{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75529/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75529","id":"gutenberg_75529","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75529","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","English poetry -- Irish authors"],"text":"DEIRDRE WED\n\n AND OTHER POEMS\n\n\n\n\n WILT THOU ADVENTURE ON THE GULFS OF MORNING?\n COME, THEN, AND SUFFER THESE\n SELF-MUTTERING CITIES THAT HAVE LOST HORIZONS\n TO SINK BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS AND THE TREES.\n\n\n\n\n DEIRDRE WED\n AND OTHER POEMS\n\n\n BY\n\n HERBERT TRENCH\n\n[Illustration: [Logo]]\n\n METHUEN & CO.\n 36 ESSEX STREET, STRAND\n LONDON\n 1901\n\n\n\n\n _Copyrighted in the United States of America_\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n\n DEIRDRE WED\u2014\n PAGE\n 1. _The Chanters_ 3\n 2. _Fintan_ 5\n 3. _Cir_ 16\n 4. _Urmael_ 31\n 5. _Fintan_ 53\n Ode on a Silver Birch 59\n A Charge 64\n Song for the Funeral of a Boy 66\n Come, let us make love deathless 69\n Claviers at Night 70\n The Man Digging 75\n Schiehallion 76\n The Shell 78\n The Rock of Cloud 79\n She comes not when Noon is on the roses 85\n The Night 86\n Maurya\u2019s Song 88\n Tired with the day\u2019s monotony 90\n You were stay\u2019d in heart on heaven 91\n The Bloom 92\n In the Roman Amphitheatre, Verona 94\n A Winter Song 95\n The Nutter 97\n Shakespeare 101\n\n Notes 104\n\n\n\n\n DEIRDRE WED\n\n\n I\n THE CHANTERS\n\n I\n _I stood on the Hill of Time when the sun was fled\n And my vision sought where to rest, till it knew the plains\n Of my country, the Night\u2019s harp, and the moonless bed\n Of rivers and bristling forests and sea-board chains._\n\n\n II\n\n _And from many a chanter\u2019s mound\u2014none is nameless there\u2014\n Could I hear, amid rumour eternal, the voice ascend:\n With the bones of man endureth his floating hair\n And the song of his spirit on earth is slow to end._\n\n\n III\n\n _Speak to me, speak to me, Fintan, dark in the south,\n From the west Urmael, and Cir, lying under the pole,\n Some chant that ye made, who never spake mouth to mouth,\n But over the ridge of ages from soul to soul._\n\n\n IV\n\n _And a strain came out of Dun Tulcha, the yews\u2019 shores,\n From Fintan, the elder than yews, the too old for tears,\n \u201cLet us tell him of Deirdre wed, that his heart\u2019s doors\n Resound, as when kings arrive, with the trees of spears.\u201d_\n\n\n II\n VOICE OF FINTAN _out of the First Century_,\n\n O Sightless and rare-singing brotherhood!\n It was the night of marriage. Word had sped,\n Tokens gone out to every rath and ring\n And every pasture on the woody knolls\n Green about Eman, of the slaughter blithe\n Of sheep and boar, of badger and of stag,\n Reddening the ways up to the kingly house\u2014\n Of sheep and goats and of the stintless food\n That should be poured out to his beggary\n By Connachar, that all time should remember\n The night he wed the girl from the elf-mound.\n Yonside of Assaroe the swineherd found her\n Bred in a peaty hillock of the west\n By some old crone. Though tribeless she and wild\u2014\n Barefoot, and in the red wool chasing cattle\u2014\n Connachar saw and took, biding his time,\n And let queens give her skill the winter long\n In webs and brews and dyes and broideries\n Up to this night of marriage.\n\n Fabulous,\n O friends, and dark, and mighty, was his house,\n The beam-work in its dome of forest trunks\u2014\n They that had been the chantries of the dawn\n To blacken songless through a thousand years:\u2014\n But never since they sway\u2019d buds in the glens\n Or spun the silken-floating violet gleam\n Had those spars groan\u2019d above so fierce a breath\n Rich with the vapour of the boar. For now\n Hundreds with ruddy-glistening faces ran\n Jostling round the nine shadows of the blaze\n And spread with skins the lengthy beds of men\n And soused warm spice of herbs in ale. Here\u2014thither\u2014\n Was rousing of age-slumber\u2019d horns, arranging\n Smooth banks throughout the house, strawing of rushes,\n And cauldrons humm\u2019d before the empty throne\n Set high in the shadow of the wall, and bubbled\n Inaudible, impatient for the king.\n\n But while outside the black roof on the mount\n Outwafted was the gold divinity\n On swooning wings, the Lake of Pearls far down\n Curdled beneath the unseen seed of rain.\n Ramparts run there that misty prisoners\n Bore once in bags of slime up from the lake\n For barriers of the house they most abhorr\u2019d.\n And on the hill-side, where that rampart old\n Dips lowest to the lakeward, Deirdre stood,\n Hearing from distant ridges the faint bleat\n Of lambs perturb the dusk\u2014bleats shivering out\n Like wool from thorns\u2014there the young Deirdre stood,\n Even she whose climbing beauty pales the world,\n Looking far off on hills whence she was come.\n Mountains that lift the holiness of Fire!\n Fortitudes, ye that take the brunt of fate!