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Miscellaneous
As the title says, a collection of those we have failed to put in a category.

Woman Don't be Troublesome
Anonymous (16th century)
from the Irish, Translated by Augustus Young

Woman, don't troublesome,
though your husband I may be;
our two minds were once at one,
why withdraw your hand from me.

Put your mouth of strawberry
on my mouth, cream is your cheek;
wind round white arms about me,
and do not go back to sleep.

Stay with me my flighty maid,
and be done with betrayal;
tonight this bed is wellmade,
let us toss it without fail.

Shut your eyes to other men
no more women will I see;
the milkwhite tooth of passion
is between us - or should be.


Here are two we received from the inimitable Dowds:

9th Century Irish Poem
I have news for you:
The stag bells, winter snows, summer has gone
Wind high and cold, the sun low, short its course
The sea running high.
Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost;
The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry,
cold has seized the birds' wings;
season of ice, this is my news.
Anonymous

The Way We Tell a Story
Says I to him, I says, says I,
Says I to him, I says,
The thing, says I, I says to him,
Is just, says I, this ways.
I hev', says I, a gret respeck
For you and for your breed,
And onything I could, I says,
I'd do, I wud indeed.
I don't know any man, I says,
I'd do it for, says I,
As fast, I says, as for yoursel',
That's tellin' ye no lie.
There's nought, says I, I wudn't do
To plase your feyther's son,
But this, I says, ye see, says I,
I says, it can't be done.
Pat McCarty 1851-1931


Dr. William Drennan
Physician, poet, educationalist political radical and one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen, Drennan's poetic output included some powerful and moving pieces. He is chiefly remembered today for "When Erin First Rose" in which he penned the first reference in print to Ireland as "the Emerald Isle".
Interestingly, he himself is quoted as saying that this expression was first used in a party song called “Erin, to her own Tune,” written in 1795. The song appears to have been anonymous

When Erin First Rose
by Dr. William Drennan

When Erin first rose from the dark-swelling flood,
God bless'd the green island, He saw it was good.
The Emerald of Europe, it sparkled, it shone,
In the ring of this world the most precious stone!

In her sun, in her soil, in her station, thrice blest,
With back turn'd to Britain, her face to the West,
Erin stands proudly insular, on her steep shore,
And strikes her high harp to the ocean's deep roar.

But when its soft tones seem to mourn and to weep,
The dark chain of silence is cast o'er the deep;
At the thought of the past, tears gush from her eyes,
And the pulse of the heart makes her white bosom rise.

"O, sons of green Erin! lament o'er the time
When religion was--war, and our country--a crime;
When man, in God's image, inverted his plan,
And moulded their God in the image of man.

"When the int'rest of state wrought the general woe;
The stranger--a friend, and the native--a foe;
While the mother rejoic'd o'er her children distress'd,
And clasp'd the invader more close to her breast.

"When with pale for the body, and pale for the soul,
Church and state join'd in compact to conquer the whole;
And while Shannon ran red with Milesian blood,
Ey'd each other askance, and pronounc'd it was good!

"By the groans that ascend from your forefathers' grave,
For their country thus left to the brute and the slave,
Drive the Demon of Bigotry home to his den,
And where Britain made brutes, now let Erin make men!

"Let my sons, like the leaves of their shamrock, unite,
A partition of sects from one footstalk of right;
Give each his full share of this earth, and yon sky,
Nor fatten the slave, where the serpent would die!

"Alas, for poor Erin! that some still are seen,
Who would dye the grass red, in their hatred to green!
Yet, oh! when you're up, and they down, let them live,
Then, yield them that mercy which they did not give.

"Arm of Erin! prove strong, but be gentle as brave,
And, uplifted to strike, still be ready to save;
Nor one feeling of vengeance presume to defile
The cause, or the men, of the Emerald Isle.

"The cause it is good, and the men they are true;
And the green shall outlive both the orange and blue;
And the daughters of Erin in her triumph shall share,
With their full-swelling chest, and their fair-flowing hair.

"Their bosoms heave high for the worthy and brave,
But no coward shall rest on that soft swelling wave;
Men of Erin! awake, and make haste to be blest!
Rise, arch of the ocean! rise, queen of the West!


One of our subscribers,Eileen Fahey, was so struck by Seamus Heaney's poetry, she sent us a poetic tribute. It's rather good. So good, we have included her poem here.

Kiss of The Poet
by Eileen Fahey

The day Seamus Heaney came to town and read his poems,
I imagined that the purple Cadillac I saw parked at the Village Inn was his.
My thoughts moved in broken frames...like an old movie scene,
Scattered and slow.
I knew I was in a dream.

Next scene - fade in to my living room.
There, Seamus settled into the corner of my worn, green sofa.
The antique lamp on the mahogany side table
Cast a golden shadow upon his face.

Dignified and serene,
He seemed as though his sixty-something years were
Still stretched out before him.

His smile gave off an ancestral heat; and
It felt so warm and real...
As I slept.

I went to the kitchen and brought us back some black tea, and he frowned
"Whiskey, then?" I asked.
No again...but the Irish in him replied,
"Perhaps you have something even finer to offer, Colleen?"
Then he kissed my forehead awake.


Eileen Fahey writes poetry and essays, and has studied Celtic spirituality, Irish fiction, creative writing and holistic healing at The Union Institute at Vermont College in Montpelier - Vermont’s state capital. She works at Middlebury College near her home, which is nestled between the beautiful Green Mountains and Vermont’s Champlain Valley.


The Waves of Breffny
by Eva Gore Booth

The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea,
And there is traffic on it and many a horse and cart,
But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me
And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.
A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o'er the hill,
And there is glory in it; and terror on the wind:
But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still,
And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.
The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way,
Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal;
But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray,
And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.


For more Miscellaneous poetry click Miscellaneous Next Page

For more Poetry Click the Poetry Index.
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