Part 9 (1/2)

A SONG OF WINTER

Cold, cold!

Cold to-night is broad Moylurg, Higher the snow than the mountain-range, The deer cannot get at their food.

Cold till Doom!

The storm has spread over all: A river is each furrow upon the slope, Each ford a full pool.

A great tidal sea is each loch, A full loch is each pool: Horses cannot get over the ford of Ross, No more can two feet get there.

The fish of Ireland are a-roaming, There is no strand which the wave does not pound, Not a town there is in the land, Not a bell is heard, no crane talks.

The wolves of Cuan-wood get Neither rest nor sleep in their lair, The little wren cannot find Shelter in her nest on the slope of Lon.

Keen wind and cold ice Has burst upon the little company of birds, The blackbird cannot get a lee to her liking, Shelter for its side in Cuan-wood.

Cosy our pot on its hook, Crazy the hut on the slope of Lon: The snow has crushed the wood here, Toilsome to climb up Ben-bo.

Glenn Rye's ancient bird From the bitter wind gets grief; Great her misery and her pain, The ice will get into her mouth.

From flock and from down to rise-- Take it to heart!--were folly for thee: Ice in heaps on every ford-- That is why I say 'cold'!

ARRAN

Arran of the many stags, The sea strikes against its shoulder, Isle in which companies are fed, Ridge on which blue spears are reddened.

Skittish deer are on her peaks, Delicious berries on her manes, Cool water in her rivers, Mast upon her dun oaks.

Greyhounds are in it and beagles, Blackberries and sloes of the dark blackthorn, Her dwellings close against the woods, Deer scattered about her oak-woods.

Gleaning of purple upon her rocks, Faultless gra.s.s upon her slopes, Over her fair shapely crags Noise of dappled fawns a-skipping.

Smooth is her level land, fat are her swine, Bright are her fields, Her nuts upon the tops of her hazel-wood, Long galleys sailing past her.

Delightful it is when the fair season comes, Trout under the brinks of her rivers, Seagulls answer each other round her white cliff, Delightful at all times is Arran!

LOVE POETRY

THE SONG OF CREDE, DAUGHTER OF GUARE

In the battle of Aidne, Crede, the daughter of King Guare of Aidne, beheld Dinertach of the Hy Fidgenti, who had come to the help of Guare, with seventeen wounds upon his breast.