Cianalas:
Who would have thought
I’d have to come
so far from home
to find a word that perfectly captures
the voiceless ache
of having left?
A’ dol dhachaigh:
Strange that I should
find restfulness
in a language where
you can never be home,
but only going
homewards.
Christine Laennec
XIV The Selling of a Soul
A poet struggling with the world’s condition,
prostitution of talents and the bondage
with which the bulk of men have been deceived,
I am not, I think, one who would say
that the selling of the soul would give respite.
But I did say to myself, and not once,
that I would sell my soul for your love
if lie and surrender were needed.
I spoke this in haste without thinking
that it was black blasphemy and perversion.
Your forgiveness to me for the thought
that you were one who would take a poor creature
of a little weak base spirit
who could be sold, even for the graces
of your beautiful face and proud spirit.
Therefore, I will say again now,
that I would sell myy soul for your sake
twice, once for your beauty
and again for that grace
that you would not take a sold and slavish spirit.
XXXVI
I should have sold my soul
without pricking of conscience for your sake:
because of your refusal I shall make of it steel
to split the rock of vicissitudes.
XXXVII
It is not the beauty of your body,
the beauty shaped in your face,
the beauty blinding my eyes
though it has gone beyond thought;
but the beauty of the spirit
that took form in your face,
the beauty of the spirit,
the heart-marrow of my love.
XXXVIII
I spoke about selling a soul
for your sake, o love:
blasphemy, blasphemy, ugly blasphemy,
a blasphemy of foolish rigmarole:
the soul sold for you would not become free,
the soul sold for your sake
would become enslaved.
XXXIX
As the slow embers of the fire
become a pure sparkling flame,
so my love for you
becomes a white adoration.
Sorley Maclean
My love for you has gone beyond poetry,
beyond imagination, beyond pride,
beyond love-talk, beyond hummed song,
beyond art, beyond laughter-music,
beyond joy, beyond loveliness,
beyond grief, beyond agony,
beyond reason, beyond nature,
beyond the great surging world.
Sorley Maclean
- Would you rather make love or make poems? Or is it the same thing?
- That depends on the girl.
