THE BEGGAR'S WAKE

I watched at a beggar's wake

In the hills of Bearna-barr,

And the old men were telling stories

Of Troy and the Trojan war.

And a flickering fire of bog-deal

Burned on the open hearth,

And the night-wind roared in the chimney,

And darkness was over the earth.

And Tearlach Ban MacGiolla,

The piper of Gort, was there,

And he sat and he dreamed apart

In the arms of a sugan chair.

And sudden he woke from his dream

Like a dream-frightened child,

And his lips were pale and trembling,

And his eyes were wild.

And he stood straight up, and he cried,

With a wave of his withered hand,

“The days of the grasping stranger

Shall be few in the land!

“The scrip of his doom is written,

The thread of his shroud is spun;

The net of his strength is broken,

The tide of his life is run....”

Then he sank to his seat like a stone,

And the watchers stared aghast,

And they crossed themselves for fear

As the coffin cart went past.

“At the battle of Gleann-muic-duibh

The fate the poets foretold

Shall fall on the neck of the stranger,

And redden the plashy mould.

“The bagmen carry the story

The circuit of Ireland round,

And they sing it at fair and hurling

From Edair to Acaill Sound.

“And the folk repeat it over

About the winter fires,

Till the heart of each one listening

Is burning with fierce desires.

“In the Glen of the Bristleless Boar

They say the battle shall be,

Where Breiffne's iron mountains

Look on the Western sea.

“In the Glen of the Pig of Diarmad,

On Gulban's hither side,

The battle shall be broken

About the Samhain tide.

“Forth from the ancient hills,

With war-cries strident and loud,

The people shall march at daybreak,

Massed in a clamorous crowd.

“War-pipes shall scream and cry,

And battle-banners shall wave,

And every stone on Gulban

Shall mark a hero's grave.

“The horses shall wade to their houghs

In rivers of smoking blood,

Charging thro’ heaps of corpses

Scattered in whinny and wood.

“The girths shall rot from their bellies

After the battle is done,

For lack of a hand to undo them

And hide them out of the sun.

“It shall not be the battle

Between the folk and the Sidhe

At the rape of a bride from her bed

Or a babe from its mother's knee.

“It shall not be the battle

Between the white hosts flying

And the shrieking devils of hell

For a priest at the point of dying.

“It shall not be the battle

Between the sun and the leaves,

Between the winter and summer,

Between the storm and the sheaves.

“But a battle to doom and death

Between the Gael and the Gall,

Between the sword of light

And the shield of darkness and thrall.

“And the Gael shall have the mastery

After a month of days,

And the lakes of the west shall cry,

And the hills of the north shall blaze.

“And the neck of the fair-haired Gall

Shall be as a stool for the feet

Of Ciaran, chief of the Gael,

Sitting in Emer's seat!” —

At this MacGiolla fainted,

Tearing his yellow hair,

And the young men cursed the stranger,

And the old men mouthed a prayer.

For they knew the day would come,

As sure as the piper said,

When many loves would be parted,

And many graves would be red.

And the wake broke up in tumult,

And the women were left alone,

Keening over the beggar

That died at Gobnat's Stone.