\n Send her across the bog a little cloud\n Full of the ancient savours, full of peace,\n And for its drops she will hold up her heart,\n O ye that stand in heaven, far removed!\n She ask\u2019d aloud, Wherefore were greens so bare\n That but an hour ago shook with the thud\n Of racers and of hurlers? Was it late?\n The wrinkled nurse replied, Had the child eyes?\n Back from a hosting and a desperate prey\n For corn and mares and rustless brass and beeves\n Naois, with the rest of Usnach\u2019s sons,\n Had come. She had seen him weary go but now\n Heavily up the steep through the king\u2019s hedge.\n Now on the hill-top while the woman spoke\n So chanced it. Hanging on the young man\u2019s lips\n The hosts sway\u2019d round him, and above the press\n Connachar, glittering all in torques of gold\n And writhen armlets, listen\u2019d from the mound\n Of judgment, by the doom-oak at his door.\n His beak\u2019d helm took the sunset, but he held\n His flint-red eyes in shadow and averse.\n And when before him, dark as a young pine,\n Unmoved the son of Usnach had told all;\n How half his folk had perish\u2019d in the task\n By plague or battle, and how poor a spoil\n Was driven home, the king cried, Paragon!\n We must go griddle cakes in honey for him,\n Bring lavers of pale gold to wash off blood\n So precious to us; since for many moons\n This champion had forsworn the face of softness\n And stretch\u2019d his hungers to the sleety rock,\n Call in the smile of women to unlatch\n From his grim ribs the iron:\u2014Faugh! Away!\n Let Usnach\u2019s sons take out again that night\n Their broken clans, their piteous cattle thence;\n Defeated men should see his gates no more.\n\n The son of Usnach turn\u2019d and went. He ran\n Down hill and to the loch to wash his wounds\n Chanting\u2014his dark curls waver\u2019d in the wind\u2014\n Chanting he strode, tossing a brace of spears,\n Lest we should think him humbled. Half-way down\n The shapes of women loiter\u2019d in the dusk\n And one held backward out her arms to take\n The latchets of a cloak. But as Naois\n Pass\u2019d by them, closely as is heard a sigh\u2014\n His vehement flood of soul fierce for the mere\u2014\n Glancing not right nor left, O then I saw\n The foot of Deirdre stricken motionless\u2014\n I saw the stiff cloak many-colour\u2019d sink\n Slow to the grass, wrinkling its blazon\u2019d skins\n Behind her.\n\n Gloom suck\u2019d in the banqueters;\n And from the warmth of drinking at his feast\n Connachar sent forth to the women\u2019s house;\n And heralds bade bring also the gray seer\n Cathva, though Cathva had not will\u2019d to come.\n But hardly had those erranders gone out\n When rose the door-hide: the gray seer came in\n Noiseless. He was of fog the night hath spun,\n Earth in his hair and on his meagre cheek,\n Consumed and shaking, ragged as seaweed,\n And to the throne he cried: \u201cWhy hast thou called\n Me to carousal? Is this bed my work?\n Nay\u2014too great clearness underneath the thunder\n Shew\u2019d insupportably the things to be.\n Too long have I, with glamours, drops and runes,\n Shook round her cabin low my skirts of storm\n To shield thee from that devastating face.\n My fault is only that I slew her not.\n Know! it was I that, seeing those cradled limbs\n Bright with disaster for the realm and thee,\n Flung her away among sea-warding mountains.\n But Muilr\u00e9a to Ben Gorm said: _What is this?\n What glee is this disturbs our desolation?\n I hear another than the wild duck sheering\n Sidelong the wind. Tall as a rush is she,\n Sweet as the glitter of the netted lakes!_\n And Ben Gorm answer\u2019d: _We are sick alone:\n Let us distil the heavens into a child:\n Yea, let our bones appear, the black goat starve\n Upon our heads, yet shall this wafted seed\n Superabound with ripeness we forego.\n Dark space shall come to heart\u2014silver of mists\u2014\n And thou, blue depth of gorges!_ Connachar,\n I heard the plotters, but I let her live.\u201d\n And the king ask\u2019d: \u201cHath any seen her there?\u201d\n And Cathva answer\u2019d, \u201cTill thy servant found her\n She knew not that men were.\u201d Then Connachar\n Commanded yet again: \u201cBring us in Deirdre.\u201d\n Straightway a woman like the claw of birds,\n Decrepit, bright of eye, and innocent,\n Stood up beyond the fire. Her fingers play\u2019d\u2014\n Play\u2019d with a red stone at her breast. He ask\u2019d\n \u201cWho gave thee, hag, the jewel of thy bosom?\u201d\n Now every drinker from the darkest stalls\n Perceived the brooch was Deirdre\u2019s, and a gift\n To her from Connachar. Aghast, the woman\n Fumbled at her sere breast, and wept and said:\n \u201cIt was a gift to me, O Connachar,\n This night.\u201d And he, consummate lord of fear,\n Our never-counsell\u2019d lord, the Forest-odour\u2019d,\n That kept about his heart a zone of chill,\n Smiled, though within the gateway of his fort\n A surmise crept, as \u2019neath a load of rushes\n Creeps in the stabber. \u201cFix the pin, Levarcham,\n For she that loses such a brooch will grieve.\n Why comes not Deirdre?\u201d \u201cSir, she is not yet\n Duly array\u2019d, and so is loth to come.