SKIM-MILK

A small part only of my grief I write;

And if I do not give you all the tale

It is because my gloom gets some respite

By just a small bewailing: I bewail

That I with sly and stupid folk must bide

Who steal my food and ruin my inside.

Once I had books, each book beyond compare,

But now no book at all is left to me,

And I am spied and peeped on everywhere,

And my old head, stuffed with latinity,

And with the poet's load of grave and gay

Will not get me skim-milk for half a day.

Wild horse or quiet, not a horse have I,

But to the forest every day I go

Bending beneath a load of wood, that high!

Which raises on my back a sorry row

Of raw, red blisters; so I cry, alack,

The rider that rides me will break my back.

Ossian, when he was old and near his end,

Met Patrick by good luck, and he was stayed;

I am a poet too and seek a friend,

A prop, a staff, a comforter, an aid,

A Patrick who will lift me from despair,

In Cormac Uasal Mac Donagh of the golden hair.