By Anne Gregory

I have at least once used Yeats’ poem For Anne Gregory as my Friday poem.  I thought it might be of interest to hear something of hers, as well as just admiring her yellow hair, “the honey coloured ramparts at your ear”.  I have chosen a poem that she has translated from the Irish of Douglas Hyde, which is a desperate lamentation of loneliness, rather Tennysonian in mood, it seems to me – think of Break, break, break, for example.  This is Lady Anne Gregory’s Cold, Sharp Lamentation, from the Irish of Patrick Hyde:

Cold, sharp lamentation

In the cold bitter winds

Ever blowing across the sky;

Oh, there was loneliness with me!

The loud sounding of the waves

Beating against the shore,

Their vast, rough, heavy outcry,

Oh, there was loneliness with me!

The light sea-gulls in the air,

Crying sharply through the harbours,

The cries and screams of the birds

With my own heart! Oh! That was loneliness.

The voice of the winds and the tide,

And the long battle of the mighty war;

The sea, the earth, the skies, the blowing of the winds,

Oh! There was loneliness in all of them together.

Comments

[Vitamin A Cream]

Nice poem. I love reading it. :)
Thanks for posting it! :D

[glo]

It reminds me of John Keats's poetry. I am thinking of going back to it soon.
I am currently reading The Hunting of the Snark, and I enjoy very much both the English text and the very creative translations. I find it very stimulating.