The Nun of Beare

I	

Wealth is all you ask today;
    Women do not touch your heart;
But When I was young and gay
    Men and women played their part.

Well beloved were the men
  Who to you their place have lost;
Though they gave so much to love
  Of their gifts they did not boast.

While today you ask for all
  And get little in return,
And in boastfulness recall
  The small gifts that love would spurn.


II	

I, the old woman of Beare,
  Who wore dresses ever-new
Have so lost the shape I wore
  Even an old one will not do.

And my hands as you can see
  Are but bony wasted things,
Hands that once would grasp the hand
  Clasp the royal neck of kings.
Oh, my hands as you have seen
Are so bony and so thin
That a boy might start in dread
Feeling them about his head.

My right eye has lost its light,
  Auctioned with my lost estate,
And the other too has gone—
  Bankruptcy must be my fate.

Ale is poured but not for me,
  For my wedding no sheep dies;
Since my hair is all but grey
  This poor veil is no surprise.

Though I care
Nothing for what binds my hair,
  I had headgear bright enough
When the kings for love went bare.

Long ago the foaming steed
And the chariot with its speed
Were the gifts the kings bestowed—
May they get as much from God!

I who had my day with kings
  And drank deep of mead and wine
Drink whey-water with old hags
  Sitting in their rags and pine.
  
    Cummine		
May my cups be cups of whey,
May thy will be done, I pray,
And the prayer, O living God
Quells the madness in my blood.

    Nun		
But I must rage
Who wear the shaggy cloak of age,
My body stuck with threads of grey
Like an old tree that rots away.

    Cummine		
Yet my King throws a different cloak
    In springtime over hill and glen,
The heavenly fuller who can tread
    The earth till all is smooth again.

    Nun		
I scorn all aged things but one,
    Femuin and its shining plain; 
While I wither here alone
    Femuin’s ways are gold again.

Femuin, Bregon, sacring stone,
Sacring stone and Ronan’s Throne,
    Storms have sacked them but their cheeks
Are not withered like my own.

Girls are gay
When the year draws on to May,
    But for me, so poor am I,
Sun will never light the day.
 
Summer sun and autumn sun
These I knew and they are gone,
And the winter time of men
Comes and they come not again.
 
Madly did I spend my prime—
  What is there to cause me rage?—
If in prayer I had passed the time
  Should I not wear the cloak of age?

    Cummine		
Where are they? Ah, well you know
To and fro they row and row;
Like the reeds on Alma’s Ford
They sleep cold who slept not so.

    Nun		
’Tis many a day
Since I sailed upon youth’s bay;
    Year on year has scored my flesh
Since my fresh sweet strength went grey.

Many a day
I have been as cold as they:
    Even in the sun I wear my shawl;
Age has put me too away.

My body bows as though alone
It sought to give the earth its own;
    Let God’s Son when he deems it due
Come to me to recall his loan.

Why should God’s Son not come my way
    And spend the night beneath my roof?
Whoever else I turned away
    When did I hold a man aloof?

I too am cold, but let it be!
    All great beauties know despair;
The glittering ones they sleep with pass
    And leave them to the dark and prayer.


III	

Ebbtide is all my grief;
    Bitter age has sucked my blood;
But though I get no relief
    Merrily returns its flood.

Happy island of the main
To you the tide returns again,
But to me it comes no more
Over the blank deserted shore.

Floodtide!
    Flood or ebb upon the strand,
What the floodtide brings to you
    Ebbtide carries from my hand.

Floodtide!
    And the ebb with hurrying fall;
I have seen many, ebb and flow,
    Ay, and now I know them all.

Floodtide
    Cannot reach me where I call;
None in darkness seeks my side;
    Cold the hand that lies on all.

Seeing, I can scarcely say
—‘This is such a place’; today
What was water far and wide
Changes with the ebbing tide.


IV	

Woe to all
    Those who perish in their pride!
Who have scarcely seen their flood
    Ere they see their ebbing tide.

My flood
    Spared the gift that might have died
Until Jesus bought it back
    When I was weary at ebbtide.

Source: Frank O'Connor; The Little Monasteries; Dublin; Dolmen
Press; 1963, 1976 (1976 ed.); pp.32-37