The Convict of Clonmala

HOW hard is my fortune,
And vain my repining!
The strong rope of fate
For this young neck is twining.
My strength is departed,
My cheek sunk and sallow,
While I languish in chains
In the gaol of Clonmala.

No boy in the village
Was ever yet milder;
I'd play with a child

And my sport would be wilder;
I'd dance without tiring
From morning till even,

And the goal-ball I'd strike

To the lightning of heaven.
At my bed-foot decaying,
My hurl-ball is lying;

Through the boys of the village My goal-ball is flying;

My horse 'mong the neighbors
Neglected may fallow,

While I pine in my chains
In the gaol of Clonmala.

Next Sunday the pattern
At home will be keeping,
And the young active hurlers
The field will be sweeping;
With the dance of fair maidens
The evening they'll hallow,

While this heart, once so gay,

Shall be cold in Clonmala. Translated by JEREMIAH JOSEPH CALLANAN.

A Woman of the Mountain Keens Her Son

GRIEF on the death, it has blackened my heart:

It has snatched my love and left me desolate,

Without friend or companion under the roof of my house But this sorrow in the midst of me, and I keening.

As I walked the mountain in the evening
The birds spoke to me sorrowfully,

The sweet snipe spoke and the voiceless curlew
Relating to me that my darling was dead.

I called to you and your voice I heard not,
I called again and I got no answer,

I kissed your mouth, and O God how cold it was!
Ah, cold is your bed in the lonely churchyard.

O green-sodded grave in which my child is,
Little narrow grave, since you are his bed,
My blessing on you, and thousands of blessings
On the green sods that are over my treasure.

Grief on the death, it cannot be denied,
It lays low, green and withered together,-
And O gentle little son, what tortures me is
That your fair body should be making clay!

Translated from the Irish of PADRAIC PEARSE.

Aghadoe

THERE'S a glade in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
There's a green and silent glade in Aghadoe,

Where we met, my Love and I, Love's fair planet in the sky,

O'er that sweet and silent glade in Aghadoe.

There's a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,

There's a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe,

Where I hid him from the eyes of the red-coats and their spies

That year the trouble came to Aghadoe.

Oh! my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
On Shaun Dhuv, my mother's son in Aghadoe,

When your throat fries in hell's drouth salt the flame be in your mouth,

For the treachery you did in Aghadoe!

'For they tracked me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, When the price was on his head in Aghadoe;

O'er the mountain through the wood, as I stole to him with food,

When in hiding lone he lay in Aghadoe.

But they never took him living in Aghadoe, Aghadoe;
With the bullets in his heart in Aghadoe,

There he lay, the head-my breast keeps the warmth where once 'twould rest

Gone, to win the traitor's gold from Aghadoe!

I walked to Mallow Town from Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
Brought his head from the gaol's gate to Aghadoe,

Then I covered him with fern, and I piled on him the cairn,

Like an Irish king he sleeps in Aghadoe.

Oh, to creep into that cairn in Aghadoe, Aghadoe!

There to rest upon his breast in Aghadoe!

Sure your dog for you could die with no truer heart than I

Your own love cold on your cairn in Aghadoe.

JOHN TODHUNTER.