Mary Hynes

That Sunday, on my oath, the rain was a heavy overcoat on a poor poet
And when the rain began in fleeces of water to buck-leap like a goat
I was only a walking penence reaching Kiltartan

And there so suddenly that my cold spine broke out
On the arch of my back in a rainbow
This woman surged out of the day with so much sunlight
That I was nailed there like a scarecrow

But I found my tongue and a breath to balance it, and I said:
"If I'd bow to you with this hump of rain, I'll fall
On my collarbone, but luck I'll chance it"
And after falling bow again she laughed
Ah, she was gracious, and softly she said to me:

"For all Your lovely talking I go marketing with an ass, I know him
I’m no hill-queen, alas, or Ireland, that grass widow, so hurry on
Sweet Raftery, or you’ll keep me late for Mass!"

The parish priest has blamed me for missing second Mass
And the bell talking on the rope of the steeple
But the tonsure of the poet is the bright crash
Of love that blinds the irons on his belfry

Were I making an Aisling I’d tell the tale of her hair
But now I’ve grown careful of my listeners
So I pass over one long day and the rainy air
Where we sheltered in whispers

When we left the dark evening at last outside her door
She lighted a lamp though a gaming company
Could have sighted each trump by the light of her unshawled poll

And indeed she welcomed me with a big quart bottle and I mooned there over glasses
Till she took that bird, the phoenix, from the spit
And, "Raftery", says she, "A feast is no bad dowry, sit down now and taste it"

If I praised Ballylea before it was only for the mountains
Where I broke horses and ran wild
And for its seven crooked smoky houses
Where seven crones are tied

All day to the listening-top of a half door
And nothing to be heard or seen
But the drowsy dropping of water
And a gander on the green

But, boys, I was blind as a kitten till last Sunday
This town is earth’s very navel
Seven palaces are thatched there of a Monday
And O the seven queens whose pale

Proud faces with their seven glimmering sisters
The Pleiads, light the evening where they stroll
And one can find the well by their wet footprints
And make one’s soul!

For Mary Hynes, rising, gathers up there
Her ripening body from all the love stories
And rinsing herself at morning, shakes her hair
And stirs the old gay books in libraries

And what shall I do with sweet Boccaccio?
And shall I send Ovid back to school again
With a new headline for his copybook
And a new pain?

Like a nun she will play you a sweet tune on a spinet
And from such grasshopper music leap
Like Herod’s hussy who fancied a saint’s head
For grace after meat

Yet she’ll peg out a line of clothes on a windy morning
And by noonday put them ironed in the chest
And you’ll swear by her white fingers she does nothing
But take her fill of rest

And I’ll wager now that my song is ended
Loughrea, that old dead city where the weavers
Have pined at the mouldering looms since Helen broke the thread
Will be piled again with silver fleeces

O the new coats and big horses! The raving and the ribbons!
And Ballylea in hubbub and uproar!
And may Raftery be dead if he’s not there to ruffle it
On his own mare, Shank’s mare, that never needs a spur

But ah, Sweet Light, though your face coins
My heart’s very metals, isn’t it folly without a pardon
For Raftery to sing so that men, east and west, come
Spying on your vegetable garden

We could be so quiet in your chimney corner
Yet how could a poet hold you any more than the sun
Burning in the big bright hazy heart of harvest
Could be tied in a henrun?

Bless your poet then and let him go!
He’ll never stack a haggard with his breath:
His thatch of words will not keep rain or snow
Out of the house, or keep back death

But Raftery, rising, curses as he sees you
Stir the fire and wash delph
That he was bred a poet whose selfish trade it is
To keep no beauty to himself