\u201d\n O, then, believe me, all the floor was hush,\n But a mad discordancy like fifes, drums, brasses,\u2014\n Bondmen of old wars on the winds released\u2014\n Shook every beam and pillar of the house;\n And the king said\u2014\u201cThou hear\u2019st out of the marsh\n Scream of my stallions mounting on the gale?\u201d\n And she said \u201cYea.\u201d \u201cThou knowest round these walls\n How many chariots now are tilted up?\u201d\n And she said \u201cYea.\u201d \u201cThen, woman, bring with haste\n Deirdre, thy charge, into this presence now\n Or limb from limb upon the pleasant grass\n Those wheels shall parcel thee at dawn.\u201d And she\n Lifted her hands and closed her eyes and sang,\n \u201cShe will come back, but I, I shall not bring her!\n O rainbow breathed into the dreadful pine,\n Why art thou gone from me? Dearer to me\n Than the sobbing of the cuckoo to the shore\n Why art thou gone from me?\u201d She bow\u2019d and wept.\n And Connachar came from the throne, and grasping\n As if he felt no heat, the cauldron\u2019s brims\n Lean\u2019d through its steams, watching the nurse and said,\n \u201cWill these afflicting tears bring Deirdre in?\u201d\n But she look\u2019d up and said: \u201cHow shall I bring her?\n Look now outside thy door, O Connachar!\n The black oak with the vision-dripping boughs\n Whose foot is in thy fathers\u2019 blood of pride\n Stagger\u2019d as I came up in the night-blast.\n In vain it stretches angers to the sky:\n It cannot keep the white moon from escape\n To sail the tempest; nor, O king, canst thou!\u201d\n The cheek of him that listen\u2019d grew thrice-pale\n And his thick nostrils swell\u2019d, his half-shut eyes\n Fang\u2019d sheen, and slow dilated; stubbornly\n He clutch\u2019d to steady his convulsive frame\n The sea-full cauldron; quick, with efforts vast,\n Upheaved and swung and pillar\u2019d it on high\u2014\n And hoarsely bade \u201cTake torches.\u201d Every man\n Kindled in silence at the hearth divine.\n Then Connachar pour\u2019d out upon the blaze\n The flood within the vat. The roofs were fill\u2019d\n With darkness foul, with hissings and with smoke....\n\n\n III\n VOICE OF CIR _out of a Century more remote_, _but unknown_,\n\n As a horseman breaks on a sea-gulf enwomb\u2019d in the amber woods\n Where tide is at ebb, and out on the airy brim\n Glass\u2019d upon cloud and azure stand multitudes\n Of the flame-white people of gulls\u2014to the sky-line dim\n\n All breast to the sun,\u2014and his hoofs expand the desolate strait\n Into fevers of snows and ocean-wandering cries:\n Even so, chanters divine, in some woman\u2019s fate\n At coming of him to be loved do her dreams arise.\n\n And Deirdre the exquisite virgin pale as the coat of swans\n Took the flame of love in her heart at the time of dew\n\n And clad her in ragged wool from a coffer of bronze\n And walked in the chill of night, for her soul was new.\n\n \u201cWhy thick with the berries of sweetness, ye barren thorns of the\n spring?\n I could drink up this tempest cold as a burning wine.\n Why laugh, my grief, for art thou not bride of a king,\n And the drinkers drink to a couch array\u2019d to be thine?\u201d\n\n Where the wounded toss without sleep in the warrior\u2019s hive of stones\u2014\n The house Bron Bhearg\u2014she laid her cheek to the wall\n And bless\u2019d them by stealth, with no pang at the sound of groans\n Having that in her rich heart which could heal them all.\n\n To the fortress-gate on the steep that looketh toward Creeve Roe\n She fled, and spied not a sling-cast off the flare\n Of a torch, and the skull fixed over the gate. And lo,\n To the right hand watchmen paced by the water there.\n\n And the shag-hair\u2019d guard, with a mock, laid spears in their passage\n house\n Athwart, for who was this phantom over the grass\n Like a filcher of food? And Deirdre uncover\u2019d her brows\n And cried: \u201cI am Deirdre!\u201d And sullen they gave her the pass.\n\n And towards Creeve Roe the dip of the cuckoo\u2019s vale was dark\n To blindness. She pluck\u2019d her steps on that miry road\n Through copses alive with storm, till at length a spark\n Shew\u2019d the forge where the smith on the heroes\u2019 way abode.\n\n Now Culann the smith was wise; and leaping her spirit stirr\u2019d\n With the soft roar of his hide-wing\u2019d fire as it soar\u2019d:\n \u201cHas the son of Usnach pass\u2019d?\u201d \u201cYea, gone back!\u201d With the word\n He smote on a ribbon of iron to make him a sword.\n\n And the argentine din of anvils behind her steadily dwindling\n The woman fled to the wastes, till she came to a Thorn\n Black, by the well of a God, with stars therein kindling\n And over it rags fluttering from boughs forlorn.\n\n And she knelt and shore with a knife a lock of her deathless hair,\n And leash\u2019d the black-shuddering branch with that tress, and pray\u2019d:\n \u201cSloe-tree, thou snow of the darkness, O hear my prayer,\n And thou, black Depth, bubble-breather, vouchsafe thine aid;\n\n \u201cFrom Connachar\u2019s eyes of love let me hide as a gray mole,\n Sons of the earth\u2019s profound, that no weeper spurn!