A Celtic Psaltery Being Mainly Renderings in English Verse from Irish & Welsh Poetry — Themes and Context

From Pagan Wisdom to Christian Verse

The first group of Irish poems starts with conversations between King Cormac MacArt and his son Carbery, described by Graves as 'spiritualising the Early Irish.' These are followed by the 'Irish Triads,' pregnant ninth-century utterances that condense moral and practical wisdom into three-part sayings. The excerpts do not include the triads themselves, but the preface frames them as a bridge between pagan tradition and Christian teaching. Graves also includes poems attributed to saints Patrick, Columba, Brigit, and Moling, alongside lays of monks and hermits. The tone is often cheerful and open-air, with a 'kindly humour' that Graves highlights as characteristic of early Irish religious poetry.

Apocalyptic Imagery and Cosmic Upheaval

Several Welsh poems in the collection employ vivid apocalyptic imagery. In 'The Day of Judgment,' the speaker describes a cataclysm where 'rocks in that day's black fury / Like leaves shall be whirled in the blast' and 'Ocean, in turmoil upboiling, / Confounding each bound of earth.' The poem compares this deluge to Noah's flood, calling it 'naught by that fell Flood's girth.' Similarly, 'The Destruction of Jerusalem' depicts the Temple 'leaning low' with 'flame follows flame, each like a giant worm, / To feast and batten on her beauteous form.' These passages share a pattern of natural elements—rocks, sea, fire—acting as agents of divine judgment, with the sun and moon themselves suffering eclipse and anguish.

Domestic Virtue and Hymnic Praise

Contrasting with the apocalyptic poems, 'A Good Wife' (after the Vicar Pritchard) extols practical virtues: 'Wise yokel foolish King excelleth; / Good name than spikenard sweeter smelleth!' The poem values a wife who is 'true and kind and sunny' above wealth, calling her a 'hundred-virtued amulet.' This domestic focus appears alongside hymns like 'Marchog Jesu!' sung at the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, which calls on Christ to 'ride on in triumph glorious' and 'shatter all the gates of Babel.' The hymn's refrain of 'freedom surging forward' echoes the political context of the dedication to David Lloyd George, who 'scaled the Peak and seen the Vision / Of Freedom, breaking into birth / From out an agonising Earth.'

Graves's collection offers a window into how early 20th-century translators approached Celtic religious poetry, blending fidelity to originals with a Victorian lyrical style. Readers attentive to the preface's claims about 'cheerful spirituality' may find the apocalyptic Welsh poems a striking counterpoint. The book rewards those interested in the intersection of folk tradition, hymnody, and national identity during the First World War period.

Leafing through A Celtic Psaltery, I keep lingering on those triads—their odd, cheerful wisdom feels like sunlight through old glass. It makes me think of my battered copy of 1914, and Other Poems — A Reader’s Guide, how both hold a world turning between something ancient and something unbearably new. Wistful, really, how lightly they carry that weight.