The sun smiles over every land,-- A parting for me from the brood of cares: Hounds bark, stags tryst, Ravens flourish, summer has come!
SONG OF SUMMER
Summer-time, season supreme! Splendid is colour then. Blackbirds sing a full lay If there be a slender shaft of day.
The dust-coloured cuckoo calls aloud: Welcome, splendid summer! The bitterness of bad weather is past, The boughs of the wood are a thicket.
Panic startles the heart of the deer, The smooth sea runs apace-- Season when ocean sinks asleep, Blossom covers the world.
Bees with puny strength carry A goodly burden, the harvest of blossoms; Up the mountain-side kine take with them mud, The ant makes a rich meal.
The harp of the forest sounds music, The sail gathers--perfect peace; Colour has settled on every height, Haze on the lake of full waters.
The corncrake, a strenuous bard, discourses, The lofty cold waterfall sings A welcome to the warm pool-- The talk of the rushes has come.
Light swallows dart aloft, Loud melody encircles the hill, The soft rich mast buds, The stuttering quagmire prattles.
The peat-bog is as the raven's coat, The loud cuckoo bids welcome, The speckled fish leaps-- Strong is the bound of the swift warrior.
Man flourishes, the maiden buds In her fair strong pride. Perfect each forest from top to ground, Perfect each great stately plain.
Delightful is the season's splendour, Rough winter has gone: Every fruitful wood shines white, A joyous peace is summer.
A flock of birds settles In the midst of meadows, The green field rustles, Wherein is a brawling white stream.
A wild longing is on you to race horses, The ranked host is ranged around: A bright shaft has been shot into the land, So that the water-flag is gold beneath it.
A timorous, tiny, persistent little fellow Sings at the top of his voice, The lark sings clear tidings: Surpassing summer-time of delicate hues!
SUMMER IS GONE
My tidings for you: the stag bells, Winter snows, summer is gone.
Wind high and cold, low the sun, Short his course, sea running high.
Deep-red the bracken, its shape all gone-- The wild-goose has raised his wonted cry.
Cold has caught the wings of birds; Season of ice--these are my tidings.
A SONG OF WINTER
Cold, cold! Cold to-night is broad Moylurg, Higher the snow than the mountain-range, The deer cannot get at their food.
Cold till Doom! The storm has spread over all: A river is each furrow upon the slope, Each ford a full pool.
A great tidal sea is each loch, A full loch is each pool: Horses cannot get over the ford of Ross, No more can two feet get there.
The fish of Ireland are a-roaming, There is no strand which the wave does not pound, Not a town there is in the land, Not a bell is heard, no crane talks.
The wolves of Cuan-wood get Neither rest nor sleep in their lair, The little wren cannot find Shelter in her nest on the slope of Lon.
Keen wind and cold ice Has burst upon the little company of birds, The blackbird cannot get a lee to her liking, Shelter for its side in Cuan-wood.
Cosy our pot on its hook, Crazy the hut on the slope of Lon: The snow has crushed the wood here, Toilsome to climb up Ben-bo.
Glenn Rye's ancient bird From the bitter wind gets grief; Great her misery and her pain, The ice will get into her mouth.
From flock and from down to rise-- Take it to heart!--were folly for thee: Ice in heaps on every ford-- That is why I say 'cold'!
ARRAN
Arran of the many stags, The sea strikes against its shoulder, Isle in which companies are fed, Ridge on which blue spears are reddened.
Skittish deer are on her peaks, Delicious berries on her manes, Cool water in her rivers, Mast upon her dun oaks.
Greyhounds are in it and beagles, Blackberries and sloes of the dark blackthorn, Her dwellings close against the woods, Deer scattered about her oak-woods.
Gleaning of purple upon her rocks, Faultless grass upon her slopes, Over her fair shapely crags Noise of dappled fawns a-skipping.
Smooth is her level land, fat are her swine, Bright are her fields, Her nuts upon the tops of her hazel-wood, Long galleys sailing past her.
Delightful it is when the fair season comes, Trout under the brinks of her rivers, Seagulls answer each other round her white cliff, Delightful at all times is Arran!
LOVE POETRY
THE SONG OF CREDE, DAUGHTER OF GUARE
In the battle of Aidne, Crede, the daughter of King Guare of Aidne, beheld Dinertach of the Hy Fidgenti, who had come to the help of Guare, with seventeen wounds upon his breast. Then she fell in love with him. He died, and was buried in the cemetery of Colman's Church.
