The Land of Youth

painting “Tir na nog, Land of the Ever Young”  by Tighe O’Donoghue Ross

In Ireland, the mythical Land of the Young is called

Tír na nÓg

Here’s a poem about it by the Irish language poet Sean O’Riordan – translated into Engllsh:

At the back of the house is a land of youth,

A jumbled beautiful space among

The farmyard beasts unclothed, unshod,

Nor knowing the Irish or English tongue,

Walking the way.

Yet each one grows an ample cloak,

Where chaos is the heart of rule,

And in that land the language spoke

Was taught of old in Aesop’s school,

Long passed away.

Some hens are here, a chicken clutch,

A simple duck, though fixed of mind,

A big black dog with wicked looks

Barking loud like a good watch-hound,

A cat sun-baking;

There, a heap of bric-a-brac,

The cast-off treasure stuff of life,

A candlestick, buckles, an old straw hat,

A bugle quiet, and a kettle white

Like a goose waking.

Here the tinkers come uncouth,

Blessing generously all they see,

Feeling at home in the land of youth,

Seeking cast-off things for free,

All over Ireland.

I would go back in the dead of night,

The treasure gilded in the moonbeams’ reach,

Perhaps to see in the eerie light

The child-wise Aesop’s phantom teach

His ghostly learning.

 

 

 

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