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2013-02-08

Risteárd de Buitléar: Is áille Íosa ná an chruinne

(Translated from the Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock) 

A poem from the early years of the sixteenth century. As his name suggests, the poet was of Norman stock. A note on the manuscript informs us that he composed it on his last day on earth. 

More beautiful than the world is Jesus

More beautiful than the world is Jesus
    lovelier than lily or rose;
delightful flower of Mary
    among us made abode.

Sweeter than sugar grains
    than honey dew on thorn
than the life-full balm of bees
    the One to us was born.

Whoever loves Jesus
    warmly deep inside,
no other love enters him
    until the last tide.

Jesus full of sweetness,
Jesus, Mary’s Son,
you fashioned every water meadow,
each smooth plain, each thorn.
Is áille Íosa ná an chruinne

Is áille Íosa ná an chruinne
    a’s ná bláth róis nó lile;
is tú, a bhláth chaomh ó Mhuire,
    a chuaigh i ngnáthghaol linne.

Is milse ná siúcra
    a’s ná drúcht meala muine
a’s ná míl bhríoch bheacha
    Íosa mór, Mac Mhuire.

Cibé a ghránn Íosa
    ina chroí go cluthar,
ní théann aon ghrá eile
    ann go deireadh an domhain.

A Íosa mhóir mhilis,
a Íosa, Mac Mhuire,
dhealbhaigh tú gach inis,
gach mínmhaigh, gach muine.