Clann Cartie

MY heart is withered and my health is gone,
For they who were not easy put upon,
Masters of mirth and of fair clemency,
Masters of wealth and gentle charity,
They are all gone. Mac Caura Mór is dead,
Mac Caura of the Lee is finishéd,
Mac Caura of Kanturk joined clay to clay
And gat him gone, and bides as deep as they.

Their years, their gentle deeds, their flags are furled,
And deeply down, under the stiffened world,
In chests of oaken wood are princes thrust,
To crumble day and day into the dust
A mouth might puff at ; nor is left a trace
Of those who did of grace all that was grace.

O Wave of Cliona, cease thy bellowing !
And let mine ears forget a while to ring
And I, in little time, will stoop my head
And put it under, and will be forget
With them, and be with them, and thus be not :
Ease thee, cease thy long keening, cry no more :
End is, and here is end, and end is sore,
And to all lamentation be there end :
If I might come on thee, O howling friend !
Knowing that sails were drumming on the sea
Westward to Eiré, and that help would be
Trampling for her upon a Spanish deck,
I'd ram thy lamentation down thy neck.

Honoro Butler And Lord Kenmare (1720)

IN bloom and bud the bees are busily
Storing against the winter their sweet hoard
That shall be rifled ere the autumn be
Past, or the winter comes with silver sword
To fright the bees, until the merry round
Tells them that sweets again are to be found.

The lusty tide is flowing by in ease,
Telling of joy along its brimming way ;
Far in its waters is an isle of trees
Whereto the sun will go at end of day,
As who in secret place and dear is hid,
And scarce can rouse him thence tho' he be chid.

Now justice comes all trouble to repair,
And cheeks that had been wan are coloured well,
The untilled moor is comely, and the air
Hath a great round of song from bird in dell,
And bird on wing and bird on forest tree,
And from each place and square where bird may be.

The languid are made strong, the strong grow stronger,
There is no grievance here, and no distress,
The woeful are not woeful any longer,
The rose hath put on her a finer dress,
And every girl in bloom adds bloom again,
And every man hath heart beyond all men.

For the Star of Munster, Pearl of the Golden Bough,
Comes joyfully this day of days to wed
Her choice of all whom fame hath loved till now,
And who chose her from all that love instead :
The Joy of Flock, the Bud of Branch is she,
Crown of the Irish Pride and Chivalry.

He is chief and prince, well famed is he,
The love of thousands unto him does run ;
And all days were before and all will be,
He was and will be loved by every one ;
And she and he be loved by all no less
Who courage love, and love, and loveliness.

The nobles of the province take their wine,
And drink a merry health to groom and bride ;
They shall be drunken ere the sun decline,
And all their merrymaking lay aside
In deep, sweet sleep that seals a merry day
Until the dawn, when they shall ride away,
Leaving those two who now are one behind.
O Moon ! pour on the silence all they beams,
And for this night be beautiful and kind ;
Weave in their sleep thy best and dearest dreams ;
And fortune them in their own land to be
Safe from all evil chance, and from all enmity.

Eileen, Diarmuid And Teig

BE kind unto these three, O King !
For they were fragrant-skinned, cheerful and giving ;
Three stainless pearls, three of mild, winning ways,
Three candles sending forth three pleasant rays,
Three vines, three doves, three apples from a bough,
Three graces in a house, three who refused nohow
Help to the needy, three of slenderness,
Three memories for the compainionless,
Three strings of music, three deep holes in clay,
Three lovely children who loved Christ alway,
Three mouths, three hearts, three minds beneath a stone ;
Ruin it is ! three causes for the moan
That rises everywhere now they are gone :
Be kind, O King, unto this two and one !

The County Mayo

NOW with the coming in of the spring the days will stretch a bit,
And after the Feast of Brigid I shall hoist my flag and go,
For since the thought got into my head I can neither stand nor sit
Until I find myself in the middle of the County of Mayo.

In Claremorris I would stop a night sleep with decent men,
And then go on to Balla just beyond and drink galore,
And next Kiltimagh for a visit of about a month, and then
I would only be a couple of miles away from Ballymore.

I say and swear my heart lifts up like the lifting of a tide,
Rising up like the rising wind till fog or mist must go,
When I remember Carra, and Gallen close beside,
And the Gap of the Two Bushes, and the wide plains of Mayo.

