From Mountain to Lough Page 5

  That have passed and will come no more?

  And who pirouettes with the swirling leaves

  And laughs in the whirlwind’s path,

  While the lonely hawthorn moans and heaves

  As it clings to the verdant rath?

  Whose were the visions of laughter and song,

  When the people were verged on dismay,

  That lifted their minds from the present wrong

  With hopes of a happier day?

  And whose is the aura of welcome and peace

  That the waiting land extends

  To the exile, when his roamings cease,

  And he knows he is home with his friends?

  The scientists tearing creation asunder

  Can only believe what they see,

  But equations, computers and humans can blunder,

  So keep your minds open and free.

  PROGRESS

  The lights have gone out on the islands,

  The homes are deserted and still.

  The briars encroach on the crumbling wall,

  And the moss-clad window sill.

  The bushes advance on the meadow,

  The reeds are besieging the shore,

  And the song that gave zest to the boatman’s heave,

  Is heard on the lough no more.

  Scarcer the smoke on the mountain,

  And fewer the houses each year.

  The debris is piled on the stone flagged-floor,

  And gables stand stark and drear.

  The war with the mountain is over,

  The heather comes back to its own.

  The meadows hard won by the loy and lime

  Will never again be mown.

  While the fiddle hangs mute in the shadows,

  The dancers abandon the floor,

  The ballads are spurned and forgotten,

  And the whistler is gone from the moor.

  While the towns and the cities grow bigger,

  And their lights lure the people away,

  The mountains and islands shall slumber,

  And slowly sink into decay.

  MULLYNEENY HILL

  I went last night on memory’s flight, down through the halls of time;

  I stood once more on a dry clay floor I had danced on in my prime.

  I saw again women and men I had known in youth’s first thrill

  Who had laughed and cried and lived and died, on Mullyneeny Hill.

  On life’s by-ways they spent their days, far from shop and store.

  Reluctant soil, by constant toil produced their little share.

  They dug, they sowed, they reaped and mowed, each season brought its skill,

  And the only wealth they craved was health, around Mullyneeny Hill.

  The goat, the cow, the fowl, the sow, the scythe, the fork, the spade

  With the ass and cart all played a part to get a living made,

  And young and old in the family fold worked with a ready will,

  And together stood for the common good around Mullyneeny Hill.

  On a winter’s night in the oil lamp’s light and the hearth fire’s friendly glow,

  When sparkling delph sat on the shelf ‘gainst walls as white as snow,

  With the smell of heat and the kitchen neat and the crickets whistling shrill,

  True peace was felt while angels knelt on Mullyneeny Hill.

  Those peaceful days and quiet ways are gone for ever more,

  The stress and strife of modern life has reached Lough Erne’s shore,

  But peace of mind you’ll surely find, where the birds are chirping still,

  In a quiet glade in the lone bush shade on Mullyneeny Hill.

  1972

  For countless ages down the glen, the little stream has flowed,

  Along its steeps, the golden gorse, the fern and rowan grown.

  Small beasts found shelter in its depths, the birds sang here all day,

  While generations came and went and empires passed away.

  A cleft between two limestone hills, preserved from man’s intrusion,

  Far from the bullets and the bombs, the anguish and confusion.

  A place to sit and ponder on the lessons of the past,

  While politicians rant and rave, from Derry to Belfast.

  Injustice breeds rebellion, rebellion breeds excess.

  Violence countering violence brings horror and distress:

  The widow’s tear, the child’s lament, the strong man’s cry of pain,

  The burning home, the haggard face that never smiled again.

  As resurrection follows death, so hope succeeds dismay,

  And peace will come to this fair land when people kneel to pray.

  And love will bloom as hatred dies within the souls of men,

  But I am listening here, alone, to the message of the glen.

  MARCH ’72

  Grey is the hill and the little thatched home, and the road and the field and the sky.

  The old ash tree stands stark and still, with its branches bleak and dry.

  The silent crows fly lazily home, in the evening’s warping chill,

  And the old grey woman pulls tight her shawl, where she sits at the foot of the hill.

  She thinks of her turbulent children, of the cross they are forced to bear;

  The heart of a mother weeps with them, whatever the colours they wear.

  But the wind from the east grows colder, the voices of reason seem still,

  And the old grey woman is shivering, where she sits at the foot of the hill.

