The Raven

Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore:
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting -
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!



Edgar Allan Poe

The Fairies


Up the airy mountain
     Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
     For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
     Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
     And white owl's feather.
Down along the rocky shore
     Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
     Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
     Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
     All night awake.

High on the hill-top
     The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
     He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
     Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
     From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music,
     On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen,
     Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
     For seven years long;
When she came down again
     Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back
     Between the night and morrow;
They thought she was fast asleep,
     But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
     Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag leaves,
     Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,
     Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn trees
     For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
     As dig them up in spite?
He shall find the thornies set
     In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain
     Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
     For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
     Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
     And white owl's feather.

      -- William Allingham

Sailing to Byzantium


That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

William Butler Yeats

A Prayer For My Daughter


Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And-under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for man.
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of plenty is undone.

In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty's very self, has charm made wisc.
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy Still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.


William Butler Yeats

The Host Of The Air


O'Driscoll drove with a song
The wild duck and the drake
From the tall and the tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.

And he saw how the reeds grew dark
At the coming of night-tide,
And dreamed of the long dim hair
Of Bridget his bride.

He heard while he sang and dreamed
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.

And he saw young men and young girls
Who danced on a level place,
And Bridget his bride among them,
With a sad and a gay face.

The dancers crowded about him
And many a sweet thing said,
And a young man brought him red wine
And a young girl white bread.

But Bridget drew him by the sleeve
Away from the merry bands,
To old men playing at cards
With a twinkling of ancient hands.

The bread and the wine had a doom,
For these were the host of the air;
He sat and played in a dream
Of her long dim hair.

He played with the merry old men
And thought not of evil chance,
Until one bore Bridget his bride
Away from the merry dance.

He bore her away in his arms,
The handsomest young man there,
And his neck and his breast and his arms
Were drowned in her long dim hair.

O'Driscoll scattered the cards
And out of his dream awoke:
Old men and young men and young girls
Were gone like a drifting smoke;

But he heard high up in the air
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.


William Butler Yeats

Twa Recruitin' Sergeants

Twa recruiting sergeants came frae the Black Watch
Tae markets and fairs, some recruits for tae catch.
But a' that they 'listed was forty and twa:
Enlist my bonnie laddie an' come awa.

Chorus:

And it's over the mountain and over the Main,
Through Gibralter, to France and Spain.
Pit a feather tae your bonnet, and a kilt aboon your knee,
Enlist my bonnie laddie and come awa with me.

Oh laddie ye dinna ken the danger that yer in.
If yer horses was to fleg, and yer owsen was to rin,
This greedy ole farmer, he wouldna pay yer fee.
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa wi' me

Chorus:

With your tattie porin's and yer meal and kale,
Yer soor sowan' soorin's and yer ill-brewed ale,
Yer buttermilk, yer whey, and yer breid fired raw.
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa.

Chorus:

And its into the barn and out o' the byre,
This ole farmer, he thinks ye never tire.
It's slavery a' yer life, a life o' low degree.
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa with me

Chorus:

O laddie if ye've got a sweetheart an' a bairn,
Ye'll easily get rid o' that ill-spun yarn.
Twa rattles o' the drum, aye and that'll pay it a'.
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa.

The Gathering


Rise, rise! Lowland and Highlandman,
Bald sire to beardless son, each come and early;
Rise, rise! mainland and islandmen,

Belt on your broad claymores — fight for Prince Charlie;
Down from the mountain steep,
Up from the valley deep,
Out from the clachan, the bothie, and shieling,
Bugle and battle-drum
Bid chief and vassal come,

Bravely our bagpipes the pibroch is pealing.
Men of the mountains — descendants of heroes!

Heirs of the fame as the hills of your fathers;
Say, shall the Southern—the Sassenach fear us
When to the war-peal each plaided clan gathers?
Too long on the trophied walls
Of your ancestral halls,

Red rust hath blunted the armour of Albin;
Seize then, ye mountain Macs,
Buckler and battle-axe,
Lads of Lochaber, Braemar, and Breadalbin!

