I run.....the Irish....Rann!-

Irish Ranns Translated by Douglas Hyde

I am God's Martin,hear my word
Out of every herd one head is mine

I must slay your Cormac `Og this day
Since you will not slay the spotted swine

When the eagle shall nest in the hollow glen
When mountain and fen shall from mists be free
When the priests shall no longer for gold be seeking
The crow shall be speaking as plain as we

The lying man has promised
Whatever thing he could
The greedy man believes him
And thinks his promise good

The man who only took
His learning from a book
If that from him be took
He knows not where to look

Alas for who plow without seed to sow
For the weak who go through a foreign land
For the man who speaks badly yet does not know
Twice woe for the mouth under no command

Alas for the man who is weak in friends
For the man whose sons do not make him glad
For the man of the hut through which winds can blow
Twice woe for who neither is god nor bad

I hate a castle on bog land built
And a harvest spilt through the constant wet
I hate a woman who spoils the quern
And I hate a priest to be long in debt

I hate poor hounds about a house
That drag their mangy life
I hate to see a gentleman
Attending on his wife

Four things did Finn dislike indeed
A slow foot steed a hound run wild
An unwise lord who breeds but strife
And a good mans wife who bears no child
The satisfied man for the hungry one never feels

There never comes ebb without full tide close at its heels
To the gray haired dotard no woman her heart reveals
From death when he comes no praying a respite steal.

Through the senseless and sensible
Never forgather
Yet the senseless one thinks
He is Sense's own father

A constant tree is the yew to me
It is green to see, and grows never gray

T` were as good for a man through the world to roam
As to live at home with his mind away

The end of a ship is drowning
The end for a kiln is burning
The end of a feast is frowning
The end of a man's health -is mourning

To a wayward man thine advice to bring
Is a foolish thing, and a loss of time
His fault must find him he must be crossed
Till death be the cost of his frantic crime.

My girl I fear your sense is not great at all
Your fathers my dear would rate such sense as small
They loved good cheer and not state, and a well filed stall
Not garments queer to inflate like the purse-proud Gall

No doubt sure, Myself believes, Thinks I
Three witnesses these of the common lie
Its to mix-without,-fault
And not English makes Malt

How sad is my case I am surely in plight most ill
My will with my reason my reason fights with my will
My reason sees faults that my will remains blind to still
Or should my will see them my reason strikes to my will

I hope and pray that done may kill me
Nor I kill any with woundings grim
But if ever any should think to kill me
I pray the God let me kill him

Avoid all stewardship of church or Kill
It is ill to be much in the clerics way
Lest you live to see that which with pains you save
Like foam on the wave float far away

I mind not being Drunk but then
Much mind to be seen drunken
Drink only perfects all our play
Yet breeds it discord alway

Like a fire kindled beneath a lake
Like a stone to break an advancing sea
Like a blow that is struck upon Iron cold
To the wayward woman thy counsels be.

If you hope to teach you must be a fool
a woman, porker or a mule

Irish Ranns.,Douglas Hyde

from:

Irish Literature.Justin McCarthy,Ed.Morris,1924