Read As I Rode by Granard Moat Online
Authors: Benedict Kiely
As I Rode by Granard Moat (15 page)
And lifting his eyes and his imagination from the poverties and miseries of his life in Dublin, Mangan, with the aid of an ancient Persian poet, looked back to the days of a notable dynasty. Which goes to show that from Dublin, on a clear day and with a clear mind, you can see the world, present and past and, perhaps, to come:
My eyes are filmed, my beard is grey,
I am bowed with the weight of years;
I would I were stretched in my bed of clay,
With my long-lost youth’s compeers!
For back to the Past, though the thought brings woe,
My memory ever glides –
To the old, old time, long, long ago,
The time of the Barmecides!
To the old, old time, long, long ago,
The time of the Barmecides.
Then Youth was mine, and a fierce wild will,
And an iron arm in war,
And a fleet foot high upon Ishkar’s hill,
When the watch-light glimmered afar,
And a barb as fiery as any I know
That Khoord or Beddaween rides,
Ere my friends lay low – long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides,
Ere my friends lay low – long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides.
One golden goblet illumed my board,
One silver dish was there;
At hand my tried Karamanian sword
Lay always bright and bare,
For those were the days when the angry blow
Supplanted the word that chides –
When hearts could glow – long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides,
When hearts could glow – long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides.
Through city and desert my mates and I
Were free to rove and roam,
Our diapered canopy the deep of the sky,
Or the roof of the palace-dome –
Oh! ours was that vivid life to and fro
Which only sloth derides: –
Men spent Life so, long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides,
Men spent Life so, long, long ago,
In the time of the Barmecides.
I see rich Baghdad once again,
With its turrets of Moorish mould,
And the Khalif’s s twice five hundred men
Whose binishes flamed with gold;
I call up many a gorgeous show
Which the Pall of Oblivion hides –
All passed like snow, long, long ago,
With the time of the Barmecides;
All passed like snow, long, long ago,
With the time of the Barmecides!
But mine eye is dim, and my beard is gray,
And I bend with the weight of years –
May I soon go down to the House of Clay
Where slumber my Youth’s compeers!
For with them and the Past, though the thought wakes woe,
My memory ever abides,
And I mourn for the Times gone long ago,
For the Times of the Barmecides!
I mourn for the Times gone long ago,
For the Times of the Barmecides!
But much closer to Dublin, and from the seventeenth-century Irish, Mangan re-echoed that imperishable poem, and song, about the proud and wealthy woman: ‘The Woman of Three Cows’. Once upon a time I asked the great Colm Ó Lochlainn to what tune this could be sung. He said (I forget what the year was) that I was listening to the tune every day on the radio and the words that went
with it were about Ghost Riders in the Sky. But the original was, he told me, a dance-tune called ‘My Love is in America’.
And thus, as Tennyson hinted, the whole round earth is, every way, bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
Anyway, go ahead and sing:
O Woman of Three Cows, a-gradh! don’t let your tongue thus rattle!
O don’t be saucy, don’t be stiff, because you may have cattle,
I have seen – and, here’s my hand to you, I only say what’s true –
A many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as you.
Good luck to you, don’t scorn the poor, and don’t be their despiser;
For worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the very miser:
And death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty human brows,
Then don’t be stiff, and don’t be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!
See where Momonia’s heroes lie, proud Owen More’s descendants,
’Tis they that won the glorious name, and had the grand attendants,
If they were forced to bow to Fate, as every mortal bows,
Can you be proud, can you be stiff, my Woman of Three Cows?
The brave sons of the Lords of Clare, they left the land to mourning;
Mo bhrón! for they were banished, with no hope of their returning –
Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were driven to house?
Yet you can give yourself these airs, O Woman of Three Cows!
Think of O’Donnell of the ships, the Chief whom nothing daunted –
See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled, unchanted!
He sleeps, the great O’Sullivan, where thunder cannot rouse –
Then ask yourself, should you be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!
O’Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names are shrined in story –
Think how their high achievements once made Erin’s greatest glory –
Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress boughs,
And so, for all your pride, will yours, O Woman of Three Cows!
The O’Carrolls, also, famed when fame was only for the boldest,
Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin’s best and oldest;
Yet who so great as they of yore in battle or carouse?
Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows!
Your neighbour’s poor, and you, it sems, are big with vain ideas,
Because, an eadh! you’ve got three cows, one more, I see, than she has;
That tongue of yours wags more at times than charity allows –
But, if you’re strong, be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows!
Now, there you go! You still, of course, keep up your scornful bearing,
And I’m too poor to hinder you; but, by the cloak I’m wearing,
If I had but four cows myself, even though you were my spouse,
I’d thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman of Three Cows!
Far, far away from the proud woman and her thundering herds was the poet when he looked to the East and meditated on mortality and the vanity of all human ambition and, from the streets of Dublin, asked some hard questions of King Solomon:
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Like the swift shadows of Noon, like the dreams of the Blind,
Vanish the glories and pomp of the earth in the wind.
Man! canst thou build upon aught in the pride of thy mind?
Wisdom will teach thee that nothing can tarry behind;
Though there be thousand bright actions embalmed and enshrined,
Myriads and millions of brighter are snow in the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
All that the genius of man hath achieved or designed
Waits but its hour to be dealt with as dust by the wind.
