THE MADMAN From the mediaeval romance Sweeney, the King Pitiful I am to-night, Naked to the wild wind's spite, Did but folk know of my grief 'Tis beyond the world's relief. Frost and ice and wind and snow Drive me ever onward so Without fire or roof or fare To the icy mountains bare. House and goodwife have I known, Prince they call me but my throne Fell beneath His hand Whose call Carries kingship over all. Why did God bring me from the war Unstricken by the sword, to pair And pace step by step beside The millcrone where she wanders wide? The millcrone and her house, I pray The curse of Christ on them this day; Woe who hath his part in her, Woe with whom she shares her share. Lynchehaun followed me blindly Through every desert in Ireland, Until he ran me low and said The boy that I had loved was dead He brought me home to my great house Where all was comeliness and carouse, And left me silent in one place With my darling face to face. The people of my house, they played And skipped and danced and there I stayed And leaped about the place for fun When that the dancing crowds were done. O, I had not left my bright home Were it not for the wily crone That by holy Christ me prayed To show how my great leaps were made. For Christ's sweet sake I did her will And leaped a leap or two, but still The hag did groan and say her own Two feet a better leap had thrown. Once more I leaped and left the ground And took the ramparts in a bound, But swifter than smoke ever did The hag upon my traces sped. We took all Ireland in our stride, From Donn's House to Traigh Euire's tide And from the tide back like the wind, Yet I could not leave her behind. I swear I could not leave the hake, But sped through bramble, bog and brake Until she leaped with me the leap From the strand to castle's keep. There I left the hag forever And took sea and strand together, And from the sea I turned my head And saw I had left the crone for dead. Devils trooped down to the strand And carried the slut inland, To bury her Woe, say I, To Ireland where her bones shall lie! But ... one dark, lonesome night I stood To rest awhile above Sliabh Fuaid; I saw five heads without a limb Rise up-in the midnight-cold and dim. And one whose voice was winter-bleak All of a sudden left a shriek There goes the Ulster madman, free! Follow him! Drown him in the sea! I sped before them terrorfeet And never touched ground with my feet, And goathead and doghead began To scream curses as I ran. No pity! I have earned all! Many a lake I loved to leap, Many a girl but at my call Had not learned to weep! Weeping I go. FRANK O'CONNOR [tr.] Irish Statesman, 1927-01-01