The Mountainy Singer. Campbell Joseph

The Mountainy Singer

      This book is made up of a selection from the Author’s early books, with many new poems added.

      A LINE’S A SPEECH

      A line’s a speech;

      So here’s a line

      To say this pedlar’s pack

      Of mine

      Is not a book —

      But a journey thro’

      Mountainy places,

      Ever in view

      Of the sea and the fields,

      With the rough wind

      Blowing over the leagues

      Behind!

      I AM THE MOUNTAINY SINGER

      I am the mountainy singer —

      The voice of the peasant’s dream,

      The cry of the wind on the wooded hill,

      The leap of the fish in the stream.

      Quiet and love I sing —

      The carn on the mountain crest,

      The cailin in her lover’s arms,

      The child at its mother’s breast.

      Beauty and peace I sing —

      The fire on the open hearth,

      The cailleach spinning at her wheel,

      The plough in the broken earth.

      Travail and pain I sing —

      The bride on the childing bed,

      The dark man labouring at his rhymes,

      The ewe in the lambing shed.

      Sorrow and death I sing —

      The canker come on the corn,

      The fisher lost in the mountain loch,

      The cry at the mouth of morn.

      No other life I sing,

      For I am sprung of the stock

      That broke the hilly land for bread,

      And built the nest in the rock!

      WHEN ROOKS FLY HOMEWARD

      When rooks fly homeward

      And shadows fall,

      When roses fold

      On the hay-yard wall,

      When blind moths flutter

      By door and tree,

      Then comes the quiet

      Of Christ to me.

      When stars look out

      On the Children’s Path

      And grey mists gather

      On carn and rath,

      When night is one

      With the brooding sea,

      Then comes the quiet

      Of Christ to me.

      I SPIN MY GOLDEN WEB

      I spin my golden web in the sun:

      The cherries tremble, the light is done.

      A sudden wind sweeps over the bay,

      And carries my golden web away!

      CHERRY VALLEY

      In Cherry Valley the cherries blow:

      The valley paths are white as snow.

      And in their time with clusters red

      The scented boughs are crimsonèd.

      Even now the moon is looking thro’

      The glimmer of the honey dew.

      A petal trembles to the grass,

      The feet of fairies pass and pass.

      By them, I know, all beauty comes

      To me, a habitan of slums.

      I sing no rune, I say no line:

      The gift of second sight is mine!

      DARKNESS

      Darkness.

      I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole —

      A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.

      I look at it, and pass on.

      MY FIDIL IS SINGING

      My fidil is singing

      Into the air;

      The wind is stirring,

      The moon is fair.

      A shadow wanders

      Along the road;

      It stops to listen,

      And drops its load.

      Dreams for a space

      Upon the moon,

      Then passes, humming

      My mountain tune.

      THE GOAT-DEALER

      Did you see the goat-dealer

      All in his jacket green?

      I met him on the rocky road

      ’Twixt this and Baile-doirin.

      A hundred nannies ran before,

      And a she-ass behind,

      And then the old wanderer himself,

      Burnt red with sun and wind.

      He gave me the time-a-day

      And doitered over the hill,

      Walloping his gay ashplant

      And shouting his fill.

      I think I hear him yet,

      Tho’ it’s a giant’s cry

      From where I hailed him first,

      Standing up to the sky.

      Is that Puck Green I see beyond?

      It is, and the stir is there.

      By the holy hat, I know then —

      He’s making for Puck Fair!

      WHY CRUSH THE CLARET ROSE

      Why crush the claret rose

      That blows

      So rarely on the tree?

      Wherefore the enmity, dear girl,

      Betwixt the rose and thee?

      Art thou not fair enough

      With that dark beauty given thee,

      That thou must crush the rose

      That blows

      So rarely on the tree!

      LAMENT OF PADRAIC MOR MAC CRUIMIN OVER HIS SONS

      I am Padraic Mor mac Cruimin,

      Son of Domhnall of the Shroud,

      Piper, like my kind before me,

      To the household of MacLeod.

      Death is in the seed of Cruimin —

      All my music is a wail;

      Early graves await the poets

      And