Summer Has Come

Summer has come, healthy and free,
Whence the brown wood is aslope;
The slender nimble deer leap,
And the path of seals is smooth.

The cuckoo sings sweet music,
Whence there is smooth restful sleep;
Gentle birds leap upon the hill,
And swift grey stags.

Heat has laid hold of the rest of the deer-
The lovely cry of curly packs!
The white extent of the strand smiles,
There the swift sea is.

A sound of playful breezes in the tops
Of a black oakwood is Druim Daill,
The noble hornless herd runs,
To whom Cuan-wood is a shelter.

Green bursts out on every herb,
The top of the green oakwood is bushy,
Summer has come, winter has gone,
Twisted hollies wound the hound.

The blackbird sings a loud strain,
To him the live wood is a heritage,
The sad angry sea is fallen asleep,
The speckled salmon leaps.

The sun smiles over every land,
A parting for me from the brood of cares:
Hounds bark, stags tryst,
Ravens flourish, summer has come!

SOURCE
Manuscript: Unidentified
Translation: Meyer, Kuno. Four Old-Irish Songs of Summer and Winter. London, 1903. reprinted from Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry. London, 1911.