THE FAIR AT WINDGAP There was airy music and sport at the fair And showers were tenting on the bare field, Laughter had knotted a crowd where the horses And mares were backing, when carts from the wheelwright Were shafted: bargains on sale everywhere and the barmen Glassing neat whiskey or pulling black porter On draught -- and O the red brandy, the oatmeal And the whiteness of flour in the weighing scale! Calico petticoats, cashmere and blouses, Blankets of buttermilk, flannel on stalls there, Caps of bright tweed and corduroy trousers And green or yellow ribbon with a stripe; The tanner was hiding, the saddler plied the bradawl; Barrows had chinaware, knives and blue razors, Black twisted tobacco to pare in the claypipe And the ha'penny harp that is played on a finger. Soft as rain slipping through rushes, the cattle Came: dealers were brawling at seven-pound-ten, On heifers in calf a bargain was clapped When ewes, that are nearer the grass, had taken Two guineas; the blacksmith was filing the horn in his lap For the fillies called up more hands than their height, Black goats were cheap; for a sow in the stock O'Flaherty got but the half of her farrow. Balladmen, beggarmen, trick o' the loop men And cardmen, hiding Queen Maeve up their sleeve, Were picking red pennies and soon a prizefighter Enticed the young fellows and left them all grieving: While the marriageable girls were walking up and down And the folk were saying that the Frenchmen Had taken the herring from the brown tide And sailed at daybreak, they were saying. Twenty-five tinkers that came from Glentartan, Not counting the jennets and barefooted women, Had a white crop of metal upon every cart; The neighbours were buying, but a red-headed man Of them, swearing no stranger could bottom a kettle, Leaped over the droves going down to the ocean, Glibbed with the sunlight: blows were around him And so the commotion arose at the fair. -- Austin CLARKE (b. 1896) -- (from the Irish) Windgap is apparently in Co. Kilkenny