The Hermit’s Song

These verses are from a poetic discussion on the religious life
between King Guaire and his hermit brother, Marbhan, both of the
seventh century. Here, too, the poet is looking back. It is
extraordinary how clear and bright the landscape of early Irish poetry
is, as though some mediaeval painter had illustrated it, with its
little oratories hung with linen, its woodlands and birds, its fierce
winters and gay springs.

A hiding tuft, a green-barked yew-tree
  Is my roof,
While nearby a great oak keeps me
  Tempest-proof.

I can pick my fruit from an apple
  Like an inn,
Or can fill my fist where hazels
  Shut me in.

A clear well beside me offers
  Best of drink,
And there grows a bed of cresses
  Near its brink.

Pigs and goats, the friendliest neighbours,
  Nestle near,
'Wild swine come, or broods of badgers,
  Grazing deer.

All the gentry of the county
  Come to call!
And the foxes come behind them,
  Best of all.

To what meals the woods invite me
  All about!
There are water, herbs and cresses,
  Salmon, trout.

A clutch of eggs, sweet mast and honey
  Are my meat,
Heathberries and whortleberries
  For a sweet.
  
All that one could ask for comfort
  Round me grows,
There are hips and haws and strawberries,
  Nuts and sloes. I

And when summer spreads its mantle
  What a sight!
Marjoram and leeks and pignuts,
  Juicy, bright.

Dainty redbreasts briskly forage
  Every bush,
Round and round my but there flutter
  Swallow, thrush.

Bees and beetles, music-makers,
  Groon and strum;
Geese pass over, duck in autumn,
  Dark streams hum.

Angry wren, oflicious linnet
  And black—cap,
All industrious, and the woodpeckers’
  Sturdy tap.

From the sea the gulls and herons
  Flutter in,
While in upland heather rises
  The grey hen.
  
In the year’s most brilliant weather
  Heifers low
Through green fields, not driven nor beaten,
  Tranquil slow.

In wreathed boughs the wind is whispering,
  Skies are blue,
Swans call, river water falling
  Is calling too.


Source: O'Connor, Frank (tr); Kings, Lords, & Commons: An Anthology
from the Irish; 1962; London; Macmillan & Co; pp.7-9