\n I have look\u2019d on a face, and its kindness ravish\u2019t my soul\n But deliverance pass\u2019d; unto you for escape I turn.\u201d\n\n And loud as the sloven starlings in winter whistle and swarm\n Came the banish\u2019d of Usnach nigh, thrice fifty strong\n As they drove from Eman away on that night of storm\n And Naois spoke with his brothers behind the throng:\n\n \u201cO, Aillean, O, Ardan, hark! What cry was that? For some cry\n Rang on my soul\u2019s shield; hark! hear ye it now?\u201d\n But they rein\u2019d not their weary chariots, shouting reply\n \u201cIt was fate,\u2019twas the curs\u2019t hag that is crouch\u2019d on a bough!\u201d\n\n Tossing they drove out of sight, Naois the last, and his hood\n Rain-dripping mantled the wind. One ran like a roe,\n And call\u2019d on that great name from the nightbound wood,\n \u201cStay, long-awaited, stay! for with thee I go!\u201d\n\n And his brothers cried \u201cHalt not! the host of the air makes moan\n Or a gang of the wild geese going back to the lake.\u201d\n But Naois rear\u2019d up the deep-ribb\u2019d Sr\u014dn, \u201cGood Sr\u014dn,\n Thou and I needs must turn for our fame\u2019s sake.\u201d\n\n And he heard a voice: \u201cSon of Usnach, take me to be thy wife!\u201d\n He bent from the withers, the blaze of her trembling drew\n The breath from his lips and the beat from his heart\u2019s life;\n And he said, \u201cWho art thou, Queen?\u201d But himself knew,\n\n And mutter\u2019d \u201cReturn, return, unto him that I hate. For know\n Him least of all I rob, least of all that live.\u201d\n But she cried: \u201cAm I then a colt, that ye snare from a foe\n With a bridle\u2019s shaking? I am mine own to give.\u201d\n\n \u201cThy beauty would crumble away in the spate of my wild nights,\n And famine rake out thine embers, the lean paw\n Of jeopardy find thee. He is not rich in delights\n Whose harp is the gray fell in the winter\u2019s flaw.\u201d\n\n And she laid her arm round the neck of Sr\u014dn: \u201cHast heard,\n Horse swollen-vein\u2019d from battle, insulter of death\u2014\n Whose back is only a perch for the desert bird\u2014\n Whose fore-hooves fight\u2014whose passage is torn with teeth,\n\n \u201cAnd dost thou not shudder off the knees of a master deaf\n To the grief of the weak?\u201d And the lad, deeply-moved, rejoins\n \u201cMount then, O woman, behind me,\u201d\u2014and light as a leaf\n Drawing her up from his foot to the smoking loins\n\n Shook loose the ox-hide bridle. Even as the great gull dives\n From Muilr\u00e9a\u2019s moon-glittering peak when the sky is bare,\n Scraped naked by nine days\u2019 wind, and sweepingly drives\n Overnight-blurr\u2019d gulfs and the long glens of the air,\n\n And feels up-tossing his breast an exhaustless breath bear on\n Spouted from isleless ocean to aid his flight\u2014\n So fiercely, so steadily gallop\u2019d the sinewy Sr\u014dn,\n Braced by that double burden to more delight.\n\n Though his mane wrapp\u2019d a wounded bridle-hand, fast, fast\n As giddy foam-weltering waters dash\u2019d by the hoof\n Flee away from the weirs of Callan, even so pass\u2019d\n Dark plains away to the world\u2019s edge, behind and aloof.\n\n And the rider stoop\u2019d and whisper\u2019d amidst the thunder of weirs\n Such sweetness of praise to his horse in the swirl of the flood\n That Sr\u014dn twitch\u2019d back for an instant his moon\u00ebd ears\u2014\n Strain\u2019d forth like a hare\u2019s,\u2014as his haunches up to the wood\n\n Wrested them. Beaks of magic, the wreckage of time, came out\n And talon\u2019d things of the forest would waft and sway\n But Naois raised unforgotten that battle-shout\n That scatters the thrilling wreath of all fears away.\n\n So they measured the Plain of the Dreamers, the Brake of the Black Ram,\n Till the Crag of the Dances before them did shape and loom.\n And the Meads of the Faery Hurlers in silver swam\n Then up to the Gap of the Winds, and the far-seen tomb\n\n White on Slieve Fuad\u2019s side. By many a marchland old\n And cairn of princes\u2014yea, to mine own bedside\u2014\n They adventured. Think ye, sweet bards, that I could lie cold\n When my chamber of rock fore-knew that impassion\u2019d stride?\n\n Had I, too, not pluck\u2019d the webs of rain-sweet drops from the harp\n And torn from its wave of chords an imperishable love\n To sleep on this breast? Here, through the mountain sharp\n My grave-chamber tunnell\u2019d is, and one door from above\n\n Westward surveys green territories, gentle with flowers and charm,\n But forth from the eastern face of the ridge is unquell\u2019d\n Wilderness, besown with boulders and grass of harm.\n And even in my trance could I feel those riders approach and beheld\n\n Naois assault the ridge, to the wilderness setting his face\n Expectant, unconscious, as one whom his foes arouse;\n His heart was a forge\u2014his onset enkindled space\u2014\n He shook off the gusty leagues like locks from his brows.