We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)
Showing posts with label St Patrick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St Patrick. Show all posts

19.3.18

Saint Patrick and the Snakes



Saint Patrick and the Snakes

So he ran the snakes from Ireland?  
So they say.
A jolly fellow, was he?
Raise your glass!
We can toast the lovely Saint
with happy unrestraint –
but as for me believing
all that Blarney,
no, I'll pass.

Did not the snakes of Ireland
slip away?
Were all the Druids butchered
wantonly?
See, I think all that's as maybe,
for where the woods are shady,
aren’t the Sidhe still roaming 
wild and free –
and aren’t we?

The Pagan “snakes” of Ireland
sneak to play
between the trees in moonlight,
cloaked in grey,
and underneath the hill
you might hear the singing still –
except it’s very secret.
But we never
went away.


At "imaginary garden with real toads" the weekend challenge is Blarney Me – anything about Ireland and/or St Patrick's Day. Well, as you see, I have a bit of a quarrel with the saint. Now, I don't have any Irish ancestry that I know of, and have never even been there, so I also don't know if there are any Pagans in Ireland nowadays. But I'll bet my bottom dollar there are!