Happy St. Patrick’s Day. A few bits of text to improve your day and give you a taste of the island.
In The Dark Pine-Wood
James Joyce (Chamber Music)In the dark pine-wood
I would we lay,
In deep cool shadow
At noon of day.How sweet to lie there,
Sweet to kiss,
Where the great pine-forest
Enaisled is!Thy kiss descending
Sweeter were
With a soft tumult
Of thy hair.O, unto the pine-wood
At noon of day
Come with me now,
Sweet love, away.The Harlot’s House
by Oscar WildeWe caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss.Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille,Then took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.Then, turning to my love, I said,
‘The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.’But she – she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.The Rare Old Mountain Dew
Edward Harrigan (1882)Let the grasses grow
and the waters flow in a free and easy way
But give me enough of the rare old stuff
that’s made near Galway Bay
Come gangers all from Donegal,
Sligo and Leitrim too
Oh, we’ll give ‘em a slip
and we’ll take a sip of the rare old mountain dewthiddle i ay di diddle dum thiddle i ay di diddle dum
thiddle i ay di diddle dum rum a dum dey
thiddle i ay di diddle dum thiddle i ay di diddle dum
thiddle i ay di diddle dum rum a dum deyThere’s a neat little still at the foot of the hill,
where the smoke curls up to the sky
By a whiff of the smell you can plainly tell,
that there’s poitín, boys, close by
For it fills the air with a perfume rare,
and betwixt both me and you
As home we roll, we can drink a bowl,
or a bucketful of mountain dewthiddle i ay di diddle dum thiddle i ay di diddle dum
thiddle i ay di diddle dum rum a dum dey
thiddle i ay di diddle dum thiddle i ay di diddle dum
thiddle i ay di diddle dum rum a dum deyNow learned men as use the pen,
have writ the praises high
Of the sweet poitín from Ireland green,
distilled from wheat and rye
Away with yer pills, it’ll cure all ills,
be ye Pagan, Christian or Jew
So take off your coat
and grease your throat with a bucketful of mountain dewthiddle i ay di diddle dum thiddle i ay di diddle dum
thiddle i ay di diddle dum rum a dum dey
thiddle i ay di diddle dum thiddle i ay di diddle dum
thiddle i ay di diddle dum rum a dum dey
A Belfast PoemI’ll speak to you, dear stranger, if you really want to know,
So listen , and I’ll tell you why I love this city so.Belfast is an Ulsterman with features dour and grim,
It’s a pint of creamy porter and a Sunday morning hymn;
It’s a grimy little cafe where they serve you dainty teas.
It’s fish and chips in paper, or vinegar with peas.
It’s a banner on July the twelfth, a sticky toffee apple,
A righteous little Gospel hall, a Roman Catholic Chapel;
It’s a Telly boy with dirty face, a piece of apple tart ,
A fry upon a Saturday, or a coal breek on a cart.It’s a Corporation gas man, complete with bowler hat,
It’s wee shop at the corner, a friendly bit of chat;
It’s an oul lad in a duncher, a woman in a shawl,
A pinch of snuff, a tatie farl, a Loyal Orange Hall;
A tobacco smell in York Street, a beg of yella man,
It’s an easter egg that’s dyed with whin, a slice of Ormo pan,
A youngster with some sprickly backs inside an oul glass jar,
It’s a meeting at the Customs House, or an old Victorian bar.It’s mudbanks on the Lagan when the tide is running low,
It’s a man collecting refuse, bonfires in Sandy Row;
It’s a bag of salty dullis, a bowl of Irish stew,
A goldfish bought in Gresham Street, a preacher at the queue,
It’s a portrait of King Billy upon a gable wall,
A flower-seller on a stool, outside the City Hall;
A half moon round the door step, a pollis man on guard,
A man whose crying “Delf for Regs”, a little whitewashed yard.It’s the market on a Friday, the ships lined at the docks,
It’s a shiny polished fender, a bunch of green shamrocks;
It’s herrings fried in oaten meal, with a drink of buttermilk;
It’s a snowy linen handkerchief as soft as finest silk;
It’s a bap with country butter, a dander round the zoo,
A climb up tough Ben Madigan to get a splendid view;It’s a bunch of savoury scallions, a plate of buttery champ,
The hopscotch on the footpath, a swing around a lamp.It’s delf dogs on the mantel piece, the wee man from the Pru,
It’s a chimney sweep on bicycle, coming to do the flu;
It’s the ever present vista of the hills of Castlereagh,
It’s the deathless hush on Saturday when Linfield play away;
It’s by Killarney’s Lakes and Fells, on the bells of the Assembly Hall,
It’s spikey broken bottles stuck on the backyard wall;It’s bacon boiled with pamphrey, served when piping hot,
With Skerry spuds, like balls of flour, cracked laughing in the pot.It’s the smell of Mansion polish on the lino in the hall,
The Sunday school excursion, a treat for one and all;
It’s the Islandmen who build great ships that take us far to sea,
It’s the S.D. Bells in Ann Street where they sell the best of tea;It’s friends home from America, who have been thinking long;
The Salvation Band on Sunday to save the sinnin’ throng;
It’s a wee walk up the Lisburn Road and back by the Malone,
It’s the Albert Clock in High Street, with its rich and mellow tone.It’s a Barney Hughes hot cross bun, a canary in a cage,
An old man talking in the park, of a past and better age.
It’s the sharp expressive dialect of everyone at large,
It’s a ton of coal on the Lagan afloating in a barge;
It’s wemen on the windy stool when the summer sun shines down,
It’s a V of Apple Tart or a wee race into town;
It’s a needle to an anchor in Smithfield’s famous mart,
I think I’d better call a halt before I break my heart.And that’s the answer stranger and now I’m sure you’ll see,
Why Belfast is the only place in all the world for me.Based on an original idea
By Bill Nesbitt
My grandmother passed away today (more on this in another post), 12 years and one day following my grandfather. We have spent the day going through her photos, letters and the bits of ephemera that swirl around you after 94 years. It has been, pleasingly, great fun…reveling in her life (and that of my grandfather’s) rather than mourning. Best of all, we found some things that she more or less hid to protect us.
Whereupon I explained that my best pal is a goddam Irishman and therefore there is no foolin’ around. He retaliated or reiterated (I forget which) and gave me the following:There was a young Chinese named RhodaWho kept an immoral Pagoda;Festooned on the wallsOf the halls were the ballsAnd the tools of the fools who bestrode her.Meantime his pal was thinking hard and having thunk sprang this one upon us (the dirty slob):There was a young man of BombayWho modeled a cunt out of clay;But the heat of his prickTurned the clay into brickAnd wore all his foreskin away.Followed almost immediately by the young man from Thermopylae,Who found he couldn’t pee properlyHe said, “Pax vobiscumWhy the hell won’t my piss come?My semen must have a Monopoly.”
