Michael Mecredy - 2 Short Poems (1913)

Forgotten Poems #75

    
              —: The Rushlight :—

       I held the rushlight up for him to light his pipe.
       It trembled in me hands. It brought us awful near.
       He gave one pull, then waited for a bit.
       The red light flickered with a puff of wind.
       “Let you be holding it a wee bit nearer;
       There, that will do”—he laid his hand on mine.
       And somehow then the rushlight dropt between us,
       An' we were starin' in each other's eyes.
       His eyes they seemed to grow an' light an' darken;
       An' my breath choked, an' all me throat was dry.
       An' then we two drew ever close together,
       An' our lips met.
            The rushlight flickered out.
    

    
              —: Winter :—

       Winter is an ould, ould woman:
       The falling snow is her long white hair.
       Her two feet are set from valley to valley,
       And her hands rest on the mountain-tops.
       The moaning wind is the sound of her keening,
       —Keening the death of her lost youth.
       And the greyness of the sky
       Will be the sorrow in her eyes.
       The shrill scream of the wild bird is the
           cry of her broken heart.
       The rustling of the rushes is her last song;
       And wherever she is passing
       It is desolation she will be leaving behind her.
    

Michael Mecredy, possibly from Ireland, published just five known poems in the English poetry journal Poetry & Drama, edited by Harold Monro, in 1913. ‘The Rushlight’, in particular, is a striking verse about queer intimacy, detailing what appears to be a tender first kiss between two men, written in ‘blank verse’ (largely iambic pentameter). It pairs beautifully with Florence Kipper Frank’s verse ‘The Kiss’ (1915). ‘Winter’ appears to be written in ‘free verse’, having no regular meter or rhyme, which would make Mecredy a part of the first wave of post-1912 ‘free verse’ poets (preceded in England by the School of Images in 1908-09, founded by F.S. Flint, Edward Storer, and T.E. Hulme).

“Who is Michael Mecredy? His name and the convention he adopts suggest Irish affinities. In the poems given show an attraction towards the style of Seosamh MacCathmhaoil (aka. Joseph Campbell) and James Stephens... No doubt his own individuality will break clear in a while; he has a feeling for language and for the folk surroundings.” (The Irish Review, 1913)

Hiya all - things will be a little bit quiet on Forgotten Poems for the moment as I am working on an essay for the newsletter about the early history of one of my favourite poetic forms, the monostich (one-line poem) in connection to ancient Greek poetics, prophecy, and philosophy. More on this soon! I still hope to get some poems up once a week though. In lieu of my usual “after” poem here is something new, inspired by my current research . . .

    
              Of Stitches and Streams
                     By Dick Whyte

              O pen!
       more nonsense—

       any more than a line or two
       too many still, perhaps too few

       deities de-stitching
       into densities,
       streams
       flowing backwards

       there will be no poetry
       where we are not going
    

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