\n\n What should he reck of Earth save that under his wounds he felt\n Stolen round him, as dreamy water steals round a shore,\n A girdle, the arms of Deirdre, clasp\u2019d for a belt\n That terror of main kings should unlock no more?\n\n I was caught from the grave\u2019s high gate as that spume-flaked ecstacy\n drew\n Upward, and wing\u2019d like the kiss of Aengus, strove\n For utterance to greet them\u2014encircling their heads that flew\u2014\n But who loops the whirlwind\u2019s foot or out-dreameth love?\n\n He wheel\u2019d round Sr\u014dn on the crest. Abrupt he flung back a hand\n And spoke, \u201cDost thou know the truth? Look where night is low!\n Soon the ants of that mound shall shake the ledge where we stand:\n Now the tribes are summon\u2019d, the Night prepares his blow.\n\n \u201cNow wrath spurts, hot from the trumpet\u2014the main beacon flares\u2014\n Now tackle the arrogant chariots\u2014dogs in their glee\n Hang on the leash-slaves, numb in the cockcrow airs.\n Why, out of all that host, hast thou singled me?\u201d\n\n I heard her behind him breathe, \u201cBecause out of all that host\n Aptest art thou in feats, held in honour more\n Than any save bright Cuchullain.\u201d[1] He turn\u2019d as one lost,\n \u201cIs this time a time to mock? Are there not fourscore\n\n \u201cBetter at feats than I, my masters, the noble teams,\n The attemper\u2019d knights of the Red Branch every one?\n Nay, though I knead up the whole earth in my dreams,\n Nought to such men am I, who have nothing done.\u201d\n\n I heard the blowings of Sr\u014dn, and then lasting words: \u201cI choose\n Thee\u2014wherefore? Ah, how interpret? To-day on the slope\n Where first by the wall I saw thee at gloam of dews\n I knew it was fated. It was not some leaf of hope\n\n Eddying. Thou wast the token\u2014half of the potter\u2019s shard\u2014\n That a chief beleaguer\u2019d cons in his desperate camp\n Pass\u2019d in by some hand unseen to the outmost guard,\n And fits to the other half by his wasted lamp.\n\n \u201cSeeing thee, I knew myself to be shaped of the self-same clay\u2014\n Half of the symbol\u2014and broken, mayhap, to serve\n As language to them of the night from powers of the day.\u201d\n By the Path of the throbbing Curlew no step may swerve\n\n Where they rode through the Gap; and at last she murmur\u2019d, \u201cDost grieve\n at me still?\u201d\n And he said, \u201cGlorious is it to me that behind us pursuit\n Shall be wide as the red of the morning, for thou art my will!\n To the beach of the world of the dead, and beyond it to boot,\n\n \u201cLet me take and defend thee.\u201d In silence the hearts of the twain were\n screen\u2019d,\u2014\n But crossing the mires and the torrents I saw strange ease\n Afloat, like a spark, on the woman\u2019s eyes as she lean\u2019d\n Forth, and a shadow betwixt her lips like peace.\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n Pronounced Cuhoollin.\n\n\n IV\n VOICE OF URMAEL _out of the Sixth Century_\n\n The slender Hazels ask\u2019d the Yew like night\n Beside the river-green of Lisnacaun\n \u201cWho is this woman beautiful as light\n Sitting in dolour on thy branch\u00e9d lawn;\n With sun-red hair, entangled as with flight,\n Sheening the knees up to her bosom drawn?\n What horses mud-besprent so thirstily\n Bellying the hush pools with their nostrils wide?\u201d\n And the Yew old as the long mountain-side\n Answer\u2019d, \u201cI saw her hither with Clan Usnach ride.\u201d\n\n \u201cCome, love, and climb with me Findruim\u2019s woods\n Alone,\u201d Naois pray\u2019d. Through broom and bent\n Strown with swift-travelling shadows of their moods,\n Leaving below the camp\u2019s thin cries, they went.\n And never a tress, escaping from her snoods,\n Made the brown river with a kiss content,\n So safe he raised up Deirdre through the ford.\n Thanks, piteous Gods, that no fore-boding gave,\n He should so bear her after to the grave,\n Breasting the druid ice, breasting the phantom wave.\n\n \u201cO, bear me on,\u201d she breathed, \u201cfor ever so!\u201d\n And light as notes the Achill shepherd plays\n On his twin pipes they wanton\u2019d, light and slow,\n Up the broad valley. Birds sail\u2019d from the haze\n Far up, where darkling copses over-grow\n Scarps of the gray cliff from his river\u2019d base.\n Diaphaneity, the spirit\u2019s beauty,\n Along the dimn\u00e9d coombes did float and reign,\n And many a mountain\u2019s scarry flank was plain\n Through nets of youngling gold betrimm\u2019d with rain.\n\n But when an upward space of grass\u2014so free\u2014\n So endless\u2014beckon\u2019d to the realms of wind\n Deirdre broke from his side, and airily\n Fled up the slopes, flinging disdains behind,\n And paused, and round a little vivid tree\n The wolf-skins from her neck began to bind.\n Naois watch\u2019d below this incantation;\n Then upward on his javelin\u2019s length he swung\n To catch some old crone\u2019s ditty freshly sung,\n Bidding that shoot be wise, for yet \u2019twas young.