When hath the tartan plaid mantled a coward?
When did the blue bonnet crest the disloyal?
Up, then, and crowd to the standard of Stuart,
Follow your leader—the rightful—the royal!

            Chief of Clanronald,
            Donald Macdonald!
            Lovat! Lochiel! with the Grant and the Gordon!
            Rouse every kilted clan,
            Rouse every loyal man,

Gun on the shoulder, and thigh the good sword on!

Culloden; or Lochiel's Farewell

Culloden, on thy swarthy brow
   Spring no wild flowers nor verdure fair;
Thou feel'st not summer's genial glow,
   More than the freezing wintry air.

For once thou drank'st the hero's blood,
   And war's unhallow'd footsteps bore;
Thy deeds unholy, nature view'd,
   Then fled, and cursed thee evermore.
From Beauly's wild and woodland glens,
   How proudly Lovat's banners soar!

How fierce the plaided Highland clans
   Rush onward with the broad claymore!
Those hearts that high with honour heave,
   The volleying thunder there laid low;
Or scatter'd like the forest leaves,
   When wintry winds begin to blow!

Where now thy honours, brave Lochiel?
   The braided plumes torn from thy brow,
What must thy haughty spirit feel,
   When skulking like the mountain roe!

While wild birds chant from Locky's bowers,
   On April eve, their loves and joys,
The Lord of Locky's loftiest towers
   To foreign lands an exile flies.

To his blue hills that rose in view,
   As o'er the deep his galley bore,
He often look'd and cried, "Adieu!
   I'll never see Lochaber more!

Though now thy wounds I cannot feel,
   My dear, my injured native land,
In other climes thy foe shall feel
   The weight of Cameron's deadly brand.

"Land of proud hearts and mountains gray,
   Where Fingal fought, and Ossian sung!
Mourn dark Culloden's fateful day,
   That from thy chiefs the laurel wrung.

Where once they ruled and roam'd at will,
   Free as their own dark mountain game,
Their sons are slaves, yet keenly feel
   A longing for their father's fame.

"Shades of the mighty and the brave,
   Who, faithful to your Stuart, fell!
No trophies mark your common grave,
   Nor dirges to your memory swell.

But generous hearts will weep your fate,
   When far has roll'd the tide of time;
And bards unborn shall renovate
   Your fading fame in loftiest rhyme."

Cam' ye by Athol?

Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the philabeg,
Down by the Tummel, or banks of the Garry?
Saw ye the lads, wi' their bonnets an' white cockades,
Leaving their mountains to follow Prince Charlie.

Chorus

Follow thee, follow thee, wha wadna follow thee?
Long has thou lov'd an' trusted us fairly!
Charlie, Charlie, wha wadna follow thee?
King o' the Highland hearts, bonnie Charlie.

I hae but ae son, my gallant young Donald;
But if I had ten, they should follow Glengarry;
Health to MacDonald and gallant Clan Ronald,
For these are the men that will die for their Charlie.

Chorus

I'll go to Lochiel, and Appin, and kneel to them;
Down by Lord Murray and Roy of Kildarlie;
Brave Mackintosh, he shall fly to the field wi' them;
These are the lads I can trust wi' my Charlie.

Chorus

Down by thro' the Lowlands, down wi' the whigamore,
Loyal true Highlanders, down wi' them rarely;
Ronald and Donald drive on wi' the braid claymore,
Over the necks o' the foes o' Prince Charlie.

 The Impossible Dream

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Soul of a Harper


Oh, they say 'tis a hanging
that soon I will be--
My body a-twisting from
yonder oak tree--
For daring to think that a man
could live free...
but though I may die,
'tis a harper I'll be.

The strings of my harp
will never be stilled
while the green of the shamrock
still grows on the hill
for the music of Ireland
is her strength and her will
and the soul of a harper
no mortal can kill.

Oh, the red-headed queen on her
cold golden throne
fears harper freedom
she never has known
Our bright Gaelic passion
comes through in the tone
so she orders it silenced
and broods all alone.

