A BLESSING ON MUNSTER
This benison, a form of liturgical poetry, is reputedly by St. Patrick (c. 385-461), but the original of this version is actually probably from the 7th century. It has here been cast into the later bardic form called droighneach (dráy-nach), a loose Irish stanza form. The single line can consist of from nine to thirteen syllables, and it always ends in a trisyllabic word, a requirement not always kept in this case. There is rhyming between lines 1 & 3, 2 & 4, and so forth. There are at least two cross-rhymes in each couplet, and alliteration in each line: usually the final word of the line alliterates with the preceding stressed word, and it always does so in the last line of each stanza. Stanzas can consist of any number of quatrains.
God's blessing be invoked upon Munster now,
Upon its men and boys, its womenfolk;
Blessings be upon the land, peak and down,
That boons the flock fruit, root, stem and stalk.
A blessing upon all kinds of fruitfulness
That shall be borne upon this meadowland,
No neighbor going in want of helpfulness.
God place over Munster his healing hand!
A blessing be upon the high ridge,
Upon their cottages' bare flagstones;
A blessing upon heather, sedge, the sheer cliff edge;
A blessing upon lea and ledge, their gloaming glens!
Like sands of ocean under vessels
Be the numbers of their dwellings' hearthstones
Upon their downlands and their sloping hills,
Upon their crags and fells, their misty mountains!
-- Attr. St. Patrick
