Lacken Daragh, Enniskerry ) was an Irish poet and lyricist. He wrote under the Gaelic form of his name Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil (also Seosamh MacCathmhaoil) Campbell being a common anglicization of the old Irish name MacCathmhaoil. He is now remembered best for words he supplied to traditional airs, such as “My Lagan Love” and “Gartan Mother’s Lullaby”; his verse was also set to music by Arnold Bax and Ivor Gurney. Later in the Irish Civil War he was on the Republican side, and was interned in 1922/3 and he emigrated to the United States in 1925. There he lived in New York City. He lectured at Fordham University, and worked in academic Irish studies, founding the University’s School of Irish Studies in 1928, : : Campbell returned to Ireland in 1939, settling at Glencree, County Wicklow, and dying at Lacken Daragh, Enniskerry on 6 June 1944.
NPS photo
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.
Darkness : : By Joseph Campbell : (1879-1944)
Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.
The Dawn Whiteness : : By Joseph Campbell : ( 1879 – 1944 ) : : : : : : : :
The dawn whiteness.
A bank of slate-grey cloud lying heavily over it.
The moon, like a hunted thing, dropping into the cloud.
” Darkness” A 3 lines Very Short Poem taken from Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil ( Gaelic name of Joseph Campbell ), The Mountainy Singer (Dublin: Maunsel and Company, 1909). By An Irish Poet And One of the pioneer of modernist Poems ( that reject the excessive utterances of praise/ decoration of the Victorian Poetry ) , Joseph Campbell ( 1879 – 1944 ) is About “a star shine in the boghole – ” which is a hole or depression ( in a land surface having a miry or spongy bottom ) wherefrom a star emerging or going forth becomes apparently becomes visible and here , it has been looked upon by the Poet Speaker who has stopped there at that time.. makes an observational remark : ” A star no longer but a Silve ribbon of light. ( We know that “Ribbons” are used to decorate the box of gifts / Sweets , etc. ) : : This depiction drawn resembles a long thin line of bright looking glowing white lustre that decorates the darkness already set in the atmosphere. The long thin light like a ribbon of light is not the lights emitted by a star emerging in the sky. But the lights lined with the edges of a boghole wherein the Poet has stopped to watch the starlight from the valley’s depression on the surrounding land at the higher plane . This elongated strip of lights are the remains of the reflected lights of the last sunrays of the Sunset upon the body of clouds etc. that will remain in the atmosphere of the skyward airs of the earth. ( See this in the picture posted on the top. : : Compare this lights in darkness with the “dawn whiteness” , another Short Poem written by Joseph Campbell. : : : :
“Darkness”, A Darkness Poem By an Irish Poet Joseph Campbell Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India August 21 , 2023 : : : :
MADHU MALTI 