Page:Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry - Meyer.djvu/43

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Behind it was a well of wine,
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 lake of juicy pottage
Under a cream of oozy lard
Lay 'twixt it and the sea.
Hedges of butter fenced it round,
Under a crest of white-mantled 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:
Seven bead-strings and necklets seven
Of cheeses and of bits of tripe
Round each man's neck.

The Chief in cloak of beefy fat
Beside his noble wife and fair
I then beheld.
Below the lofty caldron's spit
Then the Dispenser I beheld,
His fleshfork on his back.

Wheatlet son of Milklet,
Son of juicy Bacon,
Is mine own name.

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