‘Prisoners’ by Michael Hartnett

Brave

To keep as captive

one he loved, this wild woman

not so old, so many years

in quiet place,

unknown to all the town.

So her face was white as almond

pale as wax for lack of sunlight

blue skin by her eyes in etchings,

all her beauty now attainted,

all her loveliness unwanted.

Not to say his love was lessened,

no.  He came home to her same altar

at night, grey horse bore him to the threshold,

quiet rooms, where the woman sang her service,

sang to new gods, to the church of her invention

her own cloistered psalms, in her bishoped dress of scarlet.

For she built walls to keep God in,

and waiting there from eyes ahide

at night before her tearful face

at calm crossroads her child did raise,

her child into the secret world.

And she involved a secret Lord,

prayed the holy prayers she made herself,

and sang so: my Lord God is a human Lord,

not Lord of towns, but Lord of white horses, holy

of the hyacinth, the human Lord of light, of rain.

Yes, Lord of sacred anguish, hear

me, and speak in rain of trees: send

your holy fire to heat me. I

cry: my Lord of holy pain, hear.

House of slated roof was their house,

daylight knew no way to hound them out of peace:

the door was closed with iron chains

locked safe inside an open moat of water;

secret in their love they lived there:

the birch-hid dove was silk with peace.

– Michael Hartnett

This poem is vital in the Hartnett canon.  The poem, which he wrote in 1968, visits and explores a theme close to Hartnett’s heart.   It is later included as the title poem in his last collection in English before his now famous Farewell to English.  This was a limited-edition (250 copies) joint venture publication between Deerfield Press and Gallery Press that was published in 1977.  The publication includes two poems (Prisoners and Maiden Street Wake), and both poems are illustrated by Timothy Engelland.