Project Gutenberg's Poets and Dreamers, by Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Poets and Dreamers
Studies and translations from the Irish

Author: Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

Translator: Lady Augusta Gregory

Release Date: March 29, 2006 [EBook #18070]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETS AND DREAMERS ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, Taavi Kalju and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

POETS AND DREAMERS:
STUDIES & TRANSLATIONS FROM
THE IRISH, BY LADY GREGORY.

DUBLIN: HODGES, FIGGIS, & CO., LTD.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
1903.

TO SOME UNDERGRADUATES OF TRINITY COLLEGE

'Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last,
In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best;
In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest;
Happiness, knowledge not in another place, but this place--not for
another hour but this hour.'

WALT WHITMAN.

CONTENTS

PAGE
RAFTERY 1

WEST IRISH BALLADS 47

JACOBITE BALLADS 66

AN CRAOIBHIN'S POEMS 76

BOER BALLADS IN IRELAND 89

A SORROWFUL LAMENT FOR IRELAND 98

MOUNTAIN THEOLOGY 104

HERB-HEALING 111

THE WANDERING TRIBE 121

WORKHOUSE DREAMS 128

ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 193

AN CRAOIBHIN'S PLAYS:-- 196

THE TWISTING OF THE ROPE 200

THE MARRIAGE 216

THE LOST SAINT 236

THE NATIVITY 244

POETS AND DREAMERS

RAFTERY

I.

One winter afternoon as I sat by the fire in a ward of Gort Workhouse, I
listened to two old women arguing about the merits of two rival poets
they had seen and heard in their childhood.

One old woman, who was from Kilchreest, said: 'Raftery hadn't a stim of
sight; and he travelled the whole nation; and he was the best poet that
ever was, and the best fiddl