I sing no rune, I say no line: The gift of second sight is mine!
Darkness. I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole---- A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light. I look at it, and pass on.
My fidil is singing Into the air; The wind is stirring, The moon is fair.
A shadow wanders Along the road; It stops to listen, And drops its load.
Dreams for a space Upon the moon, Then passes, humming My mountain tune.
Did you see the goat-dealer All in his jacket green? I met him on the rocky road 'Twixt this and Baile-doirin.
A hundred nannies ran before, And a she-ass behind, And then the old wanderer himself, Burnt red with sun and wind.
He gave me the time-a-day And doitered over the hill, Walloping his gay ashplant And shouting his fill.
I think I hear him yet, Tho' it's a giant's cry From where I hailed him first, Standing up to the sky.
Is that Puck Green I see beyond? It is, and the stir is there. By the holy hat, I know then-- He's making for Puck Fair!
Why crush the claret rose That blows So rarely on the tree? Wherefore the enmity, dear girl, Betwixt the rose and thee? Art thou not fair enough With that dark beauty given thee, That thou must crush the rose That blows So rarely on the tree!
LAMENT OF PADRAIC MOR MAC CRUIMIN OVER HIS SONS
I am Padraic Mor mac Cruimin, Son of Domhnall of the Shroud, Piper, like my kind before me, To the household of MacLeod.
Death is in the seed of Cruimin-- All my music is a wail; Early graves await the poets And the pipers of the Gael.
Samhain gleans the golden harvests Duly in their tide and time, But my body's fruit is blasted Barely past the Bealtein prime.
Cethlenn claims the fairest fighters Fitly for her own, her own, But my seven sons are stricken Where no battle-pipe is blown.
Flowers of the forest fallen On the sliding summer stream-- Light and life and love are with me, Then are vanished into dream.
Berried branches of the rowan Rifled in the wizard wind-- Clan and generation leave me, Lonely on the heath behind.
Who will soothe a father's sorrow When his seven sons are gone? Who will watch him in his sleeping? Who will wake him at the dawn?
Seven sons are taken from me In the compass of a year; Every bone is bose within me, All my blood is white with fear.
