O North wind! Sorrowing friend!
Pray, tell me what my heart would know.
Is it my falcon's cries I hear
In the land where your spirits blow?
The tree is bare that hung before
With blossoms on our meeting-hill
When first upon your wings you bore
The trumpet echoes shrill.
The vales are lost in knee-deep snow.
Atop the battlements I stand
At morn and eve to watch below
For his standard o'er the land.
O coldest friend, send this, my word,
Across your frozen wastelands grim,
That I am swollen with his love
And bear its fruits for him,
That coward suitors arm themselves
With flattering words and cunning lies,
Lay plots to catch him unawares
And work his swift demise.
"Unhappy woman!" (Thus they speak.)
"Why weep and count the hours in vain?
His horse was found, by arrows downed,
And he is surely slain."
O tell him that by candlelight
I nightly read his sonnets dear
That once he penned for my delight
And played beneath my stair,
That sword and shield are cursèd things
When brandished far away from home,
That the Father treasures a wedding ring
Far more than the spoils of Rome.
These winter vigils drain my strength.
Fly! Fly, O love! Swift home to me!
And leave the scourge of England's men
To the fury of the sea!
O North wind! Dread avenging ghost,
In God's name, strike the foeman down!
That I may know again the kiss
For which I spurn the crown.
O maids, away! I'm all afire
With curses for the ways of men!
They rend the earth and leave to us
To make it whole again!
But yet I love him, like a mother
Loves a tall and valiant son,
That I'd forgive him any deed
If it was bravely done,
And when he laughs or cries or sings,
No honey is so pure or sweet,
And when he takes me in his arms,
Ah, how my heart does beat!
O wind! I'm cold! I shudder with
The dread of evil sorcery.
I feel his arms shall ne'er again
Restore my warmth to me.
The distant drums are closer now,
And torches light the smoky vale.
The ranks of men in disarray,
Their faces wan and pale.
In silence laced with gasp and groan,
They stumble ragged o'er the plain,
Bearing wounded on their shields
And wheeling carts of slain.
No banner flies among the men.
Still, trumpets from afar resound,
Like barking hounds and hunting horns
Will chase their quarry down.
What whispers cling upon your mane,
O North wind, stern and numbing friend?
Such words I hear, soft words of love,
That sadly speak: "The End".
George Chadderdon © 2011
Bio Notes On the Lady
I wrote these mainly for Christy-Lyn Marais, who will be singing this—in the abridged version shown below—but perhaps it would be of interest to readers as well.
First, I have to admit that when I wrote the first draft of the poem, I didn't do my homework on Irish history. I've gone to Wikipedia to do a bit of research to rectify this. I also did not have a particular historical lady in mind.
The setting is Medieval, but clearly after Christianity was established in Ireland because the lady is Roman Catholic, though she has something of a pagan vein in her faith because she is addressing and appealing to the North Wind rather than the Lord (though she sings “in God's name strike the foeman down” at one point). The Christian milieu must place the time of the poem after 432 A.D., when St. Patrick supposedly arrived on the island to spread Christianity to the pagan Irish.
There was a period of Viking invasion / influence on Ireland from about 800 – 1166. But probably the story would have taken place during the early Norman invasion of Ireland. Apparently, at that time, there were petty kingdoms duking it out for control of the whole island. King Henry II of England would have been the first to invade Ireland in 1171. It sounds like they took and held the eastern coast and were in dominion of Ireland, in large part, until maybe around the middle of the 1300s, after the Black Death swept Ireland and hit the more urban Normans and English especially hard.
So, the lady of the song would have been a noblewoman, we'll say a princess, of one of these petty pre-Norman-invasion kingdoms that was soon to fall under the shadow of Henry II's invasion. To my mind, it now makes most sense to say that the lady is in the castle of her father, probably a king himself of one of the petty kingdoms. Her true love, the one she pines for, is one of her father's knights. He has been sent by her father out to try to defend the coast from the English. Meanwhile, the lady has several suitors who are staying at her father's castle and attending his court. One of these includes a king of another of the petty kingdoms, and her father wants to marry her to him. (Christy-Lyn pointed out that the king might not be marrying off his daughter if she were known to be pregnant, but perhaps it is either not obvious with her, or alternatively, she only imagines in a hysterical way that she is carrying his child.) But his daughter is a strong-willed and passionate young woman and refuses to marry any of the suitors, so when they learn of her true love, they plot to have him murdered at first opportunity, but she learns of this through servants faithful to her.
Unfortunately, for them all, the Norman King Henry II is a formidable foe, and they are all doomed to fall: her knightly lover who will probably fall first, then her father and the suitors and other armed men of the household. I'm not sure if the English would actually kill her or merely enslave her in some way. It is possible, though, that she might take her own life rather than submit to her captors.
Song (Abridged Version) of Poem
Verse 1
O North wind! Sorrowing friend!
Pray, tell me what my heart would know.
Is it my falcon's cries I hear
In the land where your spirits blow?
The tree is bare that hung before
With blossoms on our meeting-hill
When first upon your wings you bore
The trumpet echoes shrill.
Verse 2
The vales are lost in knee-deep snow.
Atop the battlements I stand
At morn and eve to watch below
For his standard o'er the land.
O coldest friend, send this, my word,
Across your frozen wastelands grim,
That I am swollen with his love
And bear its fruits for him.
Verse 3
O tell him that by candlelight
I nightly read his sonnets dear
That once he penned for my delight
And played beneath my stair.
These winter vigils drain my strength.
Fly! Fly, O love! Swift home to me!
And leave the scourge of England's men
To the fury of the sea!
Verse 4
O maids, away! I'm all afire
With curses for the ways of men!
They rend the earth and leave to us
To make it whole again!
But yet I love him, like a mother
Loves a tall and valiant son,
That I'd forgive him any deed
If it was bravely done,
And when he laughs or cries or sings,
No honey is so pure or sweet,
And when he takes me in his arms,
Ah, how my heart does beat!
Verse 5
O wind! I'm cold! I shudder with
The dread of evil sorcery.
I feel his arms shall ne'er again
Restore my warmth to me.
The distant drums are closer now,
And torches light the smoky vale.
The ranks of men in disarray,
Their faces wan and pale.
Verse 6
No banner flies among the men.
Still, trumpets from afar resound,
Like barking hounds and hunting horns
Will chase their quarry down.
What whispers cling upon your mane,
O North wind, stern and numbing friend?
Such words I hear, soft words of love,
That sadly speak: "The End".