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1 " We have tested and tasted too much, lover-Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder. "
― Patrick Kavanagh ,
2 " I have lived in important places, timesWhen great events were decided, who ownedThat half a rood of rock, a no-man's landSurrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul!"And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seenStep the plot defying blue cast-steel -"Here is the march along these iron stones."That was the year of the Munich bother. WhichWas more important? I inclinedTo lose my faith in Ballyrush and GortinTill Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.He said: I made the Iliad from suchA local row. Gods make their own importance. "
3 " My father played the melodionOutside at our gate;There were stars in the morning east;And they danced to his music.Across the wild bogs his melodion calledTo Lennons and Callans.As I pulled on my trousers in a hurryI knew some strange thing had happened.Outside in the cow-house my motherMade the music of milking;The light of her stable-lamp was a starAnd the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.A water-hen screeched in the bog,Mass-going feetCrunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.My child poet picked out the lettersOn the grey stone,In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.Cassiopeia was overCassidy's hanging hill,I looked and three whin bushes rode acrossThe horizon - the Three Wise Kings.An old man passing said:"Can't he make it talk" -The melodion, I hid in the doorwayAnd tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.I nicked six nicks on the door-postWith my penknife's big blade -There was a little one for cutting tobacco.And I was six Christmases of age.My father played the melodion,My mother milked the cows,And I had a prayer like a white rose pinnedOn the Virgin Mary's blouse "