ANOTHER VERSION FROM BRENDAN KENNELLY
WHO COMES FROM COUNTY KERRY, specifically Sliabh Luachra, AND SPEAKS IRISH
in other words, a popular poet quite opposite to me: a Belfast atheist, anarchist drop-out
who has always despised 'academia', Aosdána, the Literati, the Hierarchy - and lived "on welfare".

The sea crawls from the shore
Leaving there
The despicable weed,
A corpse's hair.
In me,
The desolate withdrawing sea.

The Old Woman of Beare am I
Who once was beautiful.
Now all I know is how to die.
I'll do it well.

Look at my skin
Stretched tight on the bone.
Where kings have pressed their lips,
The pain, the pain.

I don't hate the men
Who swore the truth was in their lies.
One thing alone I hate–
Women's eyes.

The young sun
Gives its youth to everyone,
Touching everything with gold.
In me, the cold.

The cold. Yet still a seed
Burns there.
Women love only money now.
But when
I loved, I loved
Young men.

Young men whose horses galloped
On many an open plain
Beating lightning from the ground.
I loved such men.

And still the sea
Rears and plunges into me,
Shoving, rolling through my head
Images of the drifting dead.

A soldier cries
Pitifully about his plight;
A king fades
Into the shivering night.

Does not every season prove
That the acorn hits the ground?
Have I not known enough of love
To know it's lost as soon as found?

I drank my fill of wine with kings,
Their eyes fixed on my hair.
Now among the stinking hags
I chew the cud of prayer.

Time was the sea
Brought kings as slaves to me.
Now I hear the face of God
And the crab crawls through my blood.

I loved the wine
That thrilled me to my fingertips;
Now the mean wind
Stitches salt into my lips.

The coward sea
Slouches away from me.
Fear brings back the tide
That made me stretch at the side
Of him who'd take me briefly for his bride.

The sea grows smaller, smaller now.
Farther, farther it goes
Leaving me here where the foam dries
On the deserted land,
Dry as my shrunken thighs,
As the tongue that presses my lips,
As the veins that break through my hands.

POSTSCRIPT

A MONK'S YEAR

re-translated by Anthony Weir from the Old Irish

SPRING

By Belfast Lough
a bright-billed
blackbird trilled
from the effulgent gorse.

SUMMER

He is my joy
my sweet nut-grove.
He is my boy
and this
a kiss
for my love.

AUTUMN

The winds are wild tonight. They tear
and toss the sea's white hair.
And yet they bring my mind much ease
for Vikings sail on calmer seas.

WINTER

Here's my news:
stags calling loud;
winter snows,
summer's shroud.

The cold wind's high
and low the sun,
brief in the sky.
Big tides run.

The bracken's brown.
The wild geese
across the sound
cry to the ice.

Cold has caught
the wings of birds.
Frost has brought
my winter words.

SWEENEY'S ORATORY

adapted from Buile Suibhne,
the Madness of King Sweeney after his Defeat
at the Battle of Moira (Mag Roth), 637 CE

As flax is scutched by women
so was my army beaten.
But, Christ!
the blackbird's song is sweeter
than harpists at a feast.

' ' ' ' '

No stately home could ever be
grander than my Oratory here
where moon and stars shine bright and clear
above the safety of my tree.

It was the Holy Builder
of the Worlds who made
my bothy in this little glade
and thatched its leafy roof, my shelter,

my retreat where no rain comes:
refuge safe from spear and sword
my sylvan mansion - and, dear Lord!
no fear where no fence runs.