Showing posts with label Irish poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish poetry. Show all posts

Tuesday 17 February 2015

The Heart of the Wood (poem)

Photo: © Channel Light Vessel



First post

Im going to start this blog with an Irish poem I found a while ago somewhere in the recesses of the internet. Its anonymous, and if I remember rightly, its a translation from the Gaelic. The poems artless purity certainly feels very old, a voice from a wild forested Ireland of centuries ago, though there is no date.  The defiant, passionate hope in it, especially the last line, is timeless. 


The Heart of the Wood

My hope and my love,
we will go for a while into the wood, 
scattering the dew,
where we will see the trout,
we will see the blackbird on its nest;
the deer and the buck calling,
the little bird that is sweetest singing on the branches;
the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green;
and death will never come near us for ever in the sweet wood. 

Anon.