the holy hat, I know then —
He’s making for Puck Fair!

WHY CRUSH THE CLARET ROSE

Why crush the claret rose
That blows
So rarely on the tree?
Wherefore the enmity, dear girl,
Betwixt the rose and thee?
Art thou not fair enough
With that dark beauty given thee,
That thou must crush the rose
That blows
So rarely on the tree!

LAMENT OF PADRAIC MOR MAC CRUIMIN OVER HIS SONS

I am Padraic Mor mac Cruimin,
Son of Domhnall of the Shroud,
Piper, like my kind before me,
To the household of MacLeod.

Death is in the seed of Cruimin —
All my music is a wail;
Early graves await the poets
And the pipers of the Gael.

Samhain gleans the golden harvests
Duly in their tide and time,
But my body’s fruit is blasted
Barely past the Bealtein prime.

Cethlenn claims the fairest fighters
Fitly for her own, her own,
But my seven sons are stricken
Where no battle-pipe is blown.

Flowers of the forest fallen
On the sliding summer stream —
Light and life and love are with me,
Then are vanished into dream.

Berried branches of the rowan
Rifled in the wizard wind —
Clan and generation leave me,
Lonely on the heath behind.

Who will soothe a father’s sorrow
When his seven sons are gone?
Who will watch him in his sleeping?
Who will wake him at the dawn?

Seven sons are taken from me
In the compass of a year;
Every bone is bose within me,
All my blood is white with fear.

Seven youths of brawn and beauty
Moulder in their mountain bed,
Up in storied Inis-Scathach
Where their fathers reaped their bread.

Nevermore upon the mountain,
Nevermore in fair or field,
Shall ye see the seven champions
Of the silver-mantled shield.

I will play the “Cumhadh na Cloinne”
Wildest of the rowth of tunes
Gathered by the love of mortal
From the olden druid runes.

Wail ye! Night is on the water;
Wind and wave are roaring loud —
Caoine for the fallen children
Of the piper of MacLeod.

TO A TOWN GIRL

Violet mystery,
Ringleted gold,
Whiteness of whiteness,
Wherefore so cold?

Silent you sit there —
Spirit and mould —
Darkening the dream
That must never be told!

A MARCH MOON

A March moon
Over the mountain crest,
Ceanabhan blowing:
Her neck and breast.

Arbutus berries
On the tree head:
Her mouth of passion,
Dewy and red.

Cold as cold
And hot as hot,
She loves me..
And she loves me not!

A THOUSAND FEET UP

A thousand feet up: twilight.
Westwards, a clump of firtrees silhouetted against a bank of blue cumulus cloud;
The June afterglow like a sea behind.
The mountain trail, white and clear where human feet have worn it, zigzagging higher and higher till it loses itself in the southern skyline.
A patch of young corn to my right hand, swaying and swaying continuously, tho’ hardly an air stirs.
A falcon wheeling overhead.
The moon rising.
The damp smell of the night in my nostrils.

O hills, O hills,
To you I lift mine eyes!
I kneel down and kiss the grass under my feet.
The sense of the mystery and infinity of things overwhelms me, annihilates me almost.
I kneel down, and silently worship.

THE DARK

This is the dark.
This is the dream that came of the dark.
This is the dreamer who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.
This is the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

This is the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

This is the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

This is the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

This is the sword that tracked the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

This is the rope that swung the sword that tracked the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

This is the dark that buried the rope that swung the sword that tracked the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

This is the dark, indeed!

REYNARDINE

If by chance you look for me
Perhaps you’ll not me find,
For I’ll be in my castle —
Enquire for Reynardine!

Sun and dark he courted me —
His eyes were red as wine:
He took me for his leman,
Did my sweet Reynardine.

Sun and dark the gay horn blows,
The beagles run like wind:
They know not where he harbours,
The fairy Reynardine.

If by chance you look for me
Perhaps you’ll not me find,
For I’ll be in my castle —
Enquire for Reynardine!

SNOW

Hills that were dark
At sparing-time last night
Now in the dawn-ring
Glimmer cold and white.

I AM THE GILLY OF CHRIST

I am the gilly of Christ,
The mate of Mary’s Son;
I run the roads at seeding time,
And when the harvest’s done.

I sleep among the hills,
The heather is my bed;
I dip the termon-well for drink,
And pull the sloe for bread.

No eye has ever seen me,
But shepherds hear me pass,
Singing at fall of even
Along the shadowed grass.

The beetle is my bellman,
The meadow-fire my guide,
The bee and bat my ambling nags
When I have need to ride.

All know me only the Stranger,
Who sits on the Saxon’s height;
He burned the bacach’s little house
On last Saint Brigid’s Night.

He sups off silver dishes,
And drinks in a golden horn,
But he will wake a wiser man
Upon the Judgment Morn!

I am the gilly of Christ,
The mate of Mary’s Son;
I run the roads at seeding time,
And when the harvest’s done.

The seed I sow is lucky,
The corn I reap is red,
And whoso sings the Gilly’s Rann
Will never cry for bread.

