for mattie

Cois na Teineadh (Beside the Fire)

By T. W. Rolleston

Where glows the Irish hearth with peat

There lives a subtle spell—

The faint blue smoke, the gentle heat,

The moorland odours tell.

Of white roads winding by the edge

Of bare, untamèd land,

Where dry stone wall or ragged hedge

Runs wide on either hand.

To cottage lights that lure you in

From rainy Western skies;

And by the friendly glow within

Of simple talk, and wise,

And tales of magic, love or arms

From days when princes met

To listen to the lay that charms

The Connacht peasant yet,

There Honour shines through passions dire,

There beauty blends with mirth—

Wild hearts, ye never did aspire

Wholly for things of earth!

Cold, cold this thousand years—yet still

On many a time-stained page

Your pride, your truth, your dauntless will,

Burn on from age to age.

And still around the fires of peat

Live on the ancient days;

There still do living lips repeat

The old and deathless lays.

And when the wavering wreaths ascend

Blue in the evening air,

The soul of Ireland seems to bend

Above her children there.