\n\n With gaze in gaze, thus ever up and on\n Roved they unwitting of the world out-roll\u2019d,\n Their ears dinn\u2019d by the breeze\u2019s clarion\n That quicks the blood while yet the cheek is cold;\n Great whitenesses rose past them\u2014brooks ran down\u2014\n And step by step Findruim bare and bold\n Uplifted. So a swimmer is uplifted\n Horsed on a streaming shoulder of the Sea\u2014\n Our hasty master, who to such as we\n Tosses some glittering hour of mastery.\n\n They heard out of the zenith swoop and sting\n Feathery voices, keen and soft and light:\n \u201c_Mate ye as eagles mate, that on the wing\n Grapple\u2014heaven-high\u2014hell-deep, for yours is flight!\n Souls like the granite candles of a king\n Flaming unshook amid the noise of night\n What of pursuit, that you to-day shouldst fear it?_\u201d\n Pursuit they reck\u2019d not, save of wind that pours\n Surging and urging on to other shores\n Over the restless forest of a thousand doors.\n\n \u201cDeirdre,\u201d he cried, \u201cthe blowing of thy hair\n Is of the clouds that everlasting stream\n Forth from the castles of those islands rare\n Black in the ragged-misted ocean\u2019s gleam\n And glimpsed by Iceland galleys as they fare\n Northward!\u201d But in her bosom\u2019s open seam\n She set the powder\u2019d yew-sprig silently;\n \u201cSpeak not of me nor give my beauty praise,\n Whose beauty is to follow in thy ways\n So that my days be number\u2019d with thy days.\u201d\n\n In the high pastures of that boundless place\n Their feet wist not if they should soar or run\n They turned, at earth astonish\u2019d, face to face\n Deeming unearthly blessedness begun.\n And slow, mid nests of running larks, they pace\n Drinking from the recesses of the sun\n Tremble of those wings that beat light into music.\n There the world\u2019s ends lay open: open wide\n The body\u2019s windows. What shall them divide\n Who have walk\u2019d once that country side by side?\n\n She mused, \u201cO why doth happiness too much\n Fountains of blood and spirit seem to fill?\n The woods, over-flowing, cannot bear that such\n An hour should be so sweet and yet be still:\n Even the low-tangled bushes at a touch\n Break into wars of gleemen, thrill on thrill.\n O son of Usnach, bring me not thy glories!\n Bring me defeats and shames and secret woe;\n That where no brother goeth I may go\n And kneel to wash thy wounds in caverns bleak and low!\u201d\n\n \u201cHere, up in sight of the far shine of sea,\n (He sang) once after hunting, by the fire\n I knelt, and kindling brushwood raised up thee,\n Deirdre, nor wist the star of my desire\n Should ever walk Findruim\u2019s head with me\n Far from a king\u2019s loud house and soft attire.\n Fain would I thatch us here a booth of hazels,\n Thatch it with drift and snow of sea-gulls\u2019 wings:\n And thy horn\u2019d harp should wonder to its strings\n _What spoil is it to-night Naois brings?_\u201d\n\n \u201cListen,\u201d quoth he, when scarce those words were gone\n (A neck of the bare down it was, a ledge\n Of wind-sleek turf, the lovers roam\u2019d upon\n And sent young rabbits scuttling to the edge\n Of underwoods beneath) \u201cI think that yon\n Some beast\u2014haply a stag\u2014takes harbourage.\u201d\n And Deirdre at a word come back from regions\n Of bliss too close to pain, snatch\u2019d with no fear\n Out of his hand the battle-haunted spear\n And, questing swiftly down the pasture sheer,\n\n Enter\u2019d the yew\u2019s black vault: therein profound\n Green-litten air, and there as seeking fresh\n Enemies, one haunch crush\u2019d against the ground\n The grey boar slew\u2019d, tusking the tender flesh\n Of shoots, his ravage-whetted bulk around:\n But when his ear across the straggling mesh\n Of feather\u2019d sticks report of Deirdre found\n He quiver\u2019d, snorted; from his jaws like wine\n Foam dripp\u2019d; along the horror of his spine\n The bristles grew up like a ridge of pine.\n\n Mortals, the maiden deem\u2019d that guise a mask\u2014\n Believed that in that beast sate to ensnare\n He of the red eye\u2014little need to ask\n The druid-wrinkled hide, the sluttish hair:\n This was to escape\u2014how vain poor passion\u2019s task!\u2014\n Connachar of the illimitable lair!\n He crash\u2019d at her; she heaved the point embrown\u2019d\n In blood of dragons. Heavily the boar\n Grazed by the iron, reel\u2019d, leapt, charged once more\n And thrice in passage her frail vesture tore.\n\n As when a herd-boy lying on the scar\n (Who pipes to flocks below him on the steep\n Melodies like their neckbells, scattering far,\n Cool as the running water, soft as sleep)\n Hurls out a flint from peril to debar\n And from the boulder\u2019d chasm recall his sheep\u2014\n So with a knife Naois leapt and struck.\n Strange, in the very fury of a stride\n The grey beast like a phantom from his side\n Plunged without scathe to thickets undescried.\n\n Naois sheathed his iron with no stain\n And laugh\u2019d \u201cThis shall be praised in revels mad\n Around Lug\u2019s peak, when women scatter grain\n Upon the warriors. Why shouldst thou be sad\n Pale victory?