The Kiltartan Poetry Book | Page 5

I saw him coming, going along the road on the back of a horse; he did not come to me; he made nothing of me; and it is on my way home that I cried my fill.
When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness, I sit down and I go through my trouble; when I see the world and do not see my boy, he that has an amber shade in his hair.
It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you; the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday. And myself on my knees reading the Passion; and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.
O, aya! my mother, give myself to him; and give him all that you have in the world; get out yourself to ask for alms, and do not come back and forward looking for me.
My mother said to me not to be talking with you to-day, or to-morrow, or on the Sunday; it was a bad time she took for telling me that; it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.
My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe, or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge; or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls; it was you put that darkness over my life.
You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me; you have taken what is before me and what is behind me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me; and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!
A Lament for Fair-Haired Donough that Was Hanged in Galway
It was bound fast here you saw him, and wondered to see him, Our fair-haired Donough, and he after being condemned;?There was a little white cap on him in place of a hat,?And a hempen rope in the place of a neck-cloth.
I am after walking here all through the night,?Like a young lamb in a great flock of sheep;?My breast open, my hair loosened out,?And how did I find my brother but stretched before me!
The first place I cried my fill was at the top of the lake; The second place was at the foot of the gallows;?The third place was at the head of your dead body?Among the Gall, and my own head as if cut in two.
If you were with me in the place you had a right to be,?Down in Sligo or down in Ballinrobe,?It is the gallows would be broken, it is the rope would be cut And fair-haired Donough going home by the path.
O fair-haired Donough, it is not the gallows was fit for you; But to be going to the barn, to be threshing out the straw; To be turning the plough to the right hand and to the left, To be putting the red side of the soil uppermost.
O fair-haired Donough, O dear brother,?It is well I know who it was took you away from me;?Drinking from the cup, putting a light to the pipe,?And walking in the dew in the cover of the night.
O Michael Malley, O scourge of misfortune!?My brother was no calf of a vagabond cow;?But a well-shaped boy on a height or a hillside,?To knock a low pleasant sound out of a hurling-stick.
And fair-haired Donough, is not that the pity,?You that would carry well a spur or a boot;?I would put clothes in the fashion on you from cloth that would be
lasting;?I would send you out like a gentleman's son.
O Michael Malley, may your sons never be in one another's company; May your daughters never ask a marriage portion of you;?The two ends of the table are empty, the house is filled,?And fair-haired Donough, my brother, is stretched out.
There is a marriage portion coming home for Donough,?But it is not cattle or sheep or horses;?But tobacco and pipes and white candles,?And it will not be begrudged to them that will use it.
Raftery's Praise of Mary Hynes
Going to Mass by the will of God, the day came wet and the wind rose; I met Mary Hynes at the cross of Kiltartan, and I fell in love with her there and then.
I spoke to her kind and mannerly, as by report was her own way; and she said "Raftery my mind is easy; you may come to-day to Ballylee."
When I heard her offer I did not linger; when her talk went to my heart my heart rose. We had only to go across the three fields; we had daylight with us to Ballylee.
The table was laid with glasses and a quart measure; she had fair hair and she sitting beside me; and she said, "Drink, Raftery, and a hundred welcomes; there is a strong cellar in Ballylee."
O star of light