Part 16 (1/2)

Birch tree, smooth and blessed, delicious to the breeze, high twigs plait and crown it the queen of trees.

The aspen pales and whispers, hesitates: a thousand frightened scuts race in its leaves.

But what disturbs me most in the leafy wood is the to and fro and to and fro of an oak rod.

A starry frost will come dropping on the pools and I'll be astray on unsheltered heights: herons calling in cold Glenelly, flocks of birds quickly coming and going.

I prefer the elusive rhapsody of blackbirds to the garrulous blather of men and women.

I prefer the squeal of badgers in their sett to the tally-ho of the morning hunt.

I prefer the re- echoing belling of a stag among the peaks to that arrogant horn.

Those unharnessed runners from glen to glen!

n.o.body tames that royal blood, each one aloof on its rightful summit, antlered, watchful.

Imagine them, the stag of high Slieve Felim, the stag of the steep Fews, the stag of Duhallow, the stag of Orrery, the fierce stag of Killarney.

The stag of Islandmagee, Larne's stag, the stag of Moylinny, the stag of Cooley, the stag of Cunghill, the stag of the two-peaked Burren.

I am Sweeney, the whinger, the scuttler in the valley.

But call me, instead, Peak-pate, Stag-head.

Then Sweeney said: From now on, I won't tarry in Dal-Arie because Lynchseachan would have my life to avenge the hag's.

So he proceeded to Roscommon in Connacht, where he alighted on the bank of the well and treated himself to watercress and water. But when a woman came out of the erenach's house, he panicked and fled, and she gathered the watercress from the stream. Sweeney watched her from his tree and greatly lamented the theft of his patch of cress, saying It is a shame that you are taking my watercress. If only you knew my plight, how I am unpitied by tribesman or kinsman, how I am no longer a guest in any house on the ridge of the world. Watercress is my wealth, water is my wine, and hard bare trees and soft tree bowers are my friends. Even if you left that cress, you would not be left wanting; but if you take it, you are taking the bite from my mouth.

And he made this poem: Woman, picking the watercress and scooping up my drink of water, were you to leave them as my due you would still be none the poorer.

Woman, have consideration, we two go two different ways: I perch out among the tree-tops, you lodge in a friendly house.

Woman, have consideration.

Think of me in the sharp wind, forgotten, past consideration, s.h.i.+vering, stripped to the skin.

Woman, you cannot start to know sorrows Sweeney has forgotten: how friends were so long denied him he killed his gift for friends.h.i.+p even.

Fugitive, deserted, mocked by memories of his days as king, no longer called to head the troop when warriors are mustering, no longer an honoured guest at tables anywhere in Ireland, ranging like a mad pilgrim over rock-peaks on the mountain.

The harper who harped me to rest, where is his soothing music now?

My people too, my kith and kin, where did their affection go?

In my heyday, I, on horseback, came riding high into my own: now memory's an unbroken horse that rears and suddenly throws me down.

Over starlit moors and plains, woman plucking my watercress, to his cold and lonely station the shadow of that Sweeney goes with watercresses for his herds, cold water for his mead, bushes for companions, the bare hillside for his bed.

Gazing down at clean gravel, to lean out over a cool well, drink a mouthful of sunlit water and gather cresses by the handful even this you would pluck from me, lean pickings that have thinned my blood and chilled me on the cold uplands, hunkering low when winds spring up.

Morning wind is the coldest wind, it flays me of my rags, it freezes the very memory leaves me speechless, woman, picking the watercress.

He stayed in Roscommon that night and the next day he went on to Slieve Aughty, from there to the pleasant slopes of Slemish, then on to the high peaks of Slieve Bloom, and from there to Inishmurray. After that, he stayed six weeks in a cave that belonged to Donnan on the island of Eig off the west of Scotland. From there he went on to Ailsa Craig, where he spent another six weeks, and when he finally left he bade the place farewell and bewailed his state, like this: Without bed or board I face dark days in frozen lairs and wind-driven snow.

Ice scoured by winds.

Watery shadows from weak sun.

Shelter from the one tree on a plateau.

Haunting deer-paths, enduring rain, first-footing the grey frosted gra.s.s.

I climb towards the pa.s.s and the stag's belling rings off the wood, surf-noise rises where I go, heartbroken and worn out, sharp-haunched Sweeney, raving and moaning.

The sough of the winter night, my feet packing the hailstones as I pad the dappled banks of Mourne or lie, unslept, in a wet bed on the hills by Lough Erne, tensed for first light and an early start.

Skimming the waves at Dunseverick, listening to billows at Dun Rodairce, hurtling from that great wave to the wave running in tidal Barrow, one night in hard Dun Cernan, the next among the wild flowers of Benn Boirne; and then a stone pillow on the screes of Croagh Patrick.

But to have ended up lamenting here on Ailsa Craig.

A hard station!

Ailsa Craig, the seagulls' home, G.o.d knows it is hard lodgings.

Ailsa Craig, bell-shaped rock, reaching sky-high, snout in the sea it hard-beaked, me skimped and scraggy: we mated like a couple of hard-shanked cranes.

Once when Sweeney was rambling and raking through Connacht he ended up in Alternan in Tireragh. A community of holy people had made their home there, and it was a lovely valley, with a turbulent river shooting down the cliff; trees fruited and blossomed on the cliff face; there were sheltering ivies and heavy-topped orchards, there were wild deer and hares and fat swine; and sleek seals, that used to sleep on the cliff, having come in from the ocean beyond. Sweeney coveted the place mightily and sang its praises aloud in this poem: Sainted cliff at Alternan, nut grove, hazel-wood!

Cold quick sweeps of water fall down the cliff-side.

Ivies green and thicken there, its oak-mast is precious.

Fruited branches nod and bend from heavy-headed apple trees.

Badgers make their setts there and swift hares have their form; and seals' heads swim the ocean, cobbling the running foam.