An Irish Farmer-Poet: Trading Verses

Out to Pastoral

by John Idol

HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—1/31/11—I fly under the banner of “pastoral” and mean, in this piece to tell how, on a July day in Ireland, poetry and science came together to create for me an unforgettable experience.

My narrative has two scenes: the first, in a farm near the church described in Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village”; the second, in a small Irish restaurant. There are six characters: my friend Jim Skinner and his wife, Ramona; an Irish farmer and his nearly blind wife; and my wife, Margie, and I.

Close friends from graduate school days at the University of Arkansas, Jim and I, together with our wives, had pilgrimaged to literary shrines in England, Wales, and Scotland in 1967. Now, two years later in Ireland, we sought to pay homage to writers linked to that country. On our list were Jonathan Swift, James Joyce, Sean O’Casey, William Butler Yeats, and Goldsmith, among others.

Most of the places we wanted to visit had been as easy to find as the Guinness brewery, where we had quaffed what we considered a stingy pint of ale (nothing like the spread of goodies and the tankards of beer at Heineiken a few days before).

But getting to the church alleged to be the setting of the Goldsmith poem wasn’t easy. Our guide book led us to the general vicinity but not within sight of the church. As we rambled about the Irish countryside—every bit as emerald green as the travel brochures had shown—in a rented Ford Cortina, we spotted a farmer, hoe in hand, in his vegetable garden. Perhaps he could tell us where the church stood.

Leaving Ramona and Margie in the car, Jim and I walked across a short strip of meadow and hailed the farmer, a man with the stature of a young John Wayne. He shouldered his hoe and strode to meet us, a smile on his lips (a sign, we later knew, he’d been hailed by other tourists seeking information). He greeted us with “What can I do for ye, Lads?”

Jim spoke up, “We’re looking for the church Oliver Goldsmith wrote about in ‘The Deserted Village.’”

“You’ve come to the right place,” the farmer said, pointing his hoe to a church spire, some 300 yards away, and quoting a line from the poem:

The decent church that topped the neighboring hill

and adding, “That would be the very church you’re looking for. You be not the first to ask me where it is. Many comes a-looking, and I always enjoy quoting lines from the poem. I especially like the lines about Goldsmith’s father, if indeed they be:

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,

His looks adorned the venerable place:

Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,

And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.

The service past, around the pious man,

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran:

Even children followed, with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown, to share the good man’s smile.

But I enjoy more trading poems with my visitors, be they Canadians, Australians, Brits, or Americans. The Brits and Aussies quote me verses I usually know, and that’s fine, Keats, Wordsworth, Lord Byron and, sometimes, Yeats, but I take particularly to what the Canadians offer: ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew,’ and other pieces by Robert Service. By the looks of ye, ye be Americans. What can you trade?”

Jim and I both began quoting that staple of American poetry “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Our duet immediately became a trio, since the farmer knew the poem well.

“It’s the one that most Americans who stop by here know. One who came recently was Robert Spiller. I suppose you know him.”

“Know of him,” I said, “because he helped write a history of American literature.”

“He knew many poems by Americans, and we had a great time trading verses. When he got home, he wrote to thank me for trading poems. Come, I want to show you his letter.”

We followed him across a patch of meadow to his house, where he called to his wife to bring out his album of letters. As frail as he was robust and faltering because of failing sight, she emerged from the house with the letters. He took the album and flipped to the page where he’d pasted Spiller’s. He read it to us, in a lilting voice, and then mentioned names of other grateful visitors.

I’m sure he would have read them all if not for the appearance of Margie and Ramona. Jim and I had lingered so long with the poetic farmer that the most pressing thing on their minds was a loo. With a look that wouldn’t be disobeyed, Margie said, “Come, let’s go!” Jim and I bade the most thankful and grateful farewell we could muster and rejoined our mates.

A loo found and its purpose served, we sought out a restaurant. We arrived amidst a stir of excitement around a small telly: the reason, the lift-off of the rocket that would carry men to the moon for the first time. When it safely blasted off, we joined others in the restaurant in joyful cheers. A proud moment for mankind.

A proud one, indeed, but not one we’d willingly trade for moments we’d spent with an Irish farmer trading poems. With poetry as the link, perhaps the center can hold, the widening gyre slowed, the slouching towards Bethlehem resisted.

PS A few days later, having gone our own way, Margie and I sat in the lobby of a hotel in Wickham, England, and watched with other guests, the landing of the spacecraft on its target spot. The announcer intoned that the craft had missed its scheduled landing time by a matter of seconds. Whereupon, one of the guests, in classic British understatement said, “Not quite up to British rail, that!” Everyone enjoyed a hearty chuckle.