Classic Poem

Harriers ran the roads
To the shadow-herded peaks
Of Connemara, by the hillocks lit
With handfuls of sharp water and they cried
At every farm:
" Drive in the herds
Of Maeve and count them into rows."
They called
At every holding:
" Peel the wattle now
On the cattle of the king."
Men came to the stile
And the busy women, hanging out the clothes
On the currant bushes, cried
" Who are they
That are running?"
But those heels
Had gone.
Landowners at the door
Whittling the hours, whistled for the men
That mowed in the river field.
Down the beaten road
A band of horsemen galloped in a cloud
With following mares.
" Whoa!"
" Steady!"
" Whoa!"
" Where do you go?"
" To the Fair"
" To the Fair
Of Ballinasloe."
" Then call in all
The ready neighbours, for the thoroughbreds
And two-year-olds are counting and the drink
Runs as we run."
Along the heatherland,
The dark red bog, they hurried over fence
And steeping pool.
" Dry the turf no more
But hurry to the spancel."
Down the glen
Of kelping where the silver share o' the sea
Lies idle, barelegged women in young waters,
Wrenching the sun out of the flannel, chased
The naughty ganders, hurried in for milk
Or griddle-bread into the house and called
The snoozing men.
In the turn
Of the glen, where by himself the black ram crops
A greener ring, mountainy folk came down
With sharpened pikes.
" Where is the fighting?"
" At
What ford?"
" O hurry to the cattle."
In
A gap of cloud, men, larruping a herd
Through stumbling silver, came.
" What hoofs
Are these?"
" Milk from the little grass
Of hunger."
" Bring them down."
" Bring them down
To the green troughs of Inagh."
They were climbing
The watery green flights of every glen
And sheep-men drove the barking lanes
Of rams into the pen and counted them
When light began to drizzle from the springs
Of air.
And so the word ran west and came
Footsore upon the third day to the tides
Of light; men rowed the curraghs for a mile
And lifting the droppy sails to the islands
Gathered the sheep and ponies. Womenfolk
Quitting the patchwork quilts upon the shore
Had topped the family cauldron on the hook
With handy meal, gossiping of the far
Blue country when a king and red-haired queen
Fell out.
Storm crowded in the far sea-mountains
Of Achill, broken into unploughed purple
Against the thundering herds of cloud driven
From the waterish hurdles of the west; by darkfall
Strange voices moved among the desolate peaks
Of war and the dim running islands gathered
Their brood of sails for men had seen the Bull
Of Connaught rage upon the shaken ridge
Of the world. . . .