Say, what is Pleasure? A phantom, a mask undefined.
Science? An almond, whereof we can pierce but the rind.
Honour and Affluence? Firmans that Fortune hath signed
Only to glitter and pass on the wings of the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! Where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Who is the Fortunate? He who in anguish hath pined!
He shall rejoice when his relics are dust in the wind!
Moral! be careful with what thy best hopes are entwined;
Woe to the miners for Truth – where the Lampless have mined!
Woe to the seekers on earth for – what none ever find!
They and their trust shall be scattered like leaves on the wind.
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! Where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Happy in death they only whose hearts have consigned
All Earth’s affections and longings and cares to the wind.
Pity, thou, reader! the madness of poor Humankind,
Raving of Knowledge, – and Satan so busy to blind!
Raving of Glory, – like me, – for the garlands I bind
(Garlands of song) are but gathered, and – strewn in the wind!
Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! Where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
I, Abul-Namez, must rest, for my fire hath declined,
And I hear voices from Hades like bells on the wind!
If you are looking for ghosts in the neighbourhood of Dublin you must encounter first of all, and with all due respects to Saint Patrick and King Sitric, that shrewd invader from Limerick, Brian Boru or Brian na Boroimhe, of the Tributes.
It has happened to me that I was not barred but excommunicated from a certain licensed premises in Donnybrook for proclaiming in a loud voice, and in a heated argument with some learned colleagues, that Brian of the Tributes was a tax-collector from Limerick and that the Danes were decent men trying to do something practical: and that, in the end, one of them was driven to hitting him with a hatchet, when he was supposed to be saying his prayers.
May his saintly ghost, and the outraged publican, forgive me.
And here let Brian speak for himself as William Kennelly heard him speaking before the ruckus at Clontarf.
Stand ye now for Erin’s glory! Stand ye now for Erin’s cause!
Long ye’ve groaned beneath the rigour of the Northmen’s savage laws.
What, though brothers league against us? What, though myriads be the foe?
Victory will be more honoured in the myriads’ overthrow.
Proud Connacians! oft we’ve wrangled, in our petty feuds of yore;
Now we fight against the robber Dane, upon our native shore;
May our hearts unite in friendship, as our blood in one red tide,
While we crush their mail-clad legions, and annihilate their pride!
Brave Eugenians! Erin triumphs in the sight she sees today –
Desmond’s homesteads all deserted for the muster and the fray!
Cluan’s vale and Galtee’s summit send their bravest and their best –
May such hearts be theirs forever, for the Freedom of the West!
Chiefs and Kerne of Dalcassia! Brothers of my past career,
Oft we’ve trodden on the pirate-flag that flaunts below us here,
You remember Iniscattery, how we bounded on the foe,
As the torrent of the mountain bursts upon the plain below!
They have razed our proudest castles – spoiled the Temples of the Lord –
Burnt to dust the sacred relics – put the Peaceful to the sword –
Desecrated all things holy – as they soon may do again,
If their power to-day we smite not – if to-day we be not men!
Slaughtered pilgrims is the story at St Kevin’s rocky cell,
And on the southern sea-shore, at Isle Helig’s holy well;
E’en the anchorets are hunted, poor and peaceful though they be,
And not one of them left living, in their caves beside the sea!
Think of all your murder’d chieftains – all your rifled homes and shrines –
Then rush down, with whetted vengeance, like fierce wolves upon their lines!
Think of Bangor – think of Mayo – and Senanus’ holy tomb –
Think of all your past endurance – what may be your future doom!
On this day the God-man suffered, look upon the sacred sign –
May we conquer ’neath its shadow, as of old did Constantine!
May the heathen tribes of Odin fade before it like a dream,
And the triumph of this glorious day in future annals gleam!
God of Heaven, bless our banner – nerve our sinews for the strife!
Fight we now for all that’s holy – for our altars, land, and life –
For red vengeance on the spoiler, whom the blazing temples trace –
For the honour of our maidens, and the glory of our race!
Should I fall before the foeman, ’tis the death I seek to-day;
Should ten thousand daggers pierce me, bear my body not away,
Till this day of days be over – till the field is fought and won –
Then the holy Mass be chaunted, and the funeral rites be done.
Curses darker than Ben Heder light upon the craven slave
Who prefers the life of traitor to the glory of the grave!
Freedom’s guerdon now awaits you, or a destiny of chains –
Trample down the dark oppressor while one spark of life remains!
Think not now of coward mercy – Heaven’s curse is on their blood!
Spare them not, though myriad corpses float upon the purple flood!
By the memory of great Daithi, and the valiant chiefs of yore,
This day we’ll scourge the viper brood for ever from our shore!
Men of Erin! men of Erin! grasp the battle-axe and spear!
Chase these Northern wolves before you like a herd of frightened deer!
Burst their ranks, like bolts from heaven! Down on the heathen crew,
For the glory of the Crucifix, and Erin’s glory too!
Perhaps the most notable of Dublin’s ghosts answers, if you call him, to the name of James Joyce. Not only does he continue to walk the streets by night and day and, every Bloomsday, to manifest himself to more and more people. But, like the Lord Himself, he created other people, whose ghosts also parade most impressively: Stephen Dedalus, for instance, whose ghost is a shadow of his Maker.