The Body’s Speech

My grief, my grief, maid without sin,
  Mother of God’s Son,
Because of one I cannot win '
  My peace is gone.

Mortal love, a raging flood,
  O Mother Maid,
Runs like a fever through my blood,
  Ruins heart and head.

How can I tell her of my fear,
  My wild desire,
When words I speak for my own car
  Turn me to fire?

I dream of breasts so lilylike,
  Without a fleck,
And hair that, bundled up from her back,
  Burdens her neck.

And praise the cheeks where flames arise
  That shame the rose,
And the soft hands at whose touch flees
  All my repose.

Since I have seen her I am lost,
  A man possessed,
Better to feel the world gone past,
  Earth on my breast;

And from my tomb to hear the choir,
  The hum of prayer;
Without her while her place is here,
  My peace is there.

I am a ghost upon your path,
  A wasting death,
But you must know one word of truth
  Gives a ghost breath—

In language beyond learning’s touch
  Passion can teach—
Speak in that speech beyond reproach
  The body’s speech.


Donal MacCarthy, First Earl Clancarty


Source: O'Connor, Frank (tr); Kings, Lords, & Commons: An Anthology
from the Irish; 1962; London; Macmillan & Co; p.69