BOLAND, Eavan

My Country in Darkness

After the wolves and before the elms

the bardic order ended in Ireland.

Only a few remained to continue

a dead art in a dying land:

This is a man

on the road from Youghal to Cahirmoyle.

He has no comfort, no food and no future.

He has no fire to recite his friendless measures by.

His riddles and flatteries will have no reward.

His patrons sheath their swords in Flanders and Madrid.

Reader of poems, lover of poetry—

in case you thought this was a gentle art

follow this man on a moonless night

to the wretched bed he will have to make:

The Gaelic world stretches out under a hawthorn tree

and burns in the rain. This is its home,

its last frail shelter. All of it—

Limerick, the Wild Geese and what went before—

falters into cadence before he sleeps:

He shuts his eyes. Darkness falls on it.