| |
I
MY CLOSEST and dearest! | |
| From the first day I saw you | |
| From the top of the market-house, | |
| My eyes gave heed to you, | |
| My heart gave affection to you, | 5 |
| I fled from my friends with you, | |
| Far from my home with you, | |
| No lasting sorrow this to me. | |
| |
II
Thou didst bring me to fair chambers, | |
| Rooms you had adorned for me; | 10 |
| Ovens were reddened for me, | |
| Fresh trout were caught for me, | |
| Roast flesh was carved for me | |
| From beef that was felled for me; | |
| On beds of down I lay | 15 |
| Till the coming of the milking-time, | |
| Or so long as was pleasing to me. | |
| |
III
Rider of the white palm! | |
| With the silver-hilted sword! | |
| Well your beaver hat became you | 20 |
| With its band of graceful gold; | |
| Your suit of solid homespun yarn | |
| Wrapped close around your form; | |
| Slender shoes of foreign fashion, | |
| And a pin of brightest silver | 25 |
| Fastened in your shirt. | |
| As you rode in stately wise | |
| On your slender steed, white-faced, | |
| After coming over seas, | |
| Even the Saxons bowed before you | 30 |
| Bowed down to the very ground; | |
| Not because they loved you well | |
| But from deadly hate; | |
| For it was by them you fell, | |
| Darling of my soul. | 35 |
| |
IV
My friend and my little calf! | |
| Offsprings of the Lords of Antrim, | |
| And the chiefs of Immokely! | |
| Never had I thought you dead, | |
| Until there came to me your mare | 40 |
| Her bridle dragged beside her to the ground; | |
| Upon her brow your heart-blood splashed, | |
| Even to the carven saddle flowing down | |
| Where you were wont to sit or stand. | |
| I did not stay to cleanse it— | 45 |
| I gave a quick leap with my hands | |
| Upon the wooden stretcher of the bed: | |
| A second leap was to the gate, | |
| And the third leap upon thy mare. | |
| |
V
In haste I clapped my hands together, | 50 |
| I followed on your tracks | |
| As well as I could, | |
| Till I found you laid before me dead | |
| At the foot of a lowly bush of furze; | |
| Without pope, without bishop, | 55 |
| Without cleric or priest | |
| To read a psalm for thee; | |
| But only an old bent wasted crone | |
| Who flung over thee the corner of her cloak. | |
| |
VI
My dear and beloved one! | 60 |
| When it will come to me to reach our home, | |
| Little Conor, of our love, | |
| And Fiac, his toddling baby-brother, | |
| Will be asking of me quickly | |
| Where I left their dearest father? | 65 |
| I shall answer them with sorrow | |
| That I left him in Kill Martyr; | |
| They will call upon their father; | |
| He will not be there to answer. | |
| |
VII
My love and my chosen one! | 70 |
| When you were going forward from the gate, | |
| You turned quickly back again! | |
| You kissed your two children, | |
| You threw a kiss to me. | |
| You said, “Eileen, arise now, be stirring, | 75 |
| And set your house in order, | |
| Be swiftly moving. | |
| I am leaving our home, | |
| It is likely that I may not come again.” | |
| I took it only for a jest | 80 |
| You used often to be jesting thus before. | |
| |
VIII
My friend and my heart’s love! | |
| Arise up, my Art, | |
| Leap on thy steed, | |
| Arise out to Macroom | 85 |
| And to Inchegeela after that; | |
| A bottle of wine in thy grasp, | |
| As was ever in the time of they ancestors. | |
| Arise up, my Art, | |
| Rider of the shining sword; | 90 |
| Put on your garments, | |
| Your fair noble clothes; | |
| Don your black beaver, | |
| Draw on your gloves; | |
| See, here hangs your whip, | 95 |
| Your good mare waits without; | |
| Strike eastward on the narrow road, | |
| For the bushes will bare themselves before you, | |
| For the streams will narrow on your path, | |
| For men and women will bow themselves before you | 100 |
| If their own good manners are upon them yet, | |
| But I am much a-feared they are not now. | |
| |
IX
Destruction to you and woe, | |
| O Morris, hideous the treachery | |
| That took from me the man of the house, | 105 |
| The father of my babes; | |
| Two of them running about the house, | |
| The third beneath my breast, | |
