Reincarnations Part 2

Why are there none to pity, when, dismayed, And sick with fear, the lamb bleats to the tooth That tears him down? why is the cry unheard Of lonely anguish? why, when the land of Fal Had loved Thee long and well, was she not spared The ruin that hath stamped her under all That mourn and die?

INIS FaL

Now may we turn aside and dry our tears, And comfort us, and lay aside our fears, For all is gone--all comely quality, All gentleness and hospitality, All courtesy and merriment is gone; Our virtues all are withered every one, Our music vanished and our skill to sing: Now may we quiet us and quit our moan, Nothing is whole that could be broke; no thing Remains to us of all that was our own.

OWEN O'NeILL

If poesy have truth at all, If some great lion of the Gael Shall rule the lovely land of Fal; O yellow mast and roaring sail!

Carry the leaders.h.i.+p for me, Writ in this letter, o'er the sea To great O'Neill.

EGAN O'RAHILLY

Here in a distant place I hold my tongue; I am O'Rahilly: When I was young, Who now am young no more, I did not eat things picked up from the sh.o.r.e.

The periwinkle, and the tough dogfish At even-time have got into my dis.h.!.+

The great, where are they now! the great had said-- This is not seemly, bring to him instead That which serves his and serves our dignity-- And that was done.

I am O'Rahilly: Here in a distant place I hold my tongue, Who once said all his say, when he was young!

RIGHTEOUS ANGER

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

That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will 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.

THE WEAVERS

Many a time your father gave me aid When I was down, and now I'm down again: You mustn't take it bad or be dismayed Because I say, young folk should help old men And 'tis their duty to do that: Amen!

I have no cows, no sheep, no cloak, no hat, For those who used to give me things are dead And my luck died with them: because of that I won't pay you a farthing, but, instead, I'll owe you till the dead rise from the dead.

A farthing! that's not much, but, all the same, I haven't half a farthing, for that grand Big idiot called Fortune rigged the game And gave me nothing, while she filled the hand Of every stingy devil in the land.

You weave, and I: you s.h.i.+rts: I weave instead My careful verse--but you get paid at times!

The only rap I get is on my head: But should it come again that men like rhymes And pay for them, I'll pay you for your s.h.i.+rt.

ODELL

My mind is sad and weary thinking how The griffins of the Gael went over the sea From n.o.ble Eire, and are fighting now In France and Flanders and in Germany.

If they, 'mid whom I sported without dread, Were home I would not mind what foe might do, Or fear tax-man Odell would seize my bed To pay the hearth-rate that is overdue.

I pray to Him who, in the haughty hour Of Babel, threw confusion on each tongue, That I may see our princes back in power, And see Odell, the tax-collector, hung.

THE APOLOGY

Do not be distant with me, do not be Angry because I drank deep of your wine, But treat that laughing matter laughingly Because I am a poet, and incline By nature and by art to jollity.

Always I loved to see, I will aver, The good red tide lip at the flagon's brim, Sitting half fool and half philosopher, Chatting with every kind of her and him, And shrugged at sneer of money-gatherer.

Often enough I trudge by hedge and wall, Too often there's no money in my purse, Nor malice in my mind ever at all, And for my songs no person is the worse But I who give all of my store to all.

If busybody spoke to you of it, Say, kindly man, if kindly man do live: The poet only takes his sup and bit, And say: It is no great return to give For his unstinted gift of verse and wit.

THE GANG

Our fathers must have sinned: we pay for it!

Through them the base-born tribe that sold their king Sneaked into power, and in high places sit, And do their will and wish in everything; For they may rob and kill, grieve and disgrace All who are left alive of Eiver's race.

They seized with daring guile on rank and pelf, And swore that they would never bend a knee Unto the king: they robbed the Church herself: They stole our princes' lands, and o'er the sea They packed those princes, or drove them away To barren rocks and fields that have no clay.

That sp.a.w.n of base mechanics! who could ne'er, Though Doomsday came, by any art be made n.o.ble, are n.o.ble now, and have no care: Snugly they sit and safe and unafraid In stately places, proud as if the mud And slime that swills their veins were princes' blood.

Let us be wise and wary of that gang!

When they seem friendly know they have much wit, And if it come that any man shall hang, This neck will go unchoked, that nose unslit, For, be things wry and crooked and to guess, Those twisters are at home in twistiness.

We know now what their plottings were about, And how they planned, and what they meant to win; 'Twas G.o.d, not us, that took their tangles out, For no sleek eel inside an oily skin Could slip with more address from harm than they Can slip from punishment and get away.

When trouble came it was their plan to get Our friends into the boat they meant to leave, And there was some one left to pay their debt, And they were free again to lie and thieve: So they could put the feet of the man they'd rob Into the boots of the one that did the job.

If burnt child does truly dread the flame, If wounded soldier shrinks again to see A steel point sloping to him, let the same Experience teach our chiefs that they may be Crafty in meeting craft, and may beware Of brewer's bees and buzzers everywhere.

Unto the Mind which pardons sin I pray, I pray to Him who did permit our woe But halted our destruction, that to-day Kindness and love and trust and inward glow Of vision light our hearts with light divine, So that we know our way until the end of time.