An Ulster Scots Poem

Ah go on. Give it a go. This is my first narrative poem. It was written in the midst of my historical research on the Agnews, as I'd found an Agnew on the Eagle Wing ship to America, which famously sailed across the Atlantic from Ulster in 1636, only to turn back after a storm. I discovered another poet called Robert Blair, whose grandfather was also on the Eagle Wing. He was a 'graveyard' poet, a sort of early gothic writer, and this appealed to me, not least because I'm the only person I know who still says graveyard instead of cemetery. I reference some of his words in this poem. I also give voice to a wumman! 


The Wumman who birthed Seaborn 
After Robert Blair

​She is lang spire and witch bell, 
amangst a hundret and forty 
radical souls westerin. The hull
o her kirk is wuided in oak. 
A September flurry tirls, rough aff Rathlin, 
as paps helter and isles skelter 
and mulls and rhins slink and sickle lik ghaists. 
Rain lashes her cheeks. Unborn fists and futs.
She tholes a twang. A threid o watter gaithers 
at the feet o elders, who clesp invisible crosses.
A man o bauld deeds climbs
intae the cradle o a sea mountain:
steidfest wi hopes an tools, he fixes the rudder.
Two bairns suckle, an oul soul gaes hame 
tae his maister, the Eagle’s Wing turns 
whaur Titanic held oot, hameless folk hame east 
for tae mak a makkar o ‘The Grave’ poet 
and paint a gothic pictur o the hard-hunted 
beast slaverin undergroun 
in the barren womb o naethin.
A bairn dies. She lies noo, skellying
an eye at the young, lost mither. 
The flesh atween her legs is skelfed.
A hand in her creel turns the heid.
A snell schraik awaks the livin 
and the deid. The efterbirth croons Presbyterian.
Seaborn —an oul name in an oul tongue, 
lik Man O Bauld Deeds. 
Noo, in Lough Fergus, whaur phantoms lurk
on wasted docks, whaur rudderless ships  
and secular steel barren wombs are static,
I wunner wud I hae tightened my lips 
aroon zeilous wirds, lik papish 
and transubstantiation. Wud I hae decried the priests’ 
harems, thrust stuils at episcopal priests,
planned a better hame-comin
for my ain soul, lik the wumman* who birthed 
Seaborn on the Eagle’s Wing in 1636?

*Wife of Michael Colvert of Killinchy

'The Wumman who birthed Seaborn' was awarded second place  in the Frances Browne Festival poetry competition (Ulster Scots Category), October 2023. The poem also won a special 'spirit of the festival' award for breaking new ground.


Image: The Reunion of the Soul and the Body, 1813, William Blake (1757 - 1827), Illustration for 'The Grave', A Poem by Robert Blair. Illustrated By Twelve Etchings, Royal Academy of Arts.