Anonymous Irish

Childless

Blessed Trinity have pity! You can give the blind man sight, Fill the rocks with waving grasses-- Give my house a child tonight. You can bend the woods with blossom, What is there you cannot do? All the branches burst with leafage, What's a little child to you? Corn from shoot and oak from acorn Miracles of life awake, Harvest from a fist of seedlings-- Is a child so hard to make? Childless men although they prosper Are praised only when they are up, Sterile grace however lovely Is a seed that yields no crop. There is no hell, no lasting torment But to be childless at the end, A naked stone in grassy places, A man who leaves no love behind. God I ask for two things only, Heaven when my life is done, Payment as befits a poet-- For my poem pay a son. Plead with Him, O Mother Mary, Let Him grant the child I crave, Womb that spun God's human tissue, I no human issue leave. Brigid after whom they named me, Beg a son for my reward, Let no poet empty-handed Leave the dwelling of his lord. Thought to have been written by: by Giolla Brighde MacNamee (late 13th century)