  The springtime will colour the hillside, the grey clouds will all pass away,

  The old ash tree will burst into leaf and the road will be busy all day.

  But what of the quarrelsome children? Will colours still sway them at will?

  Will the old grey woman be waiting in vain, where she sits at the foot of the hill?

  A LITTLE SONG

  A man composed a little song while walking down the street;

  And its cadence was in rhythm with the tempo of his feet.

  But that was in the morning, when his step was firm and sure,

  And night had purged the city, and the air was strong and pure.

  Then countless other walking feet, all clad in boots and shoes

  Began to tap the pavements and beat out their own tattoos.

  And soon his lilting air was lost within the throbbing throng,

  But in his heart he still retained the spirit, and the song.

  He passed the benches in the park, where broken men had slept.

  Their walk was but a shuffle now, they neither laughed nor wept.

  He wondered what could pierce a heart to drain all hope away,

  And his step began to falter, in the lengthening of the day.

  He saw a woman’s ageless face, reflect maternal grief,

  Then he saw her child returning, in a panic of relief.

  Then he heard an old man laughing from a bed of crippling pain.

  And his step grew more elastic and his song was born again.

  When sunset touched with flitting gold, the garret and the dome,

  The pavement reverberated as the weary feet went home;

  Then, walking with the motley crowd, his step began to slow

  As the evening shades grew longer, and the lights began to glow.

  Then he wondered how the flower of hope could bloom in such a place

  To fill, with inward radiance, a tired, wrinkled face.

  When he heard a peal of laughter, his step grew firm and strong,

  For he knew that other hearts than his, vibrated to his song.

  His song is in the shaking grass, the whispering poplar tree,

  In the mystery of the darkness, in the dawn’s contagious glee,

  In the blooming of a flower on a city window ledge,

  In the soothing of a cooling breeze, the tremor of a hedge.

  In the vision of a rainbow from a basement in the town,
<
br />   In the swansong of the harvest, when the leaves are turning brown.

  Where faith and hope walk hand in hand and souls look toward the sky,

  On country lane or city street, his song will never die.

  THE FOOLS

  As I went down the road one day,

  I met a fool upon my way.

  I stopped to hear what he might say.

  I have great respect for fools,

  They don’t conform to norms or rules,

  As taught by churches or in schools.

  That stream he said was made to flow,

  Sometimes fast, sometimes slow;

  Whether it say aye or no.

  They worry not why they began;

  They never study any plan;

  They go the easiest way they can.

  But sure as we are talking now,

  As even logic must allow,

  That stream will reach the sea, somehow.

  Life is like the stream, he said,

  Now we’re pushed and now we’re led.

  We never stop until we’re dead.

  I cannot read or write, says he,

  But as you can see it worries me,

  That you, like me, cannot be free.

  ‘Twas then I bid the fool adieu,

  I said I had some work to do.

  He laughed and said: the more fool you.

  THE HOUSE THAT DIED

  ‘Twas a shy little house, demurely aloof,

  Away from the rest, by itself,

  And there it sat under its low thatched roof,

  Like somebody’s dream in delft;

  Accepted, absorbed by the mountain behind

  And the wide, green glen before,

  By the sallies that kept out the winter wind,

  And the rocks that protected the door.

  The shy little house was so humble and small,

  So content in its sense of retirement,

  That it never aspired to a laneway at all;

  It had footpaths for every requirement.

  So nobody called on their way here or there

  For a word about this thing or that;

  When a kailyerer came he pulled over a chair,

  And stayed a long time, for a chat.

  It was never designed for the making of wealth,

  Or to nurture a worldly ambition,

  But it promised a life of contentment and health,

  Without need for remorse or contrition.

  Cold is the stone where the hearth fire glowed,

  Exhaling its smoke to the sky,

  And dry is the stream of life that flowed,

  Through the door as the years passed by.

  While the footpaths that wrinkled the mountain face,

  And the feet that so clearly defined them,

  Have faded away without leaving a trace,

  And scarcely a memory behind them.

  The mountain creeps back to the ledge it once gave,

  Now hallowed by human endeavour,

  And the shy little house has a moss-covered grave,

  And its light is extinguished forever.

  THE COURTIN’ OF SALLY

  The velocipede patiently stood by the door, ‘til the chores were all done for the day.

  Then Paddy inserted his bicycle clips, and gently free-wheeled down the brae.