GO, PLOUGHMAN, PLOUGH

Go, ploughman, plough
The mearing lands,
The meadow lands,
The mountain lands:
All life is bare
Beneath your share,
All love is in your lusty hands.

Up, horses, now!
And straight and true
Let every broken furrow run:
The strength you sweat
Shall blossom yet
In golden glory to the sun.

GO, REAPER

Go, reaper,
Speed and reap,
Go take the harvest
Of the plough:
The wheat is standing
Broad and deep,
The barley glumes
Are golden now.

Labour is hard,
But it endures
Like love:
The land is yours:
Go reap the life
It gives you now,
O sunbrowned master
Of the plough!

THE GOOD PEOPLE

The millway path looks like a wraith,
The lock is black as ink,
And silently in stream and sky
The stars begin to blink.

I see them pass along the grass
With slow and solemn tread:
Aoibheall, their queen, is in between —
A corpse is at their head!

They wander on with faces wan,
And dirges sad as wind.
I know not, but it may be that
The dead’s of human kind.

THE STORM IS STILL, THE RAIN HATH CEASED

The storm is still, the rain hath ceased
To vex the beauty of the east:
A linnet singeth in the wood
His hermit song of gratitude.

So shall I sing when life is done
To greet the glory of the sun;
And cloud and star and stream and sea
Shall dance for very ecstasy!

SCARE-THE-CROWS

Twopence a day for scaring crows —
Tho’ the rain beats and the wind blows!

The scholars think I’ve little wit,
But, God! I’ve got my share of it.

Why does the gorbing land-shark
Leave ploughed rigs for the green park?

Where little’s to find, and nothing’s to eat
But rabbits’ droppings and pheasants’ meat.

He knows better than come my way
Between the mouth and the tail of day.

For one lick of my hurding wattle
Would lay him out like a showman’s bottle!

And the thoughts that rise in my crazed head
When the cloud is low and the wind’s dead.

Where you see only clay and stones
I see swords and blanching bones..

But I’ll leave you now – it’s gone six,
And the smoke is curling over the ricks.

And it’s hardly like that the land-shark
Will trouble the furrows after dark.

A CRADLE-SONG

Sleep, white love, sleep,
A cedarn cradle holds thee,
And twilight, like a silver-woven coverlid,
Enfolds thee.
Moon and star keep charmèd watch
Upon thy lying;
Water plovers thro’ the dusk
Are tremulously crying.
Sleep, white love mine,
Till day doth shine.

Sleep, white love, sleep,
The daylight wanes, and deeper
Gathers the blue darkness
O’er the cradle of the sleeper.
Cliodhna’s curachs, carmine-oared,
On Loch-da-linn are gleaming;
Blind bats flutter thro’ the night,
And carrion birds are screaming.
Sleep, white love mine,
Till day doth shine.

Sleep, white love, sleep,
The holy mothers, Anne and Mary,
Sit high in heaven, dreaming
On the seven ends of Eire.
Brigid sits beside them,
Spinning lamb-white wool on whorls,
Singing fragrant songs of love
To little naked boys and girls.
Sleep, white love mine,
Till day doth shine.

TWINE THE MAZES THRO’ AND THRO’

Twine the mazes thro’ and thro’
Over beach and margent pale;
Not a bawn appears in view,
Not a sail!

Round about!
In and out!
Thro’ the stones and sandy bars
To the music of the stars!
The asteroidal fire that dances
Nightly in the northern blue,
The brightest of the boreal lances,
Dances not so light as you,
Cliodhna!
Dances not so light as you.

THE FIGHTING-MAN

A fighting-man he was,
Guts and soul;
His blood as hot and red
As that on Cain’s hand-towel.

A copper-skinned six-footer,
Hewn out of the rock.
Who would stand up against
His hammer-knock?

Not a sinner —
No, and not one dared!
Giants showed clean heels
When his arm was bared.

I’ve seen him swing an anvil
Fifty feet,
Break a bough in two,
And tear a twisted sheet.

And the music of his roar —
Like oaks in thunder cleaving;
Lips foaming red froth,
And flanks heaving.

God! a goodly man,
A Gael, the last
Of those that stood with Dan
On Mullach-Maist!

MY MOTHER HAS A WEE RED SHOE

My mother has a wee red shoe —
She bought it off a bacach-man;
And all the neighbours say it’s true
He stole it off a Leath-brogan.
Bacach-man, bacach-man,
Where did you get it?
Faith now, says he,
In my leather wallet!

My father has an arrow-head —
He begged it off poor Peig na Blath;
And Mor, the talking-woman, said
She found it in a fairy rath.
Peig na Blath, Peig na Blath,
Where did you get it?
Faith now, says she,
In my wincey jacket!

My brother has a copper pot —
He tryst’ it wi’ a shuiler-man;
And gossip says it’s like as not
He truff’d it from a Clobhair-ceann.
Shuiler-man, shuiler-man,
Where did you get it?
Faith now, says he,
In my breeches’ pocket!

BY A WONDROUS MYSTERY

By a wondrous mystery
Christ of Mary’s fair body
Upon a middle winter’s morn,
Between the tides of night and day,
In Ara’s holy isle was born.

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