New and Selected Poems Read Online Free PDF Page A

horn.
       
     
    Those unharnessed runners
from glen to glen!
Nobody tames
    that royal blood,
       
     
    each one aloof
on its rightful summit,
antlered, watchful.
    Imagine them,
       
     
    the stag of high Slieve Felim,
the stag of the steep Fews,
the stag of Duhallow, the stag of Orrery,
the fierce stag of Killarney.
       
     
    The stag of Islandmagee, Larne’s stag,
the stag of Moylinny,
the stag of Cooley, the stag of Cunghill,
    the stag of the two-peaked Burren.
       
     
    The mother of this herd
is old and grey,
the stags that follow her
are branchy, many-tined.
       
     
    I would be cloaked in the grey
sanctuary of her head,
I would roost among
    her mazy antlers
       
     
    and would be lofted into
this thicket of horns
on the stag that lows at me
over the glen.
       
     
    I am Sweeney, the whinger,
the scuttler in the valley.
But call me, instead,
Peak-pate, Stag-head.

Sweeney’s Lament on Ailsa Craig
     
     
    Without bed or board
I face dark days
in frozen lairs
    and wind-driven snow.
       
     
    Ice scoured by winds.
Watery shadows from weak sun.
Shelter from the one tree
    on a plateau.
       
     
    Haunting deer-paths,
enduring rain,
first-footing the grey
    frosted grass.
       
     
    I climb towards the pass
and the stag’s belling
rings off the wood,
    surf-noise rises
       
     
    where I go, heartbroken
and worn out,
sharp-haunched Sweeney,
raving and moaning.
       
     
    The sough of the winter night,
my feet packing the hailstones
as I pad the dappled
banks of Mourne
       
     
    or lie, unslept, in a wet bed
on the hills by Lough Erne,
tensed for first light
    and an early start.
       
     
    Skimming the waves
at Dunseverick,
listening to billows
    at Dun Rodairce,
       
     
    hurtling from that great wave
to the wave running
in tidal Barrow,
    one night in hard Dun Cernan,
       
     
    the next among the wild flowers
of Benn Boirne;
and then a stone pillow
    on the screes of Croagh Patrick.
       
     
    But to have ended up
lamenting here
on Ailsa Craig.
    A hard station!
       
     
    Ailsa Craig,
the seagulls’ home,
God knows it is
hard lodgings.
       
     
    Ailsa Craig,
bell-shaped rock,
reaching sky-high,
snout in the sea –
       
     
    it hard-beaked,
me seasoned and scraggy:
we mated like a couple
of hard-shanked cranes.

Sweeney in Connacht
     
     
    One day Sweeney went to Drum Iarann in Connacht where he stole some watercress and drank from a green-flecked well. A cleric came out of the church, full of indignation and resentment, calling Sweeney a well- fed, contented madman, and reproaching him where he cowered in the yew tree:
     
 
Cleric :
Aren’t you the contented one?
 
You eat my watercress,
 
then you perch in the yew  tree
 
beside my little house.
 
 
Sweeney :
Contented’s not the word!
 
I am so terrified,
 
so panicky, so haunted
 
I dare not bat an eyelid.
 
 
 
The flight of a small wren
 
scares me as much, bell-man,
 
as a great expedition
 
out to hunt me down.
 
 
 
Were you in my place, monk,
 
and I in yours, think:
 
would you enjoy being mad?
 
Would you be contented?
     
    Once when Sweeney was rambling and raking through Connacht he ended up in Alternan in Tireragh. A community of holy people had made their home there, and it was a lovely valley, with a turbulent river shooting down the cliff; trees fruited and blossomed on the cliff-face; there were sheltering ivies and heavy-topped orchards, there were wild deer and hares and fat swine; and sleek seals, that used to sleep on the cliff, having come in from the ocean beyond. Sweeney coveted the place mightily and sang its praises aloud in this poem:
    Sainted cliff at Alternan,
nut grove, hazel wood!
Cold quick sweeps of water
fall down the cliff-side.
       
     
    Ivies green and thicken there,
its oak-mast is precious.
Fruited branches nod and bend
    from heavy-headed apple trees.
       
     
    Badgers make their setts there
and swift hares have their form;
and seals’ heads swim