\u201d But she, \u201cAh, thus again\n Ere night do I imperil thee, and add\n Burden to burden.\u201d And he strove to lead her\n From grief, and said \u201cWhat, bride! thy raiment torn?\u201d\n \u201cContent thee, O content thee, man of scorn,\n I\u2019ll brooch it with no jewel but a thorn!\u201d\n\n They seek down through the Wood of Awe that hems\n Findruim, like the throng about his grave,\n Dusk with the swarth locks of ten thousand stems\n In naked poise. These make no rustle save\n Some pine-cone dropt, or murmur that condemns\n Murmur; bedumb\u2019d with moss that giant nave.\n But let Findruim shake out overhead\n His old sea-sigh, and when it doth arrive\n At once their tawny boles become alive\n With flames that come and go, and they revive\n\n The north\u2019s Fomorian roar.\u2014\u201cI am enthrall\u2019d,\u201d\n He said, \u201cas by the blueness of a ray\n That, dropping through this presence sombre-wall\u2019d\n Burns low about the image of a spray\u2014\n Of some poor beech-spray witch\u2019d to emerald.\n Wilt thou not dance, daughter of heaven, to-day\n Free, at last free? For here no moody raindrop\n Can reach thee, nor betrayer overpeer;\n And none the self-delightful measure hear\n That thy soul moves to, quit of mortal ear.\u201d\n\n Full loth she pleads, yet cannot him resist\n And on the enmoss\u00e9d lights begins to dance.\n Away, away, far-floating like a mist,\n To fade into some leafy brilliance;\n Then, smiling to the inward melodist,\n Over the printless turf with slow advance\n Of showery footsteps, makes she infinite\n That crowded glen. But quick, possess\u2019d by strange\n Rapture, wider than dreams her motions range\n Till to a span the forests shrink and change.\n\n And in her eyes and glimmering arms she brings\n Hither all promise,\u2014all the unlook\u2019d-for boon\n Of rain-bow\u2019d life\u2014all rare and speechless things\n That shine and swell under the brimming Moon.\n Who shall pluck tympans? For what need of strings\n To waft her blood who is herself the tune\u2014\n Herself the warm and breathing melody?\n Art come from the Land of the Ever-Young? O stay!\n For his heart, after thee rising away,\n Falls dark and spirit-faint back to the clay.\n\n Griefs, like the yellow leaves by winter curl\u2019d,\n Rise after her\u2014long-buried pangs arouse\u2014\n About that bosom the grey forests whirl\u2019d,\n And tempests with her beauty might espouse,\u2014\n She rose with the green waters of the world\n And the winds heaved with her their depth of boughs.\n Then vague again as blows the beanfield\u2019s odour\n On the dark lap of air she chose to sink,\n As, winnowing with plumes, to the river-brink\n The pigeons from the cliff come down to drink.\n\n Sudden distraught, shading her eyes, she ceased,\n Listening, like bride whom cunning faery strain\n Forth from the trumpet-bruited spousal feast\n Steals. But she beckon\u2019d soon, and quick with pain\n He ran, he craved at those white feet the least\n Pardon; nor, till he felt her hand again\n Descend flake-soft, durst spy that she was weeping\n Or kneel with burning murmurs to atone.\n For sleep she wept. Long fasting had they gone\n And ridden from the breaking of the dawn.\n\n It chanced that waters, nigh to that selve grove,\n From Sleep\u2019s own lake as from a cauldron pass;\n He led towards their sound his weary love\n And lay before her in the fresh of grass\n Resting\u2014the white cirque of the cliffs above\u2014\n Against a sun-abandon\u2019d stem there was.\n Spray from the strings of water spilling over\n The weir of rock, their fever\u2019d cheeks bewet;\n And to its sound a voiceless bread they ate,\n And drank the troth that is unbroken yet.\n\n Out in the mere\u2014brown\u2014unbesilver\u2019d now\n By finest skimming of the elfin breeze\u2014\n An isle was moor\u2019d, with rushes at its prow\n And fraught with haze of deeply-mirror\u2019d trees;\n And knowing Deirdre still was mindful how\n The boar yet lived, that she might sleep at ease\n Naois swore to harbour on that islet.\n Nine strides he waded in, on footings nine\n Deep, deeper yet, until his basnet\u2019s shine\n Sank to the cold lips of the lake divine.\n\n Divine; for once the sunk stones of that way\n Approach\u2019d the pool-god, and the outermost\n Had been the black slab whereon druids slay\n With stoop and mutter to the water\u2019s ghost,\n Though since to glut some whim malign the fay\n Had swell\u2019d over the flags. Of all the host\n Few save Naois, and at sore adventure\n Had ta\u2019en this pass. But who would not have press\u2019d\n Through straits by the chill-finger\u2019d fiend possess\u2019d\n To bear unto that isle Deirdre to rest?\n\n \u201cSeal up thy sight; my shield of iron rims\n Unhook; cast in this shatter\u2019d helm for spoil.\u201d\n \u2019Twas done, and then with rush of cleaving limbs\n He swam and bore her out with happy toil\n Secret and fierce as the flat otter swims\n Out of the whistling reeds as if through oil.