MEON is proud to present a translation of Óid (i Mheadracht Ársa) by Mihai Eminescu, a piece which showcases the national poet under the guise of a late romantic, lamenting his tortured heart as he compares it to the gods and heroes of old.

Pearse was deeply versed in this Platonic, mythopoetic mode of thinking. When he invoked the mythical hero Cuchulain as a symbol of Irish resistance, he made that ancient Gaelic champion a dynamic, live-action reality again. Cuchulain stalked indeed ‘through the Post Office’ and gave an extra, mythic edge to what otherwise might just have been another routine political uprising.

MEON is proud to present a translation of Nichita Stănescu's many "Ars Poetica" pieces, reminiscing on the powers of the file across cultures and time, written as he neared the end of his own life.

Without poetry fighting to keep Ireland's soul, we would have been subsumed by the English.

We'll wake the Harp of Tara's Hall
With music streams once more
And the birds shall ring with freedom
Throughout green Erin's shore.

My Irish isn’t clean, my grammar doesn’t gleam
In this soft light, but I still like
It’s punctuality, musicality, the spirituality with which we once spoke
My mother’s tongue was cut from my throat

On nations fixed in right and truth,
God would bestow eternal youth.

A hungry Gaelic chiefling in Ulster,

Whose blood with the Norseman's rotted in the rain on a heather hill:

These by the world's time were very recent

Forefathers of yours. And you are a maker of verses.

To lands where Faith's bright flag unfurled

By those who here have knelt

Shall give unto a newer world

The sceptre of the Celt.

'He Who is wrapped in purple robes,

With planets in His care,

Had pity on the least of things

Asleep upon a chair.

God of heaven, bless our banner—nerve our sinews for the strife!

Fight we now for all that's holy—for our altars, land and life—

For red vengeance on the spoiler, whom the blazing temples trace

For the honor of our maidens and the glory of our race!