The Mountainy Singer
Joseph Campbell






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 the pipers of the Gael.

		Samhain gleans the golden harvests
		Duly in their tide and time,
		But my body’s fruit is blasted
		Barely past the Bealtein prime.

		Cethlenn claims the fairest fighters
		Fitly for her own, her own,
		But my seven sons are stricken
		Where no battle-pipe is blown.

		Flowers of the forest fallen
		On the sliding summer stream —
		Light and life and love are with me,
		Then are vanished into dream.

		Berried branches of the rowan
		Rifled in the wizard wind —
		Clan and generation leave me,
		Lonely on the heath behind.

		Who will soothe a father’s sorrow
		When his seven sons are gone?
		Who will watch him in his sleeping?
		Who will wake him at the dawn?

		Seven sons are taken from me
		In the compass of a year;
		Every bone is bose within me,
		All my blood is white with fear.

		Seven youths of brawn and beauty
		Moulder in their mountain bed,
		Up in storied Inis-Scathach
		Where their fathers reaped their bread.

		Nevermore upon the mountain,
		Nevermore in fair or field,
		Shall ye see the seven champions
		Of the silver-mantled shield.

		I will play the “Cumhadh na Cloinne”
		Wildest of the rowth of tunes
		Gathered by the love of mortal
		From the olden druid runes.

		Wail ye! Night is on the water;
		Wind and wave are roaring loud —
		Caoine for the fallen children
		Of the piper of MacLeod.




TO A TOWN GIRL


		Violet mystery,
		Ringleted gold,
		Whiteness of whiteness,
		Wherefore so cold?

		Silent you sit there —
		Spirit and mould —
		Darkening the dream
		That must never be told!




A MARCH MOON


		A March moon
		Over the mountain crest,
		Ceanabhan blowing:
		Her neck and breast.

		Arbutus berries
		On the tree head:
		Her mouth of passion,
		Dewy and red.

		Cold as cold
		And hot as hot,
		She loves me..
		And she loves me not!




A THOUSAND FEET UP


		A thousand feet up: twilight.
		Westwards, a clump of firtrees silhouetted against a bank of blue cumulus cloud;
		The June afterglow like a sea behind.
		The mountain trail, white and clear where human feet have worn it, zigzagging higher and higher till it loses itself in the southern skyline.
		A patch of young corn to my right hand, swaying and swaying continuously, tho’ hardly an air stirs.
		A falcon wheeling overhead.
		The moon rising.
		The damp smell of the night in my nostrils.

		O hills, O hills,
		To you I lift mine eyes!
		I kneel down and kiss the grass under my feet.
		The sense of the mystery and infinity of things overwhelms me, annihilates me almost.
		I kneel down, and silently worship.




THE DARK


		This is the dark.
		This is the dream that came of the dark.
		This is the dreamer who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.
		This is the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

		This is the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

		This is the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

		This is the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

		This is the sword that tracked the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

		This is the rope that swung the sword that tracked the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

		This is the dark that buried the rope that swung the sword that tracked the song was made to the breast that fired the love that followed the look the dreamer looked who dreamed the dream that came of the dark.

		This is the dark, indeed!




REYNARDINE


		If by chance you look for me
		Perhaps you’ll not me find,
		For I’ll be in my castle —
		Enquire for Reynardine!

		Sun and dark he courted me —
		His eyes were red as wine:
		He took me for his leman,
		Did my sweet Reynardine.

		Sun and dark the gay horn blows,
		The beagles run like wind:
		They know not where he harbours,
		The fairy Reynardine.

		If by chance you look for me
		Perhaps you’ll not me find,
		For I’ll be in my castle —
		Enquire for Reynardine!




SNOW


		Hills that were dark
		At sparing-time last night
		Now in the dawn-ring
		Glimmer cold and white.




I AM THE GILLY OF CHRIST


		I am the gilly of Christ,
		The mate of Mary’s Son;
		I run the roads at seeding time,
		And when the harvest’s done.

		I sleep among the hills,
		The heather is my bed;
		I dip the termon-well for drink,
		And pull the sloe for bread.

		No eye has ever seen me,
		But shepherds hear me pass,
		Singing at fall of even
		Along the shadowed grass.

		The beetle is my bellman,
		The meadow-fire my guide,
		The bee and bat my ambling nags
		When I have need to ride.

		All know me only the Stranger,
		Who sits on the Saxon’s height;
		He burned the bacach’s little house
		On last Saint Brigid’s Night.

		He sups off silver dishes,
		And drinks in a golden horn,
		But he will wake a wiser man
		Upon the Judgment Morn!

		I am the gilly of Christ,
		The mate of Mary’s Son;
		I run the roads at seeding time,
		And when the harvest’s done.

		The seed I sow is lucky,
		The corn I reap is red,
		And whoso sings the Gilly’s Rann
		Will never cry for bread.




GO, PLOUGHMAN, PLOUGH


		Go, ploughman, plough
		The mearing lands,
		The meadow lands,
		The mountain lands:
		All life is bare
		Beneath your share,
		All love is in your lusty hands.

		Up, horses, now!
		And straight and true
		Let every broken furrow run:
		The strength you sweat
		Shall blossom yet
		In golden glory to the sun.




