Scel lemm duib

Next is a translation by Flann O'Brien, who kept the three stresses per line of the original in an attempt to convey what he called the “steel-pen exactness” of the 9th century original (which you can hear read aloud here):


Here’s a song –
stags give tongue
winter snows
summer goes.

High cold blow
sun is low
brief his day
seas give spray.

Fern clumps redden
shapes are hidden
wildgeese raise
wonted cries.

Cold now girds
wings of birds.
Icy time -
that’s my rhyme.