Visions of MacConglinne
A vision that appeared to me,
An apparition wonderful I tell to all:
A lardy coracle all of lard
Within a port of New-milk
Loch, Up on the World's smooth sea.
We went into the man-of-war,
Twas warrior-like to take the road
O'er ocean's heaving waves.
Our oar-strokes then we pulled
Across the level sea,
Throwing the sea's harvest up,
Like honey, the sea-soil.
The fort we reached was beautiful,
With works of custards thick,
Beyond the loch.
New butter was the bridge in front,
The rubble dyke was wheaten white,
Bacon the palisade.
Stately, pleasantly it sat,
A compact house and strong.
Then I went in:
The door of it was dry meat,
The threshold was bare bread,
Cheese curds the sides.
Smooth pillars of old cheese,
And sappy bacon props
Alternate ranged;
Fine beams of mellow cream,
White rafters- real curds,
Kept up the house.
Behind was a wine well,
Beer and bragget in streams,
Each full pool to the taste.
Malt in smooth wavy sea,
Over a lard-spring's brink
Flowed through the floor.
A loch of pottage fat
Under a cream of oozy lard
Lay 'tween it and the sea.
Hedges of butter fenced it round,
Under a blossom of white-mantling lard,
Around the wall outside.
A row of fragrant apple-trees,
An orchard in its pink-tipped bloom,
Between it and the hill.
A forest tall of real leeks,
Of onions and of carrots, stood
Behind the house.
Within, a household generous,
A welcome of red, firm-fed men,
Around the fire.
Wheatlet, son of Milk-let
Son of Juicy Bacon,
Is mine own name.
Honeyed Butter roll
Is the man’s name
That bears my bag.
Haunch of Mutton
Is my Dog’s name,
Of lovely leaps.
Lard, my wife
Sweetly smiles
Across the kale-top
Cheese-curds, my daughter,
Goes around the spit,
Fair is her fame.
Corned Beef, my son
Whose mantle shines
Over a big tail.
Savour of Savours
Is the name of my wife’s maid:
Morning-early
Across New-Milk Lake she went.
Beef-Lard, my steed,
An excellent stallion
That increases studs,
A guard against toil
Is the saddle of cheese
On his back.
When a cheese-steed is sent after him
Rapid his course,
Fat…is on his ribs,
exceeding all shapes.
A large necklace of delicious
Cheese curds
Around his back,
His halter and his traces all
Of fresh butter.
His bridle with its reins of fat
In every place.
The horse cloth of tripe with its
sausage, Tripes are in its Hooves.
Egg-horn is my bridle boy
Before going to a meeting with death
My pottage tunic around myself
Everywhere,
of tripe with its smell
of uncooked food.
