Lady Gregory

“ The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of the Two Mists; it is not far from this; the men of its army in good order go out ahead of their beautiful king; they march among blue spears, white troops of fighters with curled hair.
They scatter the troops of their enemies, they destroy every country they make an attack on; they are beautiful in battle, a host with high looks, rushing, avenging.
It is no wonder they to have such strength every one of them is the son of a king and a queen; manes of hair they have of the colour of gold. ”

“ Delight is common, and music in the Gentle Voiced Plain, in the Silver Cloud Plain to the south. There is nothing hard or rough, but sweet music striking on the ear; keening is not used, or treachery, in the tilled familiar land.
To be without grief, without sorrow, without death, without any sickness, without weakness; that is the sign of Emhain; it is not a common wonder that is.
There is nothing to liken its mists to, the sea washes the wave against the land; brightness falls from its hair.
Golden chariots in the Plain of the Sea, rising up to the sun with the tide ”

“ Beyond that are two flaming heavens, angels are in them and the breaking loose of winds. Beyond those an ice-cold heaven, bluer than any blue, seven times colder than any snow, and it is out of that comes the shining of the sun. Two heavens there are above that again, bright like flame, and it is out of them shine the fiery stars that put fruitfulness in the clouds and in the sea. A high heaven, high and fiery, there is above all the rest; highest of all it is, having within it the rolling of the skies, and the labour of music, and quires of angels. ”

“ O Deirdre, on whose account many shall weep, on whose account many women shall be envious, there will be trouble on Ulster for your sake, O fair daughter of Fedlimid.
Many will be jealous of your face, O flame of beauty; for your sake heroes shall go to exile. For your sake deeds of anger shall be done in Emain; there is harm in your face, for it will bring banishment and death on the sons of kings.
In your fate, O beautiful child, are wounds and ill-doings and shedding of blood. You will have a little grave apart to yourself; you will be a tale of wonder for ever, Deirdre. ”

“ He shines on the dark valleys having sorrowful streams over their faces. He brightens the ribs of the beast that sends out the many seas around the earth; that sucks in again the many seas till the sands on every side are dry. He shines upon the many beasts that sleep their sleep of tears in the valley of flowers from the first beginning of the world; and on the sorrowful tearful plain, with the dragons that were set under the mist. He shines then upon the bird-flocks singing their many tunes in the flower-valleys; upon the shining plains with the wine-flowers that lighten the valley ”

“ It was Thomas O’Daly that roused up young people and scattered them, and since death played on him, may God give him grace. The country is all sorrowful, always talking, since their man of sport died that would win the goal in all parts with his music. The swans on the water are nine times blacker than a blackberry since the man died from us that had pleasantness on the top of his fingers. His two grey eyes were like the dew of the morning that lies on the grass. And since he was laid in the grave, the cold is getting the upper hand. ”

“ Happy are they, happy are they, who will never hear the cuckoo again for ever, now that the Hound has died from us.
I am carried away like a branch on the stream; I will not bind up my hair to-day. From this day I have nothing to say that is better than Ochone! “And oh! my love,” she said, “we were often in one another’s company, and it was happy for us; for if the world had been searched from the rising of the sun to sunset, the like would never have been found in one place, of the Black Sainglain and the Grey of Macha, and Laeg the chariot-driver, and myself and Cuchulain. ”

“ There will come at sunrise a fair man, lighting up the level lands; he rides upon the plain that is beaten by the waves, he stirs the sea till it is like blood. An army will come over the clear sea, rowing to the stone that is in sight, that has a hundred sounds of music.
It sings a song to the army; it is not sad through the length of time; it increases music with hundreds singing together; they do not look for death or the ebb-tide. ”

“ A sorrowful fight, O a sorrowful fight, the sea is making with the strand to the north; my beauty is lessened; the end of my life is measured.
A song of grief, O a song of grief is made by the waves of Tulcha Leis; all I had is gone since this story came to me. Since the son of Crimthann is drowned I will love no one after him for ever; many a king fell by his hand; his shield never cried out in the battle. ”

“ Long is the day without the sons of Usnach; it was never wearisome to be in their company; sons of a king that entertained exiles; three lions of the Hill of the Cave.
Three darlings of the women of Britain; three hawks of Slieve Cuilenn; sons of a king served by valour, to whom warriors did obedience.
Three heroes not good at homage; their fall is a cause of sorrow; three sons of the sister of a king; three props of the army of Cuailgne.
The High King of Ulster, my first betrothed, I forsook for love of Naoise; short my life will be after him; I will make keening at their burial. ”

“ He has reached to Axal of his help and to the troops of the archangels; he has reached to a place where night is not seen; he has reached to a plain where music has not to be born; where no one listens to oppression. The King of priests has done away with his troubles.
He knew the way he was going; he gave kindness for hatred; he learned psalms; he broke the battle against hunger.
He knew seasons and storms; he read the secrets of the great wisdom; he knew the course of the moon; he took notice of its race with the branching sun. He was skilful in the course of the sea ”

“ He is a sweet-smelling branch with its blossoms; he is a vessel that is full of honey; he is a shining stone of good luck; he who does the will of the Son of God of Heaven.
He is a blind nut without profit; he is ill-smelling rottenness, he is a withered tree; he is a wild apple branch without blossom; he that is not doing the will of the King. ”

