Some Celtic poetry

Some of my favourites lines and verses from Lyra Celtica, a collection of Celtic poetry I read recently.

From Deirdre's Lament for the Sons of Usnach, an ancient Irish text of unknown antiquity, translated by Sir Samuel Ferguson:

The falcons of the wood are flown,
And I am left alone - alone -
Dig the grave both deep and wide,
And let us slumber side by side.

The dragons of the rock are sleeping,
Sleep that wakes not for our weeping -
Dig the grave, and make it ready,
Lay me on my true-love's body.

---

From Columcille Cecinit, translation by Douglas Hyde:

We plunge through Loch Foyle, whose swans could enchant with their music the dead.

...

And all but thy government, Eire, has pleased me,
Thou waterfall land.

---

From Killiney Far Away by Francis Fahy:

To the captive without cheer, it were freedom but to hear
Such sorrow-soothing music from her fair throat come.

---

From The Dark Man by Nora Hopper:

Rose o' the World, what man would wed
When he might remember your face instead?
Might go to his grave with the blessed pain
Of hungering after your face again?

---

From A lament by Denis Florence MacCarthy:

Youth's illusions,
One by one,
Have passed like clouds
That the sun looked on.

---

From The Fountain of Tears by Arthur O' Shaughnessy:

And it flows and it flows with a motion,
So gentle and lovely and listless,
And murmurs a tune so resistless
To him who hath suffered and hears -
You shall surely - without a words spoken,
Kneel down there and know your heart broken,
And yield to the long-curb'd emotion
That day by the Fountain of Tears.

---

From The Sunburst by John Todhunter:

In vain my daughters bear their babes - babes with the mournful eyes
Of children without father that hear strange lullabies,
Rocked in their lonely cradles by mothers crooning low,
And weeping o'er their sleeping, sad songs of long ago;
Whose eyes, as they remember, while the wailing night-winds blow,
Their nation's desolation, in their singing overflow
With the overflowing of an ancient woe!

---

From Shamrock Song by Katherine Tynan:

Irish hills, as grey as the dove,
Know the little plant I love;
Warm and fair it mantles them
Stretching down from throat to hem.

And it laughs o'er many a vale,
Sheltered safe from storm and gale;
Sky and sun and stars thereof
Love the gentle plant I love.

Soft it clothes the ruined floor
Of many an abbey, grey and hoar,
And the still home of the dead
With its green is carpeted.

---

From Song by Bliss Carman:

Love, by those starry eyes
I understand
How the sea-maidens lure
Mortals from land.

---

From The Song of the Pratee by Alfred Percival Graves:

So rest and sleep, my jewel,
Safe from the tempest cruel;
Till violets spring
And skylarks sing
From Mourne to Carran Tual.
Then wake and build your bower,
Through April sun and shower,
To bless the earth
That gave you birth,
Through many a sultry hour.

---


Remembrance by Emily Bronte. The whole poem this time as the more I read it the more difficult it is to choose a favourite verse.

Cold in the earth - and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern leaves cover
Thy noble heart forever, ever more?

Cold in the earth - and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring;
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong.

No later light has lightened up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.

Then did I check the tears of useless passion -
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?