^{translated from the Early Modern Irish by Seamus Heaney}

You who opt for English ways
And crop your curls, your crowning glory,
You, my handsome specimen,
Are no true son of Donncha’s.

If you were, you would not switch
To modes in favour with the English;
You, the flower of Fódla’s land,
Would never end up barbered.

A full head of long, fair hair
Is not for you; it is your brother
Who scorns the foreigners’ close cut.
The pair of you are opposites.

Eoghan Bán won’t ape their ways,
Eoghan beloved of noble ladies
Is enemy to English fads
And lives beyond the pale of fashion.

Eoghan Bán is not like you.
Breeches aren’t a thing he values.
A clout will do him for a cloak.
Leggings he won’t wear, nor greatcoat.

He hates the thought of jewelled spurs
Flashing on his feet and footwear,
And stockings of the English sort,
And being all prinked up and whiskered.

He’s Donncha’s true son, for sure.
He won’t be seen with a rapier
Angled like an awl, out arseways,
As he swanks it to the meeting place.

Sashes worked with threads of gold
And high stiff collars out of Holland
Are not for him, nor satin scarves
That sweep the ground, nor gold rings even.

He has no conceit in feather beds,
Would rather stretch himself on rushes,
Dwell in a bothy than a bawn,
And make the branch his battlement.

Horsemen in the mouth of a glen,
A savage dash, kernes skirmishing –
This man is in his element
Taking on the foreigner.

But you are not like Eoghan Bán.
You’re a laughing stock on stepping stones
With your dainty foot: a sad disgrace,
You who opt for English ways.

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely
as in cracked mirrors . . .
beheld in your luminous spirit
their own reflection,
transfigured as in a shining stream,
and loved you for what they are not.

You are less an image in my mind
than a luster
I see you in gleams
pale as star-light on a gray wall . . .
evanescent as the reflection of a white swan
shimmering in broken water.