SHAHAHAN: Give them a bloody pick [...] give them the shaft of a shovel into their hand and tell them to dig a hole and have the length of a page of poetry off by heart in their heads before the five o’clock whistle. What will you get? [...] Do you know what it is, I’ve met the others, the whole lot of them. I’ve met them all and know them all. I have seen them and I have read their pomes [sic]. I have heard them recited by men that know how to use their tongues, men that couldn’t be beaten at their own game. I have seen whole books filled up with their stuff, books as thick as that table there and I’m telling you no lie. But by God, at the heel of the hunt, there is only one poet for me. (At Swim-Two-Birds [Penguin edn.], p.74.)

You can’t beat it, of course [...] the real old stuff of the native land, you know, stuff that brought scholars to our shore when your men on the other side were on the flat of their bellies before the calf of gold with a sheepskin around their man. It’s the stuff that put our country where she stands today ... and I’d have my tongue out of my head by the bloody roots before I’d be heard saying a word against it. But the man in the street, were does he come in? [...] You can get too much of that stuff. Feed yourself up with that tack once and you won’t want more for a long time. (Ibid., p.75.)

Poetry is a thing I am very fond of, said the Good Fairy. I always make a point of following the works of Mr Eliot and Mr Lewis and Mr Devlin. A good pome is a tonic. Was your pome on the subject of flowers, Mr Casey? Wordsworth was a great man for the flowers. (p.120.) Verse-speaking, they call it in London . (Ibid., p.121.)

“The Ballad of Father Gilligan”* [...] in the intermediate book [...] a very nice spiritual thing (Ibid., p.122.)

Finn’s Curse [reciting verses of St. Moling]

My curse on Sweeney!
His guilt against me is immense,
he pierced with his long swift javelin
My holy bell.
...
Just as it went prestissimo
the spear-shaft skyward,
you, too, Sweeny, go madly mad-gone
skyward. [...]
My curse on you Sweeny. (p.65.)

[...] Bereft of fine women-folk,
the brooklime for a brother -
our choice for a fresh meal
is watercress always.

Without accomplished musicians
without generous women,
no jewel-gift for bards -
respected Christ, it has perished me. (p.67).

Watercress from the well at Cirb
is my lot at terce,
its colour is my mouth.
green on the mouth of Sweeney.

Chill chill is my body
when away from ivy,
the rain torrents it
and the thunder. (p.69.) [...]

Glen Bolcain my home ever,
it was my haven,
many a night have I tried
a race against the peak. (p.72.)

The bell-belling of the stag through the
woodland,
the climb to the deer-pass,
the voice of the white seas.

Forgive me Oh Great Lord,
mortal is this great sorrow,
worse than the black grief-
Sweeny the thin-groined. (p.82.)

Terrible is my plight this night
the pure air has pierced my body,
lacerated my feet, my cheek is green -
O Mighty God, it is my due. (p.84.)

I have journeyed from Luachair
Dheaghaidh
to the edge of Fiodh Gaibhle,
this is my fare - I conceal it not - ivy-berries, oak-mast. (p.89.)

Finn McCool (answering threnody)
I do not relish
the mad clack of humans
sweeter warble of the bird
in the place he is.

I like not the trumpeting
heard at morn;
sweeter hearing is the squeal
of badgers in Benna Broc. (p.80.)

A Pint of Plain is Your Only Man

SHANAHAN [reciting verses of Jem Casey]
When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN. (p.77.)

When the stag appears on the mountain high,
with flanks the colour of bran,
when a badger bold can say goodbye,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN. (p.80.)

Jem Casey’s Workingman’s Song

Come all ye lads and lassies prime
From Macroom to old Strabane,
And list to me till I say my rhyme -
THE GIFT OF GOD IS THE WORKING MAN.

Your lords and people of high degree
Are a fine and noble clan,
They do their best but they cannot see
THAT THE GIFT OF GOD IS A WORKIN’ MAN. [... &c.] (p.121).

Endlessly over the water
Birds of the Bann are singing;
Sweeter to me their voices
Than any churchbell’s ringing.

Over the plain of Moyra
Under the of the foemen
I saw my people broken
As flax is scutched by women.

But the cries I hear by Derry
Are not of men triumphant;
I hear their calls in the evening,
Swans calm and exultant.

I hear the stag’s belling
Ove the valley’s steepness
No music on the earth
Can move me like its sweetness.

Christ, Christ hear me!
Christ, Christ of Thy meekness!
Christ, Christ love me!
Sever me not from Thy sweetness.

Winter time is bleak, the wind
Drives the stag from height to height;

Belling at the mountain’s cold
Untamable he strays tonight.

The old stag of Carran scarce
Dare sleep within his den,
While the stag of Aughty hears
Wolves call in every glen.
Long ago Osgar and I
And Diarmuid heard that cry;
And we listen to the wolves
As the frosty night went by.

Now the stag that’s filled with sleep
Lays his lordly side to rest
As if earth had drawn him down
To the winter’s icy-breast.

Though I drowse above the fire
Many a winter morning drear
My hand was tight about a sword
A battleaxe or spear.

And though I sleep cold tonight,
God, I offer thanks to you,
And to Christ, the Virgin’s Son,
For the mighty men I slew.