Songs from Four Nations Rising

Verses from the Celtic Isles, May 1999

The following verses were composed during a 16-day tour of the "Celtic Isles"...Britain and Ireland. I set myself the challenge of writing at least one verse in each of the four Celtic nations I visited: Alba (Scotland), Cymru (Wales), Eire (Ireland), and Kernow (Cornwall). These are the results.

LONDON, THE CITY
   (London, May 12)

Clang of wheels on rails
Hearkens me to Roman steel.
Hordes advance, confined,
Grey--dance of mediocrity.
Ancient chimes ring deep,
No spur in modern times
To warriors somnolent.
A curse and a boon, this blindness:
Hollow lives--in dreams
Alone the passion survives.


THE ROAD TO SKYE
   (Isle of Skye, Alba, May 14)

The pipes lend me wings
And I soar through loch and glen
Heather and broom
And rock and pine
Speed me along
To the waters of Loch Duich
And the crossing of Loch Alsh
And home now to the bones
   Of Sgathach


RUBH' AN DUNAIN
   (Isle of Skye, May 15)

Once they came to
   This place
To honor their dead
And to shelter and 
   Craft in the caves

Once they came to
   This place
To build a fortress
O'er the loch on a
   Promontory

Once they came to
   This place
To found a village
Where they might prosper
   Far from their kin

Now I come to
   This place
And the seawind
Carries their voices
   Low to my ears


THE GREY CWM (BLAENAU FESTINIOG)
   (Snowdonia, Cymru, May 16)

Grey the slate
And grey the fate
Of the men
In the mountain.
Tear apart
A nation's heart
To increase
The tyrant's feast.
Great the cost--
Snowdonia lost.
Dragons brave,
This country save.


WILD EMERALD ISLE (THE WEST)
   (Killarney, Eire, May 20)

Green upon green as vine
And branch and bark entwine

Grasses jostle and leaves
   do whisper
Louder than the voice
   of the river
Dance and song of the
   Goddess Anu
Rapturous scent of
   The Morrigu
Island of stone and
   water and mist
Wrapped in the heat of
   the Green's embrace

Green upon green as vine
And branch and bark entwine


THE RAGGED FRINGE
   (Bodmin Moor, Kernow, May 26)

A ragged fringe
   Of fragile rock and sea
A witness to
   The ancient mysteries
A spark that glowed
   Throughout an endless night
A flag unfurled
   Black as fear, hope in white


A CROW AND THE TOR
   (Glastonbury Tor, England, May 27)

I float above a sea of green,
Cradled in th' eternal wind
Beneath a blue, cloud-dappled sky.
Sheltered in the tower I find,
Ascending from the plain below,
Pilgrims mount toward the sky.
Among the many at the top,
Few do see me dancing by;
The fewer still who join me here
On my trackless, skyward trail.
The transformed ones who dance on wings
Find at Avalon the Grail.

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