  His heart was a maelstrom of amorous through as he pedalled past hillock and valley;

  Shure a man, on his own, is as bleak as a stone, said the bachelor boy to his Raleigh.

  He wore his brown shoes and his blue serge suit and his cap tilted right for romance.

  He had a packet of woodbines, a wee bag of sweets, and a two shilling piece for the dance.

  But he did the last waltz, when the lights turned low, in the cosy embrace of big Sally.

  And his eyes sparkled bright as he rode through the night with herself on the bar of his Raleigh.

  But fate took the form of a thorn on the road, and their passions dissolved in despair

  When a bumping front wheel conveyed the sad news that a bicycle travels on air.

  Poor Paddy was far from his home on the hill and discretion forbade him to dally,

  Then she said she wouldn’t get down off the bar saying he must wheel her home on his Raleigh.

  It was when he discovered that some thieving scut had absconded that night with his pump,

  That he dumped the fat lady along the roadside, and called her a big lazy lump.

  Well, he still lives alone on the crest of the hill, regretfully remembering big Sally;

  But he’ll never forget the last night they met, there’s a bend in the bar of his Raleigh.

  WORDS

  A sheet of paper, virgin white,

  A pen poised, eager to indite

  Countless words which to write

  The problem is how best to use them.

  Words that cry for recognition

  Stately words of erudition

  Homely words without ambition

  How often we abuse them.

  Deft words can lull a babe to sleep,

  Hard words can make a mother weep

  Bland words can turn men into sheep

  That follow, without question.

  Words fill newspapers every day

  Words make each book and song and play

  With words the propagandists play

  To brain wash by suggestion.

  Words of wisdom, down the ages,

  Written by phlegmatic sages

  Have filled our shelves with musty pages

  Of philosophy and fact.

  Words cause sorrow, words cause joy

  Words create and words destroy

  So use the words that you employ

  With courtesy and tact.

  THE WISH

  In the old part of the churchyard, leave my body, when I die,

  Among the nameless emerald mounds, where tired people lie.

  There, shriven by the dust of saints, my sinful bones may rest,

  Accepted by the purified, the humbled and oppressed.

  No vaunted hero of our race has lain his ashes here,

  No poet, whose inspiring words could raise men over fear.

  But from the mountain or the lough, or the boggy vales between,

  Were borne a regal peasantry, to form those mounds of green.

  From birth to death, across their paths the shades of hunger lay,

  But they had faith and they had hope, and they knew how to pray.

  Thy will, not ours, be done, they said, help us our cross to bear.

  Such people never could be slaves, they never knew despair.

  In many slanted postures is the rugged native stone,

  Rough sculpted once by loving hands, but now by moss o’er grown.

  So place no tablet on my grave, with flourish of respect:

  Much better be forgotten, than moulder in neglect.

  When the earthen cage that holds us here beneath earth’s surface lies,

  And through the open door of death the soul to heaven flies,

  We’ll see women in bag aprons the celestial peace enjoy,

  Accompanied by their menfolk in their whistling corduroy.

  The new has glistening marbles, and the plots show love and care,

  But the old part has been sanctified by centuries of prayer.

  The new reflects prosperity, the fulfilment of a race,

  But the old part whispers calvary, and victory through disgrace.

  GLOSSARY

  Bleaching bush – Whitethorn bush where bed linen was spread to dry and bleach in the Springtime.

  Bluffs – cliff or steep bank or a clump of trees

  Braes – Scottish word for hillsides or slopes

  Boxty – potato based boiled dumpling which can be sliced and fried.

  Defile – a narrow pass or gorge

  Descry – to discover by looking

  Dibbled - putting seed potatoes under the sods of prepar
ed ridges

  Faytures – facial features

  Footstick – a wooden plank over a stream

  Gallowglass – A Scottish mercenary in Irish armies in the middle ages.

  Guggered – planting potatoes in previously cropped soil, using a stick to make a hole for the seed potato

  Hoked – roughly poked

  Kallyerer – night time neighbourly visitor

  Kinsale’s red field – the battle of Kinsale in 1601, a disastrous defeat for the Irish.

  Landlough – a small lake not connected to the greater Erne network

  Puck of prittas – a small bag of potatoes

  Rill – a very small stream

  Rucks – hay cocks

  Spink – a steep gradient on a hill road or path

  Squall – weakest whinging one of the group

  Whinny – covered in whin bushes (gorse)