Thomas MacDonagh (1878 - 1916)
One of the leaders of the Easter Rising 1916 in Ireland, MacDonagh
in ordinary life was a lecturer in English literature at University
College, Dublin.
This poem is a translation of the 18th-century poem "An
Bunán
Buí" by
Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna. Of his translation method MacDonagh
wrote: "All
my translations are very close to the originals. In my version of
this poem I have changed nothing for the purpose of elucidation.
I have even translated the name of Loch Mhic an Ein, a lake in the
North-west of Ireland. Some of the references must be obscure to
all but students of Irish literature; I think, however, that the
poem does not suffer too much from the difficulty of these."
The bittern is a wading bird and member of the heron family, a bird
of the marsh and wetlands. Constantine was
Roman Emperor (A.D. 306-37)
This is a masterly poem, a wonderfully dramatic - melodramatic -
piece in the voice of the drunken narrator. One day I hope to hear
Rab C. Nesbitt (Gregor Fisher) recite a Scots version of The Yellow
Bittern.
The Yellow Bittern
The yellow bittern that never broke out
In
a drinking bout, might as well have drunk;
His bones
are thrown on a naked stone
Where
he lived alone like a hermit monk.
O yellow bittern!
I pity your lot,
Though
they say that a sot like myself is curst -
I was
sober a while, but I'll drink and be wise
For I
fear I should die in the end of thirst.
It's not
for the common birds that I'd mourn,
The
black-bird, the corn-crake, or the crane,
But for the
bittern that's shy and apart
And drinks
in the marsh from the lone bog-drain.
Oh! if I had
known you were near your death,
While
my breath held out I'd have run to you,
Till a splash
from the Lake of the Son of the Bird
Your
soul would have stirred and waked anew.
My darling
told me to drink no more
Or my
life would be o'er in a little short while;
But I told
her 'tis drink gives me health and strength
And will
lengthen my road by many a mile.
You see how
the bird of the long smooth neck
Could get
his death from the thirst at last -
Come, son
of my soul, and drain your cup,
You'll get
no sup when your life is past.
In a wintering
island by Constantine's halls
A
bittern calls from a wineless place,
And tells
me that hither he cannot come
Till
the summer is here and the sunny days.
When he crosses
the stream there and wings o'er the sea
Then
a fear comes to me he may fail in his flight -
Well, the
milk and the ale are drunk every drop,
And a
dram won't stop our thirst this night.
