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Clann Cartie
by James StephensMy heart is withered and my health is gone,
For they who were not easy put upon,
Masters of mirth and of fair clemency,
Masters of wealth and gentle charity,
They are all gone. Mac Caura Mor is dead,
Mac Caura of the Lee is finished,
Mac Caura of Kanturk joined clay to clay
And gat him gone, and bides as deep as they.
Their years, their gentle deeds, their flags are furled,
And deeply down, under the stiffened world,
In chests of oaken wood are princes thrust,
To crumble day by day into the dust
A mouth might puff at; nor is left a trace
Of those who did of grace all that was grace.
O Wave of Cliona, cease thy bellowing!
And let mine ears forget a while to ring
At thy long, lamentable misery:
The great are dead indeed, the great are dead;
And I, in little time, will stoop my head
And put it under, and will be forgot
With them, and be with them, and thus be not:
Ease thee, cease thy long keening, cry no more:
End is, and here is end, and end is sore,
And to all lamentation be there end:
If I might come on thee, O howling friend!
Knowing that sails were drumming on the sea
Westward to Eir', and that help would be
Trampling for her upon a Spanish deck,
I'd ram thy lamentation down thy neck.