Reincarnations Part 3

THE GERALDINE'S CLOAK

I will not heed the message which you bring: That lovely lady gave her cloak to us, And who'd believe she'd give away a thing And ask it back again?--'tis fabulous!

My parting from her gave me cause to grieve, For she, that I was poor, had misty eyes; If some Archangel blew it I'd believe The message which you bring, not otherwise.

I do not say this just to make a joke, Nor would I rob her, but, 'tis verity, So long as I could swagger in a cloak I never cared how bad my luck could be.

That lady, all perfection, knows the sting Of poverty was thrust deep into me: I don't believe she'd do this kind of thing, Or treat a poet less than daintily.

SKIM-MILK

A small part only of my grief I write; And if I do not give you all the tale It is because my gloom gets some respite By just a small bewailing: I bewail That I with sly and stupid folk must bide Who steal my food and ruin my inside.

Once I had books, each book beyond compare, But now no book at all is left to me, And I am spied and peeped on everywhere, And my old head, stuffed with latinity, And with the poet's load of grave and gay Will not get me skim-milk for half a day.

Wild horse or quiet, not a horse have I, But to the forest every day I go Bending beneath a load of wood, that high!

Which raises on my back a sorry row Of raw, red blisters; so I cry, alack, The rider that rides me will break my back.

Ossian, when he was old and near his end, Met Patrick by good luck, and he was stayed; I am a poet too and seek a friend, A prop, a staff, a comforter, an aid, A Patrick who will lift me from despair, In Cormac Uasal Mac Donagh of the golden hair.

BLUE BLOOD

We thought at first, this man is a king for sure, Or the branch of a mighty and ancient and famous lineage-- That silly, sulky, illiterate, black-avised boor Who was hatched by foreign vulgarity under a hedge.

The good men of Clare were drinking his health in a flood, And gazing with me in awe at the princely lad, And asking each other from what bluest blueness of blood His daddy was squeezed, and the pa of the da of his dad?

We waited there, gaping and wondering, anxiously, Until he'd stop eating and let the glad tidings out, And the slack-jawed b.o.o.by proved to the hilt that he Was lout, son of lout, by old lout, and was da to a lout!

O'BRUAIDAR

I will sing no more songs: the pride of my country I sang Through forty long years of good rhyme, without any avail; And no one cared even as much as the half of a hang For the song or the singer, so here is an end to the tale.

If a person should think I complain and have not got the cause, Let him bring his eyes here and take a good look at my hand, Let him say if a goose-quill has calloused this poor pair of paws Or the spade that I grip on and dig with out there in the land?

When the great ones were safe and renowned and were rooted and tough, Though my mind went to them and took joy in the fortune of those, And pride in their pride and their fame, they gave little enough, Not as much as two boots for my feet, or an old suit of clothes.

I ask of the Craftsman that fas.h.i.+oned the fly and the bird, Of the Champion whose pa.s.sion will lift me from death in a time, Of the Spirit that melts icy hearts with the wind of a word, That my people be worthy, and get, better singing than mine.

I had hoped to live decent, when Ireland was quit of her care, As a bailiff or steward perhaps in a house of degree, But my end of the tale is, old brogues and old britches to wear, So I'll sing no more songs for the men that care nothing for me.

NOTE

This book ought to be called Loot or Plunder or Pieces of Eight or Treasure-Trove, or some name which would indicate and get away from its source, for although everything in it can be referred to the Irish of from one hundred to three hundred years ago the word translation would be a misdescription. There are really only two translations in it, Keating's "O Woman full of Wiliness" and Raftery's "County Mayo." Some of the poems owe no more than a phrase, a line, half a line, to the Irish, and around these sc.r.a.ps I have blown a bubble of verse and made my poem. In other cases, where the matter of the poem is almost entirely taken from the Irish, I have yet followed my own instinct in the arrangement of it, and the result might be called new poems. My first idea was to make an anthology of people whom long ago our poets had praised, so that, in another language and another time, these honoured names might be heard again, even though in my own terms and not in the historic context. I did not pursue this course, for I could not control the material which came to me and which took no heed of my plan and was just as interesting. It would therefore be a mistake to consider that these verses are representative of the poets by whom they are inspired. In the case of David O'Bruadair this is less true than in any of the others, but, even in his case, although I have often conveyed his matter almost verbatim, the selection is not representative of the poet. One side only, and that the least, is shown, for a greater pen than mine would be necessary if that tornado of rage, eloquence, and humour were to be presented; but the poems which I give might almost be taken as translations of one side of his terrific muse.

As regards Egan O'Rahilly a similar remark is necessary. No pen and no language but his own could even distantly indicate a skill and melody which might be spoken of as one of the wonders of the world. I have done exactly as I pleased with his material.

From Antoine O'Raftery I have taken more than from any of the others, and have in nearly every instance treated his matter so familiarly that a lover of Raftery (and who, having read a verse of his, does not love him?) might not know I was indebted to this poet for my songs. His work is different from that of Keating, O'Rahilly, or O'Bruadair, for these were learned men, and were writing out of a tradition so h.o.a.ry with age and so complicated in convention that only learned and subtle minds could attempt it. I have wondered would Keating or O'Rahilly have been very scornful of Raftery's work? I think they might have been angry at such an ignorance of all the rules, and would probably have torn the paper on which his poems were written, and sat down to compose a satire which would have raised blisters on that poor, blind, wandering singer, the master of them all.

In two of the poems which I tried to translate from Raftery I have completely failed. Against one of them I broke an hundred pens in vain; and in the other, "The County Mayo," I have been so close to success and so far from succeeding that I may mourn a little about it.

The first three verses are not bad, but the last verse is the completest miss: the simplicity of the original is there, its music is not, and in the last two lines the poignance, which should come on the reader as though a hand gripped at his heart, is absent. The other failure I have not printed because I could get no way on it at all: it would not even begin to translate. This is Raftery's reply to the man who did not recognise him as he fiddled to a crowd, and asked "who is the musician?"

I am Raftery the poet, Full of hope and love, My eyes without sight, My mind without torment,

Going west on my journey By the light of my heart, Tired and weary To the end of the road.

Behold me now With my back to a wall, Playing music To empty pockets.

See Douglas Hyde's _Life of Raftery_.

Dissimilar as these poets are from each other in time, education, and temperament, they are alike in that they were all poor men, so poor that there was often little difference between them and beggars. They all sing of their poverty: Keating as a fact to be recorded among other facts, O'Rahilly in a very stately and bitter complaint, and Raftery as in the quotation above; but O'Bruadair lets out of him an unending, rebellious bawl which would be the most desolating utterance ever made by man if it was not also the most gleeful.

THE END