To Killaden the, to the place where everything grows that is best,
There are raspberries there and strawberries there and all that is good for men ;
And if I were only there in the middle of my folk my heart could rest,
For age itself would leave me there and I'd be young again.

Sean O'Cosgair

PITY it was that you should ever stand
In ship or boat,
Or that you went afloat
Inside that ship !

That lusty steps you took !
The ways and journeys you knew and how to wend
From London back to Beltra,
And this end !

You who could swim so well !
What times you sported in the lifting tides
The girl swam out to you, and held your sides
When they were weary, for they knew they were
Safe, because you where there.

Your little-mother thought that this was true
(And so she made no stir
Til you were found),
Although an hundred might be drownéd, you
Would come back safe to her,
And not be drowned !

William O'Kelly

THE Protecting Tree
Of the men of the land of Fál !
What aileth thee,
And why is it that all
About thee grieves ?

Alas, O Tree of the Leaves !
Here is thy rhyme :
Thy bloom is lightened ;
And if thy fruit be withered
Thy root hath not tightened
At the same time.

Not since the Gael was sold
At Aughrim. Not since to cold,
Dull death went Owen Roe ;
Not since the drowning of Clann Adam in the days of Noe
Brought men to hush,
Has sucha tale of woe come to us
In such a rush.

The true flower of the blood of the place is fallen :
The tree clean-wheat of the Gael is reaped.

Destruction be upon Death,
For he has come and taken from our tree
The topmost blackberry !

Mary Ruane

THE sky-like girl whom we knew !
She dresses herself to go to the fair
In a dress of white and blue ;
A white lace cap, and ribbons white
She wore in her hair ;
She does not hear in the night
Her mother crying for her,
Where,
Deep down in the sea,
She rolls and lingers to and fro
Unweariedly.

Anthony O'Daly

SINCE your limbs were laid out
The stars do not shine,
The fish leap not out
In the waves.
On our meadows the dew
Does not fall in the morn,
For O'Daly is dead :
Not a flower can be born,
Not a word can be said,
Not a tree had a leaf ;
Anothony, after you
There is nothing to do,
There is nothing but grief.

Nancy Walsh

IT is not on her gown
She fears no tread ;
It is her hair
Which tumbles down
And strays
About her ways
That she must care.

And she lives nigh this place :
The dead would rise
If they could see her face ;
The dead would rise
Only to hear her sing :
But death is blind, and gives not ear nor eye
To anything.

We would leave behind
Both wife and child,
And house and home ;
And wander blind,
And wander thus,
And ever roam,
If she would come to us
In Erris.

Softly she said to me —
Be patient will the night comes,
And I will go with thee.

A Poetry Recital

A Poetry Recital, published in June 1925 is a collection of poems Stephens used during his first American speaking tour in 1925. As such, the poems selected were those which could be read aloud with effect, and some are less poems than vocal excercises.

Two editions, a New York and a London one, were published in 1925 with slightly differing order and content. A new edition, dated 1926, added a foreward and seven poems to the 1925 American version. The new poems were: "Little Things," "The Snare," "The Merry Music," "The Fifteen Acres," "The Crest Jewel," "Thy Soul," and "Christmas in Freelands."

The Red Man's Wife

THEN she arose
And walked in the valley
In her fine clothes.

After great fire
Great frost
Comes following.

Turgesius was lost
By the daughter of Maelsheachlin
The King.

By Grainne,
Of high Ben Gulbain in the north,
Was Diarmuid lost.

The strong sons of Ushna,
Who never submitted,
They fell by Deirdre.

Besides That

If I could get to heaven
By eating all I could,
I'd become a pig,
And I'd gobble up my food. Of if I could get to heaven
By climbing up a tree,
I'd become a monkey.
And I'd climb up rapidly.

Or if I could get to heaven
By any other way
Than the way that's told of,
I'd ha' been there yesterday.

But the way that we are told of
Bars the monkey and the pig,
And is very, very difficult,
Besides that.

The Golden Bird

If joy, The Golden Bird, would fly,
Do not close an hand upon her ;
She belongeth to the sky,
With all the winds and heaven on her,
Only when her wings are free
Bird of Lovely Life is she.

He who Joy of life would store
Heart of his be widely open ;
Throw the key out, with the door,
Throw the hope out, with the hopen ;
Giver her, as she finds in sky,
Place to dip, and soar, and fly.

