More Yeats...

On the other side of the cemetery.

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens'embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

Under Ben Bulben...

Will have to do a few W.B. Yeats posts for my brother, though I'm not even sure if he reads my  blog?

"Under bare Ben Bulben's head

In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid,

An ancestor was rector there

Long years ago;  a church stands near,

By the road an ancient Cross.

No marble, no conventional phrase,

On limestone quarried near the spot

By his command these words are cut:  

Cast a cold eye

On life, on death.

Horseman pass by!"

Legend of Diarmuid and Grainne

Back in the days of arranged marriages, the High King Cormac Mac Airt, betrothed his lovely young daughter Grainne, (Gra-nay), to the much older warrior and leader Fionn Mac Cumhaill, (Finn MacCool).

Alas, Grainne's heart yearned for a younger warrior, Diarmuid, (Dermot).  Diarmuid returned her love, so they eloped.  Fionn pursued them for many years, but as I was told he eventually moved on to other things.

Grainne and Diarmuid were living in a cave in the mighty Ben Bulben, when Diarmuid, (who loved to hunt), heard of a mighty chase of a great black boar.  Diarmuid could not resist, though Grainne begged him not to join in on the hunt.  He was mortally wounded in the fight with the boar on the slopes of the mountain.

Grainne begged Fionn (who had great powers) to heal Diarmuid, but he refused. Diarmuid died, and Grainne shortly after, of a broken heart.  The lovers are said to be buried in the cave where they last resided...

This is the cave on the back side of Ben Bulben, (the little white dots are domestic sheep).