If a person should think I complain and have not got the cause, Let him bring his eyes here and take a good look at my hand, Let him say if a goose-quill has calloused this poor pair of paws Or the spade that I grip on and dig with out there in the land? When the great ones were safe and renowned and were rooted and tough, Though my mind went to them and took joy in the fortune of those, And pride in their pride and their fame, they gave little enough, Not as much as two boots for my feet, or an old suit of clothes. I ask of the Craftsman that fashioned the fly and the bird, Of the Champion whose passion will lift me from death in a time, Of the Spirit that melts icy hearts with the wind of a word, That my people be worthy, and get, better singing than mine. I had hoped to live decent, when Ireland was quit of her care, As a bailiff or steward perhaps in a house of degree, But my end of the tale is, old brogues and old britches to wear, So I'll sing no more songs for the men that care nothing for me. NOTE This book ought to be called Loot or Plunder or Pieces of Eight or Treasure-Trove, or some name which would indicate and get away from its source, for although everything in it can be referred to the Irish of from one hundred to three hundred years ago the word translation would be a misdescription. There are really only two translations in it, Keating's "O Woman full of Wiliness" and Raftery's "County Mayo." Some of the poems owe no more than a phrase, a line, half a line, to the Irish, and around these scraps I have blown a bubble of verse and made my poem. In other cases, where the matter of the poem is almost entirely taken from the Irish, I have yet followed my own instinct in the arrangement of it, and the result might be called new poems. My first idea was to make an anthology of people whom long ago our poets had praised, so that, in another language and another time, these honoured names might be heard again, even though in my own terms and not in the historic context. I did not pursue this course, for I could not control the material which came to me and which took no heed of my plan and was just as interesting. It would therefore be a mistake to consider that these verses are representative of the poets by whom they are inspired. In the case of David O'Bruadair this is less true than in any of the others, but, even in his case, although I have often conveyed
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