I haven’t written about poetry in quite a while. I was reminded of this when reading a certain poem recently. The poem is “A Drover” by the Irish poet, Padraig Colum. I give the poem here:
TO MEATH of the pastures,
From wet hills by the sea,
Through Leitrim and Longford
Go my cattle and me.
I hear in the darkness
Their slipping and breathing.
I name them the bye-ways
They’re to pass without heeding.
Then the wet, winding roads,
Brown bogs with black water;
And my thoughts on white ships
And the King o’ Spain’s daughter.
O! farmer, strong farmer!
You can spend at the fair
But your face you must turn
To your crops and your care.
And soldiers—red soldiers!
You’ve seen many lands;
But you walk two by two,
And by captain’s commands.
O! the smell of the beasts,
The wet wind in the morn;
And the proud and hard earth
Never broken for corn;
And the crowds at the fair,
The herds loosened and blind,
Loud words and dark faces
And the wild blood behind.
(O! strong men with your best
I would strive breast to breast
I could quiet your herds
With my words, with my words.)
I will bring you, my kine,
Where there’s grass to the knee;
But you’ll think of scant croppings
Harsh with salt of the sea.
To understand the poem and its relevance to walking, it is important to understand the supply chain for beef in the late 19th and early 20th century Ireland, before supply chain existed as a concept. Cattle were born and reared as calves in the western counties along the Atlantic seaboard. But grass is neither rich nor plentiful there, so the cattle would never grow fat enough to be good animals for beef production. Farmers in the west of Ireland would take their animals to the fair at a young age, where famers from the eastern counties would buy them. The buyer would then hire a drover to literally drive the cattle on foot along the roads to reach the buyer’s farm. The cattle would then be “finished”, feeding on good rich grass until ready for slaughter and sale as beef.
The poem is given through the voice of one of those men driving cattle along the roads of Ireland. The first verse tells us that the cattle drive started out on “wet hills by the sea, probably in county Sligo or county Mayo., seeing as he then went through the counties of Leitrim and Longford. He is heading for county Meath, where he says the cattle will find “grass to the knee”.
The drover has clearly walked this route before, since he can name the roads, the byways that they are passing through. He then goes on to compare his lot to other professions that would be seen to enjoy a higher social status. He talks of the farmer tied to his land, while the drover is free to wander and choose his own routes. And the soldiers must march according to orders, while the drover chooses his own pace and his own companions. I can relate to his sentiments. I never feel as free as I feel when I am out hiking or trekking. There is a phrase that some of the French tourist agencies use: “La vrai liberté, c’est la vagabondage.” True freedom is to be a vagabond. Or maybe a drover.
County Meath is relatively flat, and the poem ends with the drover thinking that even as the cattle grow fat on good grass, they will have fond memories of the harsher country by the sea in the west. In my own opinion, the drover is transferring his own preferences to the cattle, that he himself has a preference for the hills and the scant grass of the western counties. My own preference in Ireland is for the wilder mountainous counties of the west, rather than the richer more fertile counties of the east.
The drover in the poem is a walker, and one that I can relate to in terms of his ideas and opinions. And so this poem, like the others I have written about, has strong resonances for me as I seek out trails in the modern world. He also clearly has a bond with the animals he is droving, and cares for them. Would that all people involved in animal husbandry were so.
I acknowledge the source of the heading picture from dreamstime.com showing a farmer driving cattle in Ireland. It is a late 20th century photograph, a richer man probably not going as far, but driving cattle along the lanes as the drover in the poem would have done.
Walkingman 