“ I am glad to remember that through the twelve years of our married life, 1880-92, my husband and his people were able to keep their liking and respect for each other. For those were the years of the land war, tenant struggling to gain a lasting possession for his children, landlord to keep that which had been given in trust to him for his; each ready in his anger to turn the heritage of the other to desolation; while the vision of some went yet farther, through breaking to the rebuilding of a nation. The passion, the imagination of Ireland were thrown into the fight. ”

“ It is a day of lasting weather, silver is dropping on the land; a pure white cliff on the edge of the sea, getting its warmth from the sun.
The host race over the Plain of Sports; it is beautiful and not weak their game is; death or the ebbing of the tide will not come to them in the Many-coloured Land. ”

“ The knowledgeable man that used to put fear from us is not here; the teller of words does not return to us; the teacher is gone from us that taught silence to the people.
The whole world was his; it is a harp without its strings; it is a church without its abbot.
Colum rose very high the time God’s companies rose to meet him; it is bright the angels were, attending on him.
It is short his life was, it is little used to satisfy him; when the wind blew the sheet against him on the sand, the shape of his ribs could be seen through it. ”

“ This now is the poem of praise and of lamentation that was made for Columcille, Speckled Salmon of the Boyne, High Saint of the Gael, by Forgaill that was afterwards called Blind Forgaill, Chief Poet of Ireland:
It is not a little story this is; it is not a story about a fool it is; it is not one district that is keening but every district, with a great sound that is not to be borne, hearing the story of Columcille, without life, without a church.
It is not the trouble of one house, or the grief of one harp-string; all the plains are heavy, hearing the word that is a wound. ”

“ Death is a robber who heaps together kings, high princes and country lords; he brings with him the great, the young, and the wise, gripping them by the throat before all the people. Look at him who was yesterday swift & strong, who would leap stone wall, ditch and gap. ”

“ But the howling of the dogs beside me,” he said, “and the keening of the old fighting men and the crying of the women one after another, those are the things that are vexing me.” And Finn said: “child of my child, calf of my calf, white and slender, it is a pity the way you are. And my heart is starting like a deer,” he said, “and I am weak after you and after the Fenians of Ireland. ”

“ The day has stolen away and I have not raised the hedge, until the crop in which Thou didst take delight is destroyed. I am a worthless stake in the corner of a hedge, or I am like a boat that has lost its rudder, that would be broken against a rock in the sea, and that would be drowned in the cold waves. ”

“ The stars now differ in their nature from one another. As to the ten stars of Gaburn, trembling takes hold of them, and fiery manes are put over their faces, to foretell a plague or a death of the people. ”

“ There is no one at all in the world the way I am; it is a pity the way I am; an old man dragging stones. It is long the clouds are over me to-night!
I am the last of the Fenians, great Oisin, son of Finn, listening to the voice of bells; it is long the clouds are over me to-night!
The Foretelling of Cathbad the Druid at Deirdre’s Birth
Let Deirdre be her name: harm will come through her. She will be fair, comely, bright-haired: heroes will fight for her, and kings go seeking for her. ”

“ I think it is perhaps because of this that the country poets of to-day and yesterday have put their dream, their vision of the Delectable Mountains, of the Land of Promise, into exaggerated praise of places dear to them. Raftery sees something beyond the barren Mayo bogs when he tells of that “fine place without fog falling, a blessed place that the sun shines on, and the wind does not rise there or anything of the sort,” and where as he says in another poem “logwood and mahogany” grow in company “vith its wind twisted beech and storm bent sycamore. ”

“ My grief to tell it! he to be laid low; the man that did not bring grief or trouble on any heart, that would give help to those that were down.
No light on the day like there was; the fruits not growing; no children on the breast; there’s no return in the grain; the plants don’t blossom as they used since O’Kelly with the fair hair went away; he that used to forgive us a great share of the rent. Since the children of Usnach and Deirdre went to the grave, and Cuchulain, who as the stories tell us, would gain victory in every step he would take ”

“ The parting of us two will be the parting of two children of the one house; it will be the parting of life from the body, Diarmuid.
Her Song to Rouse Him from Sleep
The stag to the east is not asleep, he does not stop from bellowing; though he is in the woods of the blackbirds, sleep is not in his mind; the hornless doe is not asleep, crying after her speckled fawn; she is going over the bushes, she does not sleep in her home.
The cuckoo is not asleep, the thrush is not asleep, the tops of the trees are a noisy place; the duck is not asleep, she is made ready for good swimming ”

“ Once in my childhood I had been eager to learn Irish; I thought to get leave to take lessons from an old Scripture-reader who spent a part of his time in the parish of Killinane, teaching such scholars as he could find to read their own language in the hope that they might turn to the only book then being printed in Irish, the Bible. ”

“ It is a pity for him that is tempted with the temptations of the world; and the store that will go with him is so weak, and his lease of life no better if he were to live for a thousand years than just as if he had slipped over on a visit and back again. ”

“ For that young priest, Father Eugene O’Growney, sent from Ireland to look for health in California, had used the short space of life left to him in writing simple lessons in Irish grammar, that made at least the first steps easy. And another thing had happened. Dr. Douglas Hyde, An Craoibhin, had founded the Gaelic League, and through it country people were gathered together in the Irish speaking places to give the songs and poems, old and new, kept in their memory. ”

“ What way will a simple man tell of him? Even Nera from the Sidhe could not do it; he is not made much of now; our learned one is not the light of our life, now he is hidden away from us.
He that used to keep us living is dead ”