She will come again, I wist ;
She of thee shall not be frighted ;
She shall sing upon thy fist ;
By her shall thy dark be lighted :
By her freedom thou art given
Right and room in Joyous heaven.

The Rivals

I heard a bird at dawn
Singing sweetly on a tree,
That the dew was on the lawn,
And the wind was on the lea ;
But I didn’t listen to him,
For he didn’t sing to me.

I didn’t listen to him,
For he didn’t sing to me
That the dew was on the lawn,
And the wind was on the lea ;
I was singing at the time
Just as prettily as he.

I was singing all the time,
Just as prettily as he,
About the dew upon the lawn
And the wind upon the lea ;
So I didn’t listen to him
As he sang upon a tree.

The Daisies

Is the scented bud of the morning-O,
When the windy grass went rippling far,
I saw my dear one walking slow,
In the field where the daisies are.

We did not laugh and we did not speak
As we wandered happily to and fro ;
I kissed my dear on either cheek,
In the bud of the morning-O.

A lark sang up from the breezy land,
A lark sang down from a cloud afar,
And she and I went hand in hand
In the field where the daisies are.

The Pit of Bliss

When I was young I dared to sing
Of everything and anything :
Of joy and woe and fate and God,
Of dreaming cloud and teeming sod,
Of hill that thrust and amber spear
into the sunset, and the soul
Precipice that shakes the soul
To its black gape—I sang the whole
Of man and God, nor sought to know
God or man or joy or woe :
And, thought an older wight I be,
My Soul hath still such ecstasy
That, on a pulse, I sing and sing
Of everything and anything. There is a light shines in the head ;
It is not gold, it is not red ;
But, as the lightning's blinding light,
It is a stare of silver white
That one surmise would fancy blue :
On that mind-binding hue I gaze
An instant, and am in a maze
Of thinking—could one call it so ?
It is no feeling that I know
—An hurricane of knowing, that
Could whelm the soul that was not pat
To flinch and lose the deadly thing,
And sing, and sing again, and sing
Of everything and anything.

An eagle, whirling up the sky,
Sunblind, dizzy, urging high,
And higher urging yet a wing,
Until he can no longer cling,
Or hold, or do a thing, but fall
And sink and whirl and scream through all
The dizzy heaven-hell of pit,
In mile-a-minute flight from it
That he had dared—From height of height,
So the poet takes his flight
And tumble in the pit of bliss,
And, in the roar of that abyss,
And falling, he will sing and sing
Of everything and anything.

What is knowing—'tis to see :
What is feeling—'tis to be :
What is love—but more and more
To see and be, to be a pour
And avalanche of being, till
The being ceases and is still
For very motion—What is joy,
—Being, past all earthly cloy
And intermixture : being spun
Of itself is being won :
—That is joy, and this is God
To be that in cloud and clod,
And in cloud and clod and sing
Of everything and anything.

To Clemens J. France.

Away ! Far Away !

Slów
Creatures
Slów,

Nuzzle and press,
And take their food
In the darkness.

No stir is now
In all that once
Was all ;

No dréam, no sight,
No soúnd, no sense
If thére.

Unséen
The béam
Of the sun :

Unknówn
The ring
Of the light :

Unknówn
In the cave
Unséen

By the slów,
Slów
Hungers

Naught's
Left
—But foód ;

All else
That was
Is awáy :

Far-awáy,

In the gléam,
In the ring
In the béam

In the Sun.

Note: Accented letters are to be sounded for as long as possible. Two beats of this duration are to be held at the end of each line, four at the end of each verse. Unmarked words and phrases are to be said quickly, and ended sharply. All line endings and verse endings, or silences, are to be well held.

Nora Criona

I have looked him round and looked him through,
Know everything that he will do
In such a case, and such a case,
And when a frown comes on his face
I dream of it, and when a smile
I trace its sources in a while.

He cannot do a thing but I
Peep to find the reason why,
Because I love him and I seek,
Every evening in the week,
To peep behind his frowning eye
With little query, little pry,
And make him if a woman can
Happier than any other man.

Yesterday he gripped her tight
And cut her throat—and serve her right !

Righteous Anger

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer :
May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.

That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will ever see
On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,
Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,
And threw me out of the house on the back of my head !

If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day ;
But she with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange !
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten and may
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange

Geoffrey Keating

O woman full of wiliness !
Although for love of me you pine,
Withhold your hand adventurous,
It holdeth nothing holding mine.

