Poem by Marianne Moore

Spencer's Ireland

has not altered; -
a place as kind as it is green,
the greenest place I've never seen.
Every name is a tune.
Denunciations do not affect
the culprit; nor blows, but it
is torture to him to not be spoken to.
They're natural -
the coat, like Venus
mantle lined with stars,
buttoned dose at the neck-the sleeves new from disuse

If in Ireland
they play the harp backward at need,
and gather at midday the seed
of the fern, eluding
their “giants all covered with iron,” might
there be fern seed for unlearn
ing obduracy and for reinstating
the enchantment?
Hindered ñ haracters
seldom have mothers
in Irish stories, but they all have grandmothers.

It was Irish;
a match not a marriage was made
when my great grandmother'd said
with native genius for
disunion, “Although your suitor be
perfection, one objection
is enough; he is not
Irish.” Outwitting
the fairies, befriending the furies,
whoever again
and again says: “I'll never give in,” never sees

that you're not free
until you've been made captive by
supreme belief-credulity
you say? When large dainty
fingers tremblingly divide the wings
of the fly for mid-July
with a needle and wrap it with peacock tail,
or tie wool and
buzzard's wing, their pride,
like the enchanter's
is in care, not madness. Concurring hands divide

flax for damask
that when bleached by Irish weather
has the silvered chamois-leather
water-tightness of a
skin. Twisted tores and gold new moon-shaped
lunulae aren't jewelry
like the purple-coral fuchsia-tree's. Eire -
the guillemot
so neat and the hen
of the heath and the
linnet spinet-sweet-bespeak relentlessness? Then

they are to me
like enchanted Earl Gerald who
changed himself into a stag, to
a great green-eyed cat of
the mountain. Discommodity makes
them invisible; they've dis-
appeared. The Irish say your trouble is their
irouble and your
joy their joy? I wish
I could believe it;
I am troubled, I'm dissatisfied, I'm Irish.

1. You Are Like the Realistic Product of an Idealistic Search for Gold at the Foot of the Rainbow
2. Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight
3. Reinforcements
4. What Are Years?
5. Feed Me, Also, River God

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