FEO

Why do you hesitate before the fall of night?
Isn’t there an end to autumn in sight
And ourselves going the way of the rushes?
You’ve sown your seed, the fertile five
In the fruitful summer of your days.

Now I find you stirring with difficulty
From bedside to the wing-backed chair.
You don’t make an issue of the lost strength,
Except now and again the low moan
‘It’s too far, too far, that chair.’

Look at you, hard as bog-oak,
Never letting up the struggle, never yielding:
Isn’t it clear and crystal clear to you
That withering fern and withering holly bush
Are signposts of decline, sisters of closure?

Never lament that loss, that lust for life
And I won’t keen as you stumble
To the ends of your course and season:
Here are your plants and their gathering-in,
Here their loud praise, and the victory.

FEO

FEO

Cén doicheall atá ort roimh thitim oíche?
Nach é deireadh an fhómhair é
Agus sinn ag druidim le dúluachair?
Dheinis do shíolchur, cúigear clainne,
Le linn samhraidh thorthúil do ré
 
Anois agus tú ag tuisliú, ar éigean,
Ód’ leabaidh go dtí’n gcathaoir uillinn
Ní chásaíonn tú lúth do ghéag
Ach go ndeir tú, fo-bhabhta,
‘Tá sí chomh fada uaim.’
 
Tusa go raibh cruas na giúise ionat,
Ar dhual duit strácáil agus gan géilleadh,
Nach léir agus nach ró-léir duit
Go bhfuil ruacht na raithní agus an chuilinn
Ag fógairt feo is clabhsúir?
 
Ná caoin tú féin, ná do lúth, a stór!
Ní chaoinfead, ach chomh beag,
Deireadh do chúrsa is do shéasúir.
Fanfaidh na plandaí a chuiris go fóill
Ag fógairt do cháilíochta is do bhua.