Poems and translations

John Stuart Mill · en
We heard the thrushes by the shore and sea,
    And saw the golden stars’ nativity,
    Then round we went the lane by Thomas Flynn,
    Across the church where bones lie out and in;
    And there I asked beneath a lonely cloud
    Of strange delight, with one bird singing loud,
    What change you’d wrought in graveyard, rock and sea,
    This new wild paradise to wake for me....
    Yet knew no more than knew those merry sins
    Had built this stack of thigh-bones, jaws and shins.




A WISH


    May seven tears in every week
    Touch the hollow of your cheek,
    That I--signed with such a dew--
    For a lion’s share may sue
    Of the roses ever curled
    Round the May-pole of the world.

    Heavy riddles lie in this,
    Sorrow’s sauce for every kiss.




THE ’MERGENCY MAN


    He was lodging above in Coom,
    And he’d the half of the bailiff’s room.

    Till a black night came in Coomasaharn
    A night of rains you’d swamp a star in.

    “To-night,” says he, “with the devil’s weather
    The hares itself will quit the heather.

    I’ll catch my boys with a latch on the door,
    And serve my process on near a score.”

    The night was black at the fording place,
    And the flood was up in a whitened race,
    But devil a bit he’d turn his face.

    Then the peelers said, “Now mind your lepping,
    How can you see the stones for stepping?

    “We’ll wash our hands of your bloody job.”
    “Wash and welcome,” says he, “begob.”

    He made two leps with a run and dash,
    Then the peelers heard a yell and splash;

    And the ’mergency man in two days and a bit
    Was found in the ebb tide stuck in a net.




DANNY


    One night a score of Erris men,
    A score I’m told and nine,
    Said, “We’ll get shut of Danny’s noise
    Of girls and widows dyin’.

    “There’s not his like from Binghamstown
    To Boyle and Ballycroy,
    At playing hell on decent girls,
    At beating man and boy.

    “He’s left two pairs of female twins
    Beyond in Killacreest,
    And twice in Crossmolina fair
    He’s struck the parish priest.

    “But we’ll come round him in the night
    A mile beyond the Mullet;
    Ten will quench his bloody eyes,
    And ten will choke his gullet.”

    It wasn’t long till Danny came,
    From Bangor making way,
    And he was damning moon and stars
    And whistling grand and gay.

    Till in a gap of hazel glen--
    And not a hare in sight--
    Out lepped the nine-and-twenty lads
    Along his left and right.

    Then Danny smashed the nose on Byrne,
    He split the lips on three,
    And bit across the right hand thumb
    On one Red Shawn Magee.

    But seven tripped him up behind,
    And seven kicked before,
    And seven squeezed around his throat
    Till Danny kicked no more.

    Then some destroyed him with their heels,
    Some tramped him in the mud,
    Some stole his purse and timber pipe,
    And some washed off his blood.

           *       *       *       *       *