The strings of my harp
will never be stilled
while the green of the shamrock
still grows on the hill
for the music of Ireland
is her strength and her will
and the soul of a harper
no mortal can kill.

For a man of the road,
death holds no sting.
'Tis another adventure--
a wonderous thing.
And I know that my music
will evermore ring
in the hills and the rivers
of each Irish spring.

The strings of my harp
will never be stilled
while the green of the shamrock
still grows on the hill
for the music of Ireland
is her strength and her will
and the soul of a harper
no mortal can kill.


Rie Sheridan and Sheridan-Gunn

Skye Boat Song

Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that's born to be king
Over the sea to Skye

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunder clouds rend the air;
Baffled our foe's stand on the shore
Follow they will not dare

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep
Ocean's a royal bed
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head

Many's the lad fought on that day
Well the claymore could wield
When the night came, silently lay
Dead on Culloden's field

Burned are our homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men
Yet, e'er the sword cool in the sheath,
Charlie will come again.

Sir Harold Boulton

The Foggy Dew


'Twas down the glen one Easter morn
To a city fair rode I.

When armed line of marching men
In squadrons passed me by.

No pipes did hum, no battle drum
Did sound its loud tattoo
But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffey's swell
Rang out in the foggy dew.

Right proudly high over Dublin town
They hung out a flag of war.

'Twas better to die 'neath an Irish sky
Than at Suvla or Sud el Bar.
And from the plains of Royal Meath
Strong men came hurrying through;
While Brittania's huns with their long range guns
Sailed in through the foggy dew.

O' the night fell black and the rifles' crack
Made "Perfidious Abion" reel
'Mid the leaden rail, seven tongues of flame
Did shine o'er the lines of steel.
By each shining blade a prayer was said
That to Ireland her sons be true,
And when morning broke still the war flag shook
Out its fold in the foggy dew

'Twas England bade our wild geese go
That small nations might be free.
But their lonely graves by Suvla's waves
On the fringe of the gray North Sea.
But had they died by Pearse's side
Their names we'd keep where the Fenians sleep
'Neath the shroud of the foggy dew.

The bravest fell, and the solemn bell
Rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide
In the springing of the year.
And the world did gaze with deep amaze
At those fearless men, but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light
Might shine through the foggy dew.

Ah, back through the glen I rode again
and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men
whom I never shall  see more.

But to and fro in my dreams I go and
I'd kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled, O glorious dead, when
you fell in the foggy dew.

Weathertop


We escape along the Great Road
Strider,my friends and I, Frodo
The Black Riders follow, just five of their lot.

If only we'll meet Gandalf on Weathertop.
Through Midgewater Marshes and trecherous bogs
And Neckerbreekers squeeking through the cold, gloomy fog
Off in the distance, our eyes are caught
By leaps of lightening on Weathertop.

Many days on the road have left us thin
But to joke we look like wraiths seems far too grim.
We turn towards Amon Sul now long crumbled with rot
Where the watchtower was burned on old Weathertop
We climb up the hill with hope of finding Gandalf
But tracks in the dust tell us he was off.

Down the Great Road, our hearts are distraught,
Five Black Riders race towards old Weathertop.

"We've a fortnight to go to reach Rivendale,"
Says Strider, "There's nowhere safe between here and there.
So sit your backs to the fire on guard for the plot.

For a battle begins tonight on Weathertop.

"Then over the dell, I see a shadow rise.
Three, then five dark figures, wraiths in moonlight
Terror ensnares us, Sam speeds to my side.

I hear The Ring calling...me to hide.
I reach in my pocket and grip it tight.
My mind goes blind to warnings. Ah, but to hide.
I slip the ring on, unleashing my hell
As the pale king's knife stabs me and I'm quelled.In the morning, 
I wake whispering, "O', where's the pale king?"

To my companions joy I live and still clutch The Ring.
My body is weak, but our journey unstopped.
As we make our escape from old Weathertop.

Marc Gunn