Look on my head, how it is grey !
My body's weakness doth appear ;
My blood is chill and thin; my day
Is done, and there is nothing here.

Do not call me a foolish man,
Nor lean your lovely cheek to mine :
O slender witch, our bodies can
Not mingle now, nor any time.

So take your mouth from mine, your hand
From mine, ah, take your lips away !
Lest heat to will should ripen, and
All this be grave that had been gay.

It is this curl, a silken nest,
And this grey eye bright as the dew,
And this round, lovely, snow-white breast
That draws desire in search of you.

I would do all for you, meseems,
Bit this, tho' this were happiness !
I shall not mingle in your dreams,
O woman full of wiliness !

Green Weeds

o be not jealous give not love ;
Rate not thy fair all fair above,
Of thou'lt be decked in green, the hue
That jealousy is bounden to.

That lily hand, those lips of fire,
Those dewy eyes that spill desire,
Those mounds of lambent snow may be
Found anywhere it pleaseth thee

To turn : the turn, and be not mad
Tho' all of lov'liness she had :
She hath not all of lov'liness ;
A store remains wherewith to bless

The bee, the bird, the butterfly
And thou—Go, search with those that fly
For that which thou shalt easy find
On every path and any wind.

Nor dream that she be Seal or Star
Who is but as her sisters are ;
And whose reply is yes and no
To all that come and all that go.

"I love"—Then love again, my friend,
Enjoy thy love without an end ;
"I love"—Ah, cease, know what is what,
Thou dost not love if she love not.

For if thou truly loved her
From thee away show could not stir,
Bur ever at thy side would be
Thyself and thy felicity.

Go, drape thee in the greeny hue ;
Thou art not Love, she is not True,
And, no more need be said—adieu

Peggy Mitchell

As lily grows up easily,
In modest, gentle dignity
To sweet perfection,
So grew she,
As easily.

Or as the rose that takes no care
Will open out on sunny air
Bloom after bloom, fair after fair,
Sweet after sweet ;
Just so did she,
As carelessly.

She is our torment without end,
She is our enemy and friend,
Our joy, our woe ;
Madness or glee
To you and me,
And endlessly.

Nancy Walsh

I, without bite or sup
If thou wert fated for me,
I would up
And would go after thee
Through mountains.

A thousand thanks from me
To God have gone,
Because I have not lost my senses to thee,
Though it was hardly I escaped from thee,
O ringleted one !

The Coolun

Come with me, under my coat,
And we will drink our fill
Of the milk of the white goat,
Or wine if it be thy will ;
And we will talk until
Talk is a trouble, too,

Out on the side of the hill,
And nothing is left to do,
But an eye to look into an eye
And a hand in a hand to slip,
And a sigh to answer a sigh,
And a lip to find out a lip :
What if the night be black
And the air on the mountain chill,
Where the goat lies down in her track
And all but the fern is still !
Stay with me under my coat,
And we will drink our fill
Of the milk of the white goat
Out on the side of the hill.

Mary Hynes

She is the sky of the sun,
She is the dart
Of Love,
She is the love of my heart,
She is a rune,
She is above
The woman of the race of eve
As the sun is above the moon.

Lovely and airy the view from the hill
That looks down Ballylea ;
But no good sight is good until
By great good luck you see
The Blossom of the Branches walking towards you
Airily.

His Will

He wills

To bé

Alone

With thée :

A stone;

A stream;

A ský ;

A treé ;

It is

His

Dream

To bé

Alone

With these

And thée

Note: The letters marked with an accent are to be prolonged for as long as it is possible to sound them. Count two beats of that duration at the end of each line, and for the silences between each verse. These sounds and silences are to be considered as one rhythmic utterance.

The Rose In The Wind

Dip and swing,
Lift and sway ;
Dream a life,
In a dream, away. Like a dream
In a sleep
Is the rose
In the wind ;

And a fish
In the deep ;
And a man
In the mind :

Dreaming to lack
All that is his ;
Dreaming to gain
All that he is.

Dreaming a life,
In a dream, away ;
Dip and swing,
Lift and sway

On a Lonely Spray

Under a lonely sky a lonely tree
Is beautiful. All that is loneliness
Is beautiful. A feather lost at sea,
A starling owl, a moth, a yellow tress
Of seaweed on a rock, is beautiful. The night-lit moon, wide-wandering in sky;
A blue-right spark, where ne'er a cloud is up ;
A wing where no wing is, it is so high ;
A bee in winter, and a buttercup,
Late-blown, are lonely, and are beautiful.

