Poets and Dreamers | Page 9

be in a house where he used to lodge, and the song got her a husband; and there is a son of hers living now down in Clare-Galway.' And an old woman tells me, with a sigh of regret for what might have been, that she saw Raftery one time at a dance, and he spoke to her and said: 'Well planed you are; the carpenter that planed you knew his trade.' 'And I said: "Better than you know yours;" for there were two or three of the strings of his fiddle broke. And then he said something about O'Meara, that lived near us; and my father got vexed at what he said, and would let him speak no more with me. And if it wasn't for him speaking about O'Meara, and my father getting vexed, he might have made words about me like he did for Mary Hynes and for Mary Brown.'
'Bridget Vesach,' which I have heard in many cottages, as well as from the old woman in Gort Workhouse, begins: 'I would wed courteous Bridget without coat, shoe, or shirt. Treasure of my heart, if it were possible for me, I would fast for you nine meals, without food, without drink, without any share of anything, on an island of Lough Erne, with desire for you and me to be together till we should settle our case.... My heart started with trouble, and I was frightened nine times that morning that I heard you were not to be found.... I would sooner be stretched by you with nothing under us but heather and rushes, than be listening to the cuckoos that are stirring at the break of day.... I am in grief and in sorrow since you slipped from me across the mearings.'
Another love poem, 'Mairin Stanton,' shows his habit of mixing comparisons drawn from the classics with those drawn from nature:--
'There's a bright flower by the side of the road, and she beats Deirdre in the beauty of her voice; or I might say Helen, Queen of the Greeks, she for whose sake hundreds died at Troy.
'There is light and brightness in her as in those others; her little mouth is as sweet as the cuckoo on the branch. You would not find a mind like hers in any woman since the pearl died that was in Ballylee.
'To see under the sky a woman settled like her walking on the road on a fine sunny day, the light flashing from the whiteness of her breast would give sight to a man without eyes.
'There is the love of hundreds in her face, and there is the promise of the evening star. If she had been living in the time of the gods, it is not Venus that would have had the apple.
'Her hair falls down below her knees, waving and winding to the mouth of her shoes; her locks spread out wide and pale like dew, they leave a brightness on the road behind her.
'She is the girl that has been taught the nicest of all whose eyes still open to the sun; and if the estate of Lord Lucan belonged to me, on the strength of my cause this jewel would be mine.
'Her slender lime-white shape, her face like flowers, her neck, her cheek, and her amber hair; Virgil, Cicero, and Homer could tell of nothing like her; she is like the dew in the time of harvest.
'If you could see this plant moving or dancing, you could not but love the flower of the branch. If I cannot get a hundred words with Mairin Stanton, I do not think my life will last long.
'She said "Good morrow" early and pleasantly; she drank my health, and gave me a stool, and it not in the corner. At the time that I am ready to go on my way I will stay talking and talking with her.'
The 'pearl that was at Ballylee' was poor Mary Hynes, of whom I have already spoken. His song on her is very popular; 'a great song, so that her name is sung through the three parishes.' She must have been beautiful, for many who knew her still speak of her beauty, of her long, shining hair, and the 'little blushes in her cheeks.' An old woman says: 'I never can think of her but I'll get a trembling, she was so nice; and if she was to begin talking, she'd keep you laughing till daybreak.' But others say: 'It was the poet that made her so handsome'; or, 'whatever she was, he made twice as much of it.' I give one or two verses of the song:--
'There was no part of Ireland I did not travel: from the rivers to the tops of the mountains, to the edge of Lough Greine, whose