A Moment With Sweeney Astray and The Stags

"Those unharnessed runners
from glen to glen!
Nobody tames
that royal blood,

each one aloof
on its rightful summit,
antlered, watchful.
Imagine them,

the stag of high Slieve Felim,
the stag of the steep Fews,
the stag of Duhallow, the stag of Orrey,
the fierce stag of Killarney..."

 

From Sweeney Astray a version from the Irish by Seamus Heaney

Art: Illustrated Manuscript: Gaston Phoebus, Le Livre de la chasse (Paris, ca. 1407)