The Bridal Suite
For Nuala Ní Dhomnaill
On the third night in the bridal suite
without the bride, he panicked.
He couldn’t handle another dream like that,
not wet, like he’d expected,
but not dry either – men digging holes
that they’d fill with water, donkeys
crossing valleys that suddenly flooded.
The alarm-call had a job to wake him,
to send him out from the huge bed,
past the corner kissing-sofa, up two steps
to the shower he hardly needed,
where he’d scrub himself clean as the baby
he’d hoped to start that night,
under the canopy like a wimple,
in that room of pinks and greens.
Naked and dripping, he’d rung Reception
to see if she’d rung, then he’d stood
looking out at the new marina,
as if he’d glimpse her on a yacht.
On the third night he could take no more –
he dressed, to the smell of her perfume,
and leaving her clothes there,
the wedding dress in a pile in the wardrobe,
he walked past the deaf night porter,
out to his car. He had no idea
where he was headed, only that she,
if she ever came back, could sample
the bridal suite on her own,
could toss in that canopied bed
and tell him about her dreams.
Donal Og
It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.
You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.
You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.
You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.
When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.
It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.
My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.
My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith’s forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you put that darkness over my life.
You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!
As you came from the holy land
Of Walsingham,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?
How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one
As I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?
She is neither white nor brown
But as the heavens fair,
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth or the air.
Such an one did I meet, good sir,
Such an angelic face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear
By her gait, by her grace.
She hath left me here all alone,
All alone as unknown,
Who sometimes did me lead with herself,
And me loved as her own.
What’s the cause that she leaves you alone
And a new way doth take,
Who loved you once as her own
And her joy did you make?
I have loved her all my youth,
But now old, as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree.
Know that love is a careless child
And forgets promise past,
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.
His desire is a dureless content
And a trustless joy,
He is won with a world of despair
And is lost with a toy.
Of women kind such indeed is the love,
Or the word Love abused,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excused.
But true love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.
The Tryst
O luely, luely cam she in
And luely she lay doun:
I kent her by her caller lips
And her breists sae sma’ and roun’.
A’ thru the nicht we spak nae word
Nor sinder’d bane frae bane:
A’ thru the nicht I heard her hert
Gang soundin’ wi’ my ain.
It was about the waukrife hour
Whan cocks begin to craw
That she smool’d saftly thru the mirk
Afore the day wud daw.
Sae luely, luely, cam she in
Sae luely was she gaen
And wi’ her a’ my simmer days
Like they had never been.
Incident
When you were lying on the white sand,
a rock under your head, and smiling,
(circled by dead shells), I came to you
and you said, reaching to take my hand,
‘Lie down.’ So for a time we lay
warm on the sand, talking and smoking,
easy; while the grovelling sea behind
sucked at the rocks and measured the day.
Lightly I fell asleep then, and fell
into a cavernous dream of falling.
It was all the cave-myths, it was all
the myths of tunnel or tower or well –
Alice’s rabbit-hole into the ground,
or the path of Orpheus: a spiral staircase
to hell, furnished with danger and doubt.
Stumbling, I suddenly woke; and found
water about me. My hair was wet,
and you were lying on the grey sand
waiting for the lapping tide to take me:
watching, and lighting a cigarette.
The Water is Wide
The water is wide, I can’t swim o’er
Nor do I have wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I
A ship there is and she sails the sea
She’s loaded deep as deep can be
But not so deep as the love I’m in
I know not if I sink or swim
I leaned my back against an oak
Thinking it was a trusty tree
But first it swayed and then it broke
So did my love prove false to me
Oh love is handsome and love is kind
Sweet as flower when first it is new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like the morning dew
Must I go bound while you go free
Must I love a man who doesn’t love me
Must I be born with so little art
As to love a man who’ll break my heart
He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder
And went with half my life about my ways.
Her
I had been told about her.
How she would always, always.
How she would never, never.
I’d watched and listened
but I still fell for her,
how she always, always.
How she never, never.
In the small brave night,
her lips, butterfly moments.
I tried to catch her and she laughed
a loud laugh that cracked me in two,
but then I had been told about her,
how she would always, always.
How she would never, never.
We two listened to the wind.
We two galloped a pace.
We two, up and away, away, away.
And now she’s gone,
like she said she would go.
But then I had been told about her –
how she would always, always.