CAPTIVITY
(The goldfinch laments)
My Midas wings,
from sunbeams spun,
are never stretched in flight.
I see the trees
from my silver cage
but cannot reach their height.
The whispering leaves
of the oak and ash
no more in me confide.
I never bathe
in the tumbling brook
flowing down the mountain side.
My morning song
I sing aloud
but never hear reply.
I long to flit
among thistle heads
beneath the summer sky.
No raindrops wash
my sunset face
when winter storms rage.
A captive I,
since I heard the snap
of the dreadful trip-rigged cage.
An Fear Marbh, Dingle Peninsula.
(The Dead man or The sleeping Giant)
My favourite photograph but I didn't take it.
New Title
Our Lady of Inchadoney
by
Michael Pattwell
(Sing to the air of an old-time waltz)
There’s a place near Clonakilty,
A place that God knows well,
Where the rugged rocks and pounding surf
Have a stirring tale to tell.
There’s a grassy little hillock
Just above the splashing spray
Where on an evening long ago
The Virgin came to pray.
(Refrain)
I love that green and peaceful place
Looking westwards to Dunmore,
I love to watch the surging tide
On sweet Inchadoney’s shore.
When The Virgin came to pray there,
As the evening sun shone bright,
The ways of evil men then turned
The day to dreadful night.
To the East the sun was warming Ring
And the tide flowed past The Bar,
While on the West o’er Muckross point
Was the rising evening star.
The sloop was headed westward
And the crew longed for the shore
When they saw the radiant beauty
On the head before Dunmore.
Refrain
They cursed the evening offshore breeze
That kept them from the land
As bawdy signs and jeering words
Arose from every hand;
Except one single sailor who
With reverence knelt to pray
Whilst all around that pagan crew
The grounds for mayhem lay.
Refrain
The billows darkened black as night
The surf leapt for the sky.
The lightening forked and split the clouds,
Then rose a piteous cry.
The vessel’s hull was rent in two,
The crew knew they were lost,
Except that solitary prayerful hand
Who safe to shore was tossed.
Refrain
When the midnight moon o’er Barry’s Point
Lit Inchadoney’s sand
The battered bodies of that crew
Had washed up on the land.
A silver sheen shone bright upon
Where the ship broke-up and sank
And a quieted sea just gently lapped
The Virgin Mary’s Bank.
(Refrain)
I love that green and peaceful place
Looking westwards to Dunmore,
I love to watch the surging tide
On sweet Inchadoney’s shore.
When The Virgin came to pray there
As the evening sun shone right
The ways of evil men then turned
The day to dreadful night.
The ways of evil men then turned
The day to dreadful night.
