A Book of Irish Verse: Selected from modern writers, with an introduction and notes by W. B. Yeats
General
A Book of Irish Verse: Selected from modern writers, with an introduction and notes by W. B. Yeats
English poetry -- Irish authors; Ireland -- Poetry
But with prompt-projected footsteps sure as ever,
Emon Lynott again cross'd the river.
Though Duvowen was rising fast,
And the shaking stones o'ercast
By cold floods boiling past;
Yet you never,
Emon Lynott,
Faltered once before your foemen of Tirawley.
But, turning on Ballintubber bank, you stood,
And the Barretts thus bespoke o'er the flood--
'O, ye foolish sons of Wattin,
Small amends are these you've gotten,
For, while Scorna Boy lies rotten,
I am good
For vengeance!'
Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
'For 'tis neither in eye nor eyesight that a man
Bears the fortunes of himself and his clan,
But in the manly mind,
These darken'd orbs behind,
That your needles could never find
Though they ran
Through my heart-strings!'
Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
'But, little your women's needles do I reck;
For the night from heaven never fell so black,
But Tirawley, and abroad
From the Moy to Cuan-an-fod,
I could walk it every sod,
Path and track,
Ford and togher,
Seeking vengeance on you, Barretts of Tirawley!
'The night when Dathy O'Dowda broke your camp,
What Barrett among you was it held the lamp--
Showed the way to those two feet,
When through wintry wind and sleet,
I guided your blind retreat
In the swamp
Of Beäl-an-asa?
O ye vengeance-destined ingrates of Tirawley!'
So leaving loud-shriek-echoing Garranard,
The Lynott like a red dog hunted hard,
With his wife and children seven,
'Mong the beasts and fowls of heaven
In the hollows of Glen Nephin,
Light-debarred,
Made his dwelling,
Planning vengeance on the Barretts of Tirawley.
And ere the bright-orb'd year its course had run,
On his brown round-knotted knee he nursed a son,
A child of light, with eyes
As clear as are the skies
In summer, when sunrise
Has begun;
So the Lynott
Nursed his vengeance on the Barretts of Tirawley.
And, as ever the bright boy grew in strength and size,
Made him perfect in each manly exercise,
The salmon in the flood,
The dun deer in the wood,
The eagle in the cloud
To surprise
On Ben Nephin,
Far above the foggy fields of Tirawley.
With the yellow-knotted spear-shaft, with the bow,
With the steel, prompt to deal shot and blow,
He taught him from year to year
And train'd him, without a peer,
For a perfect cavalier,
Hoping so--
Far his forethought--
For vengeance on the Barretts of Tirawley.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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