| It is likely that I shall not give it birth. | |
| |
X
My long wound, my bitter sorrow, | 110 |
| That I was not beside thee | |
| When the shot was fired; | |
| That I might have got it in my soft body | |
| Or in the skirt of my gown; | |
| Till I would give you freedom to escape, | 115 |
| O Rider of the grey eye, | |
| Because it is you would best have followed after them. | |
| |
XI
My dear and my heart’s love! | |
| Terrible to me the way I see thee, | |
| To be putting our hero, | 120 |
| Our rider so true of heart, | |
| In a little cap in a coffin! | |
| Thou who used to be fishing along the streams, | |
| Thou who didst drink within wide halls | |
| Among the gentle women white of breast; | 125 |
| It is my thousand afflictions | |
| That I have lost your companionship! | |
| My love and my darling, | |
| Could my shouts but reach thee | |
| West in mighty Derrynane, | 130 |
| And in Carhen of the yellow apples after that; | |
| Many a light-hearted young horseman, | |
| And woman with white, spotless kerchief | |
| Would swiftly be with us here, | |
| To wail above thy head | 135 |
| Art O’Leary of the joyous laugh! | |
| O women of the soft, wet eyes, | |
| Stay now your weeping, | |
| Till Art O’Leary drinks his drink | |
| Before his going back to school; | 140 |
| Not to learn reading or music does he go there now, | |
| But to carry clay and stones. | |
| |
XII
My love and my secret thou. | |
| Thy corn-stacks are piled, | |
| And thy golden kine are milking, | 145 |
| But it is upon my own heart is the grief! | |
| There is no healing in the Province of Munster, | |
| Nor in the Island smithy of the Fians, | |
| Till Art O’Leary will come back to me; | |
| But all as if it were a lock upon a trunk | 150 |
| And the key of it gone straying; | |
| Or till rust will come upon the screw. | |
| |
XIII
My friend and my best one! | |
| Art O’Leary, son of Conor, | |
| Son of Cadach, son of Lewis, | 155 |
| Eastward from wet wooded glens, | |
| Westward from the slender hill | |
| Where the rowan-berries grow, | |
| And the yellow nuts are ripe upon the branches; | |
| Apples trailing, as it was in my day. | 160 |
| Little wonder to myself | |
| If fires were lighted in O’Leary’s country, | |
| And at the mouth of Ballingeary, | |
| Or at holy Gougane Barra of the cells, | |
| After the rider of the smooth grip, | 165 |
| After the huntsman unwearied | |
| When, heavy breathing with the chase, | |
| Even thy lithe deerhounds lagged behind. | |
| O horseman of the enticing eyes, | |
| What happened thee last night? | 170 |
| For I myself thought | |
| That the whole world could not kill you | |
| When I bought for you that shirt of mail. | |
| |
XIV
My friend and my darling! | |
| A cloudy vision through the darkness | 175 |
| Came to me last night, | |
| At Cork lately | |
| And I alone upon my bed! | |
| I saw the wooded glen withered, | |
| I saw our lime-washed court fallen; | 180 |
| No sound of speech came from thy hunting-dogs | |
| No sound of singing from the birds | |
| When you were found in the clay, | |
| On the side of the hill without; | |
| When you were found fallen | 185 |
| Art O’Leary; | |
| With your drop of blood oozing out | |
| Through the breast of your shirt. | |
| |
XV
It is known to Jesus Christ, | |
| I will put no cap upon thy head, | 190 |
| Nor body-linen on my side, | |
| Nor shoes upon my feet, | |
| Nor gear throughout the house: | |
| Even on the brown mare will be no bridle, | |
| But I shall spend all in taking the law. | 195 |
| I will go across the seas | |
| To seek the villain of the black blood | |
| But if they will give no heed to me, | |
| It is I that will come back again | |
| To speak with the King; | 200 |
| Who cut off my treasure from me. | |
| O Morris, who killed my hero, | |
| Was there not one man in Erin | |
| Would put a bullet through you? | |
| The affection of this heart to you, | 205 |
| O white women of the mill, | |
| For the edged poetry that you have shed | |
| Over the horseman of the brown mare. | |
| It is I who am the lonely one | |
| In Inse Carriganane. | 210 |
