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University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)
ThanksgivingAuthor(s): Thomas O'GradySource: New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer, 2000), p. 43Published by: University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20557655 .
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Fil?ocht Nua: New Poetry
MAYNOOTH, 1822
Abandon any hopeful homeward glance:
The bolted gates deny a mother's prayers,
Defy a father's curses and the stares
Of boys behind his back. Some books by chance
I salvaged for the road: a Euclid worn
From study; Ovid, Virgil, and the Greeks;
And also our St. Columcille, who speaks
Of future honor for his race. For scorn
From scholars huddled by a hedge, I teach
The art of life; a ruined poet, now
A spoiled priest, I talk in tongues and bow
My head: O sing in me, Muse! I beseech.
When flaming spirit fails to heal my flaw, I fall: usque ad necem, uisce-beatha.
0%^
THANKSGIVING
Summers we'd give thanks to be city born
and bred when, come mid-August, our country
cousins trudged two weeks ahead to the stern
task of learning, the clean-cut drudgery
of school. Of course, in October we'd curse
the luck that gave them a fortnight repeal
a break-knuckle rules?though what could be worse
than digging potatoes in muck-caked fields?
Who, in their right minds, would envy that chore,
and pray?in late November, a thousand
miles and many years away?to restore
themselves by the grace of clay-coated hands?
Elbow-deep in a sack of unscrubbed spuds,
we swear never to wash off that red mud.
43
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