GO, REAPER


		Go, reaper,
		Speed and reap,
		Go take the harvest
		Of the plough:
		The wheat is standing
		Broad and deep,
		The barley glumes
		Are golden now.

		Labour is hard,
		But it endures
		Like love:
		The land is yours:
		Go reap the life
		It gives you now,
		O sunbrowned master
		Of the plough!




THE GOOD PEOPLE


		The millway path looks like a wraith,
		The lock is black as ink,
		And silently in stream and sky
		The stars begin to blink.

		I see them pass along the grass
		With slow and solemn tread:
		Aoibheall, their queen, is in between —
		A corpse is at their head!

		They wander on with faces wan,
		And dirges sad as wind.
		I know not, but it may be that
		The dead’s of human kind.




THE STORM IS STILL, THE RAIN HATH CEASED


		The storm is still, the rain hath ceased
		To vex the beauty of the east:
		A linnet singeth in the wood
		His hermit song of gratitude.

		So shall I sing when life is done
		To greet the glory of the sun;
		And cloud and star and stream and sea
		Shall dance for very ecstasy!




SCARE-THE-CROWS


		Twopence a day for scaring crows —
		Tho’ the rain beats and the wind blows!

		The scholars think I’ve little wit,
		But, God! I’ve got my share of it.

		Why does the gorbing land-shark
		Leave ploughed rigs for the green park?

		Where little’s to find, and nothing’s to eat
		But rabbits’ droppings and pheasants’ meat.

		He knows better than come my way
		Between the mouth and the tail of day.

		For one lick of my hurding wattle
		Would lay him out like a showman’s bottle!

		And the thoughts that rise in my crazed head
		When the cloud is low and the wind’s dead.

		Where you see only clay and stones
		I see swords and blanching bones..

		But I’ll leave you now – it’s gone six,
		And the smoke is curling over the ricks.

		And it’s hardly like that the land-shark
		Will trouble the furrows after dark.




A CRADLE-SONG


		Sleep, white love, sleep,
		A cedarn cradle holds thee,
		And twilight, like a silver-woven coverlid,
		Enfolds thee.
		Moon and star keep charmèd watch
		Upon thy lying;
		Water plovers thro’ the dusk
		Are tremulously crying.
		Sleep, white love mine,
		Till day doth shine.

		Sleep, white love, sleep,
		The daylight wanes, and deeper
		Gathers the blue darkness
		O’er the cradle of the sleeper.
		Cliodhna’s curachs, carmine-oared,
		On Loch-da-linn are gleaming;
		Blind bats flutter thro’ the night,
		And carrion birds are screaming.
		Sleep, white love mine,
		Till day doth shine.

		Sleep, white love, sleep,
		The holy mothers, Anne and Mary,
		Sit high in heaven, dreaming
		On the seven ends of Eire.
		Brigid sits beside them,
		Spinning lamb-white wool on whorls,
		Singing fragrant songs of love
		To little naked boys and girls.
		Sleep, white love mine,
		Till day doth shine.




TWINE THE MAZES THRO’ AND THRO’


		Twine the mazes thro’ and thro’
		Over beach and margent pale;
		Not a bawn appears in view,
		Not a sail!

		Round about!
		In and out!
		Thro’ the stones and sandy bars
		To the music of the stars!
		The asteroidal fire that dances
		Nightly in the northern blue,
		The brightest of the boreal lances,
		Dances not so light as you,
		Cliodhna!
		Dances not so light as you.




THE FIGHTING-MAN


		A fighting-man he was,
		Guts and soul;
		His blood as hot and red
		As that on Cain’s hand-towel.

		A copper-skinned six-footer,
		Hewn out of the rock.
		Who would stand up against
		His hammer-knock?

		Not a sinner —
		No, and not one dared!
		Giants showed clean heels
		When his arm was bared.

		I’ve seen him swing an anvil
		Fifty feet,
		Break a bough in two,
		And tear a twisted sheet.

		And the music of his roar —
		Like oaks in thunder cleaving;
		Lips foaming red froth,
		And flanks heaving.

		God! a goodly man,
		A Gael, the last
		Of those that stood with Dan
		On Mullach-Maist!




MY MOTHER HAS A WEE RED SHOE


		My mother has a wee red shoe —
		She bought it off a bacach-man;
		And all the neighbours say it’s true
		He stole it off a Leath-brogan.
		Bacach-man, bacach-man,
		Where did you get it?
		Faith now, says he,
		In my leather wallet!

		My father has an arrow-head —
		He begged it off poor Peig na Blath;
		And Mor, the talking-woman, said
		She found it in a fairy rath.
		Peig na Blath, Peig na Blath,
		Where did you get it?
		Faith now, says she,
		In my wincey jacket!

		My brother has a copper pot —
		He tryst’ it wi’ a shuiler-man;
		And gossip says it’s like as not
		He truff’d it from a Clobhair-ceann.
		Shuiler-man, shuiler-man,
		Where did you get it?
		Faith now, says he,
		In my breeches’ pocket!




BY A WONDROUS MYSTERY


		By a wondrous mystery
		Christ of Mary’s fair body
		Upon a middle winter’s morn,
		Between the tides of night and day,
		In Ara’s holy isle was born.




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