She, whom you saw but once, and saw no more ;
That he, who startled you, and went away ;
The eye that watched you from a cottage door ;
The first leaf, and the last ; the break of day ;
The mouse, the cuckoo, and the cloud, are beautiful.

For all that is, is lonely; all that may
Will be as lonely as is that you see ;
The lonely heart sings on a lonely spray,
The lonely soul swings lonely in the sea,
And all that loneliness is beautiful.

All, all alone, and all without a pert
Is beautiful, for beauty is all where ;
Where is an eye is beauty, where am heart
Is beauty, brooding out, on empty air,
All that is lonely and is beautiful.

Chill of The Eve

A long, green swell
Slopes soft to the sea,
And a far-off bell
Swings sweet to me,
As the grey, chill day
Slips away from the lea. Spread cold and far,
Without one glow
From a mild, pale star,
Is the sky's steel bow,
And the grey, chill day
Slips away below.

That green tree grieves
To the air around,
And the whispering leaves
Have a lonely sound,
As the grey, chill day
Slips away from the ground

The long grass bends
With a rippling rush
To the soft, white ends
Where the roots are lush,
And the grey, chill day
Slips away in a bush.

Down by the shore
The slow waves twine
From the rock-strewn floor
To the shell-edged line,
And the grey, chill day
Slips away with a whine.

And dark, more dark,
The shades settle down,
Far off is a spark
From the lamp-lit town,
And the grey, chill day
Slips away with a frown.

Out And Away

Silvery-black, and silvery-blue,
Delicate, dainty, silvery shoe,
We are as young and as old as you.

Without, apart, afar, you climb,
Haunting the gulfs and the deeps of time ;
What do you hunt, without reason or rhyme ?

Me, and he, and she, and thee,
Lending each other our mystery ;
Always the One, wherever we be.

Silvery-black, and silvery-blue,
Delicate, dainty, silvery shoe,
We are as young and as old as you.

From the James Stephens poetry book, A Poetry Recital

The Voice of God

I bent again unto the ground
And I heard the quiet sound
Which the grasses make when they
Come up laughing from the clay. "We are the voice of God," they said :
Thereupon I bent my head
Down again that I might see
If they truly spoke to me.


But around me everywhere
Grass and tree and mountain were
Thundering in mighty glee,
"We are the voice of deity."


And I leapt from where I lay,
I danced upon the laughing clay,
And, to the rock that sang beside,
"We are the voice of God," I cried.

The Main Deep

The long-rolling,
Steady-pouring,
Deep-trenched,
Green billow. The wide-topped,
Unbroken,
Green-glacid,
Slow-sliding.

Cold-flushing,
On-on-on,
Chill rushing,
Hush-hushing,
Hush-hushing.

This poem is taken from A Poetry Recital, published in June 1925. A a collection of poems Stephens used during his first American speaking tour in 1925. As such, the poems selected were those which could be read aloud with effect, and some are less poems than vocal excercises.
Two editions, a New York and a London one, were published in 1925 with slightly differing order and content. A new edition, dated 1926, added a foreward and seven poems to the 1925 American version. The new poems were: "Little Things," "The Snare," "The Merry Music," "The Fifteen Acres," "The Crest Jewel," "Thy Soul," and "Christmas in Freelands."

The Paps Of Dana

The mountains stand and stare around,
They are too proud to speak ;
Altho' they're rooted in the ground
Up they go, peak after peak,
Beyond the tallest tree, and still
Soaring over house and hill
Until you'd think they'd never stop
Going up, top over top,
Into the clouds—
Still I mark
That a sparrow or a lark
Flying just as high can sing
As if he'd not done anything. I think the mountains ought to be
Taught a little modesty.

This poem is taken from A Poetry Recital, published in June 1925. A a collection of poems Stephens used during his first American speaking tour in 1925. As such, the poems selected were those which could be read aloud with effect, and some are less poems than vocal excercises.
Two editions, a New York and a London one, were published in 1925 with slightly differing order and content. A new edition, dated 1926, added a foreward and seven poems to the 1925 American version. The new poems were: "Little Things," "The Snare," "The Merry Music," "The Fifteen Acres," "The Crest Jewel," "Thy Soul," and "Christmas in Freelands."