A Little Bit Of Culture...

A little bit of Culture... Poetry from soc.culture.irish

Dánta na hÉireann (poems composed in Irish)

Posted by K E Dennis
on: 5 August 1998

I thought I was fairly familiar w/ Brendan Behan's writings, but the discovery that he wrote poetry, in Irish, was something of a surprise. The handful of his poems that I've read are mostly wry & irreverent - no wonder there - but this one is a bit different...

Uaighneas Breandon Ó Beacháin	*An Crann Faoi Bláth / The Flowering Tree: Contemporary Irish Poetry w/ Verse Translations* edited by Declan Kiberd & Gabriel Fitzmaurice Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1991
	*Loneliness - translation by Ulick O'Connor*

Blas sméara dubh'
tréis báisteach
ar bharr an tsléibhe.

I dtost an phríosúin
Feadaoil fhuar na traenach.

Cogar gáire beirt leannán
don aonarán.

Loneliness
trans., Ulick O'Connor

The blackberries' taste
after rainfall
on the hilltop.

In the silence of prison
the train's cold whistle.

The whisper of laughing lovers
to the lonely.

--- The End ---