These are arrows that murder sleep At every hour in the bitter-cold night: Pangs of love throughout the day For the company of the man from Roiny.
Great love of a man from another land Has come to me beyond all else: It has taken my bloom, no colour is left, It does not let me rest.
Sweeter than songs was his speech, Save holy adoration of Heaven's King; He was a glorious flame, no boastful word fell from his lips, A slender mate for a maid's side.
When I was a child I was bashful, I was not given to going to trysts: Since I have come to a wayward age, My wantonness has beguiled me.
I have every good with Guare, The King of cold Aidne: But my mind has fallen away from my people To the meadow at Irluachair.
There is chanting in the meadow of glorious Aidne Around the sides of Colman's Church: Glorious flame, now sunk into the grave-- Dinertach was his name.
It wrings my pitiable heart, O chaste Christ, What has fallen to my lot: These are arrows that murder sleep At every hour in the bitter-cold night.
LIADIN AND CURITHIR
Liadin of Corkaguiney, a poetess, went visiting into the country of Connaught. There Curithir, himself a poet, made an ale-feast for her. 'Why should not we two unite, Liadin?' saith Curithir. 'A son of us two would be famous.' 'Do not let us do so now,' saith she, 'lest my round of visiting be ruined for me. If you will come for me again at my home, I shall go with you.' That fell so. Southward he went, and a single gillie behind him with his poet's dress in a bag upon his back, while Curithir himself was in a poor garb. There were spear-heads in the bag also. He went till he was at the well beside Liadin's court. There he took his crimson dress about him, and the heads were put upon their shafts, and he stood brandishing them.
Meanwhile Liadin had made a vow of chastity; but faithful to her word she went with him. They proceed to the monastery of Clonfert, where they put themselves under the spiritual direction of Cummin, son of Fiachna. He first imposes a slight probation upon them, allowing them to converse without seeing each other. Then, challenged by Liadin, he permits them a perilous freedom. In the result he banishes Curithir, who thenceforward renounces love and becomes a pilgrim. When Liadin still seeks him he crosses the sea. She returns to the scene of their penance, and shortly dies. When all is over, Cummin lovingly lays the stone where she had mourned her love, and upon which she died, over the grave of the unhappy maiden.
CURITHIR
Of late Since I parted from Liadin, Long as a month is every day, Long as a year each month.
LIADIN
Joyless The bargain I have made! The heart of him I loved I wrung.
'Twas madness Not to do his pleasure, Were there not the fear of Heaven's King.
'Twas a trifle That wrung Curithir's heart against me: To him great was my gentleness.
A short while I was In the company of Curithir: Sweet was my intimacy with him.
The music of the forest Would sing to me when with Curithir, Together with the voice of the purple sea.
Would that Nothing of all I have done Should have wrung his heart against me!
Conceal it not! He was my heart's love, Whatever else I might love.
A roaring flame Has dissolved this heart of mine-- Without him for certain it cannot live.
BARDIC POETRY
A DIRGE FOR KING NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES (+ A.D. 405)
TUIRN SON OF TORNA
When we used to go to the gathering with Echu's[15] son, Yellow as a bright primrose was the hair upon the head of Cairenn's[16] son.
TORNA
Well hast thou spoken, dear son. A bondmaid should be given thee For the sake of the hair which thou hast likened to the colour of the crown of the primrose.
Eyelashes black, delicate, equal in beauty, and dark eyebrows-- The crown of the woad, a bright hyacinth, that was the colour of his pupils.
TUIRN SON OF TORNA
The colour of his cheeks at all seasons, even and symmetrical: The fox-glove, the blood of a calf--a feast without a flaw! the crown of the forest in May.
TORNA
His white teeth, his red lips that never reproved in anger-- His shape like a fiery blaze overtopping the warriors of Erin.
Like the moon, like the sun, like a fiery beacon was the splendour of Niall: Like a dragon-ship from the wave without a flaw was Niall, Echu's son.
TUIRN SON OF TORNA
This is a yearnful music, the wail of every mouth in Kerry-- It increases my grief in my house for the death of Muredach's[17] grandson.
Saxons will ravage here in the east, noble men of Erin and Alba, After the death of Niall, Echu's noble son--it is a bitter cause of reproach.