Chapter I: Front Matter

[ Transcriber's Notes:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
as possible, including any inconsistencies in the original.

Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
]

THE MOUNTAINY SINGER

BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

THE GARDEN OF THE BEES
THE RUSHLIGHT
THE MAN-CHILD
THE GILLY OF CHRIST

THE MOUNTAINY SINGER

BY SEOSAMH MacCATHMHAOIL

MAUNSEL AND COMPANY, LTD.
96 MID. ABBEY STREET, DUBLIN
1909

All Rights Reserved

Dedit pauperibus.
Lib. Psalm.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I am the Mountainy Singer 1

When Rooks Fly Homeward 2

I Spin my Golden Web 2

Cherry Valley 3

Darkness 3

My Fidil is Singing 4

The Goat Dealer 4

Why Crush the Claret Rose 5

Lament of Padraic Mor Mac Cruimin 6

To a Town Girl 8

A March Moon 8

A Thousand Feet Up 9

The Dark 9

Reynardine 11

Snow 11

I am the Gilly of Christ 12

Go, Ploughman, Plough 13

Go, Reaper 14

The Good People 14

The Storm is Still, the Rain hath Ceased 15

Scare-the-Crows 16

A Cradle Song 17

Twine the Mazes Thro' and Thro' 18

The Fighting-Man 19

My Mother has a Wee Red Shoe 20

By a Wondrous Mystery 21

I Gather Three Ears of Corn 22

The Tinkers 23

As I Came over the Grey, Grey Hills 24

A Northern Love-Song 24

To the Golden Eagle 25

A Prophecy 26

I Met a Walking-Man 27

The Ninepenny Fidil 28

Grasslands are Fair 29

Winter Song 30

I Follow a Star 30

The Silence of Unlaboured Fields 31

The Beggar's Wake 32

The Besom-Man 36

Every Shuiler is Christ 38

I Wish and I Wish 39

I am the Man-Child 40

Fragment 41

At the Whitening of the Dawn 42

Who are My Friends 43

O Glorious Childbearer 44

Coronach 44

Twilight Fallen 45

The Dawn Whiteness 45

The Dwarf 46

I See all Love in Lowly Things 47

'Tis Pretty tae be in Baile-Liosan 48

Ciaran, the Master of Horses and Lands 49

Deep Ways and Dripping Boughs 50

Night, and I Travelling 50

Night-Piece 51

At Morning Tide 51

The May-Fire 52

I Love the Din of Beating Drums 54

Three Colts Exercising in a Six-acre 54

The Natural 55

On the Top-Stone 55

The Women at their Doors 56

My Little Dark Love 57

I Heard a Piper Piping 58

The Clouds go By and By 58

Davy Daw 59

Black Sile of the Silver Eye 62

A Sheep-Dog Barks on the Mountain 63

Dead Oakleaves Everywhere 64

A Night Prayer 64

I am the Mountainy Singer 65

The Rainbow Spanning a Planet Shower 66

I will Go with My Father A-Ploughing 67

The Shining Spaces of the South 68

Like a Tuft of Ceanabhan 68

The Herb-Leech 69

Who Buys Land 70

The Poet Loosed a Winged Song 71

Sic Transit 72

This book is made up of a selection from the Author's early books, with many new poems added.

A LINE'S A SPEECH

A line's a speech;
So here's a line
To say this pedlar's pack
Of mine
Is not a book--
But a journey thro'
Mountainy places,
Ever in view
Of the sea and the fields,
With the rough wind
Blowing over the leagues
Behind!