\n And Deirdre, whiter than the wave-swan floating,\n Smiled that he suffer\u2019d her no stroke to urge.\n At length they reach the gnarl\u2019d and ivied verge\n And from the shallows to the sun emerge.\n\n She spreads her wolf-skins on the rock that glows\n And sun-tears wrings out of the heavy strands\n Of corded hair. He, watching to the close,\n Sees not the white silk tissue as she stands\n Clinging bedull\u2019d to the clear limbs of rose.\n She turn\u2019d and to him stretch\u2019d misdoubting hands:\n \u201cTell me, ere thou dissolve, O wordless watcher,\n Am I that Deirdre that would sit and spin\n Beside Keshcorran? Dost thou love me? Then\n I touch thee. For I, too, have love within.\u201d\n\n O sacred cry! Again, again the first\n Love-cry! How the steep woods thirst for thy voice,\n O never-dying one! That voice, like the outburst\n And gush of a young spring\u2019s delicious noise\n Driven from the ancient heights whereon \u2019twas nursed!\n Yet, as death\u2019s heart is silent, so is joy\u2019s.\n His mouth spake not; for, as in dusk Glen Treithim\n Smelters of bubbling gold brook not to breathe\n Reek of the colour\u2019d fumes whose hissings wreathe\n The brim, he choked at his own spirit\u2019s seethe.\n\n Sternly he looked on her and strangely said\n \u201cWhat touch is thine? It hath unearthly powers.\n I think thou art the woman Cairbre made\n Out of the dazzle and the wind of flowers.\n Behold, the flame-like children of the shade,\n The buds, about thee rise like servitors!\n It seems I had not lipp\u2019d the cup of living\n Till thou didst stretch it out. Vaguely I felt\n Irreparable waste. Why hast thou dwell\u2019d\n Near me on earth so long, yet unbeheld?\u201d\n\n Chanters! The Night brings nigh the deeps far off,\n But Twilight shows the distance of the Near;\n And with a million dawns that pierce above\n Mixes the soul of suns that disappear,\n To make man\u2019s eyes approach the eyes of love\n In simpleness, in mystery and fear.\n All blooms both bright and pale are in her gardens,\n All chords both shrill and deep under her hand\n Who, sounding forth the richness of the land,\n Estrangeth all, that we may understand.\n\n So still it was, they heard in the evening skies\n Creak as of eagles\u2019 wing-feathers afar\n Coasting the grey cliffs. On him slowly rise,\n As to Cuchullain came his signal star,\n Out of the sheeted rivers, Deirdre\u2019s eyes.\n And who look\u2019d in them well was girt for war;\n Seeing in that gaze all who for love had perish\u2019d:\n The queens calamitous unbow\u2019d at last\u2014\n The supreme fighters that alone stood fast\u2014\n Fealties obscure, unwitness\u2019d, and long past,\n\n Cloud over cloud\u2014the host that had attain\u2019d\n By love,\u2014in very essence, force, heat, breath\n Now, now arose in Deirdre\u2019s eyes and deign\u2019d\n Summons to him\u2014\u201c_Canst follow us?_\u201d it saith\u2014\n Till from that great contagion he hath gain\u2019d\n An outlook like to conquest over death.\n Then he discerns the solemn-rafter\u2019d world\n By this frail brazier\u2019s glowings, wherein blend\n Coals that no man hath kindled, without end\n Born and re-born, from ashes to ascend.\n\n And face to face to him unbared she cleaves\n Woman no more\u2014scarce-breathing\u2014infinite,\n Grave as the fair-brow\u2019d priestess Earth receives\n In all her lochs and plains and invers bright\n And shores wide-trembling where one image heaves,\n Him that is lord of silence and of light.\n Slow the God sigh\u2019d himself from rocks and waters\n But in his soft withdrawals from the air\n No creature in the weightless world was there\n Uttered its being\u2019s secret round the pair.\n\n Ah! them had Passion\u2019s self-enshrouding arm\n Taken, as a green fury of ocean takes,\n Through the dense thickets smitten with alarm\n To the islet\u2019s tranc\u00e9d core. And Deirdre wakes,\n Lifting hot lids that shut against the storm,\n Lying on a hillock, amid slender brakes\n Of grey trees, to the babble of enchantments\n From mouths of chill-born flowers. The place was new\n To rapture. Branch\u00e9d sunbursts plashing through\n After, had laid the mound with fire and dew.\n\n Naois cuts down osiers. Now he seeks\n A narrow grass-plot shorn as if with scythe\n And over two great boulders\u2019 wrinkled cheeks\n Draws down and knots a hull of saplings lithe,\n Well-staunch\u2019d with earthy-odour\u2019d moss and sticks\n Known to the feet of birds. This darkness blithe\n He frames against the stars for forest sleepers.\n The living tide of stars aloft that crept\n Compassion\u2019d far below. No wavelet leapt;\n And deep rest fell upon them there. They slept.\n\n Long, long, the melancholy mountains lay\n Aware; mute-rippling shades that isle enwound.\n Naois fell through dreams, like the snapt spray\n That drops from branch to branch,\u2014that stillest sound!\u2014\n And while from headlands scarce a league away\n The din of the sea-breakers come aground\n Roll\u2019d up the valley, he in vision govern\u2019d\n His ribb\u00e9d skiff under Dun Aengus sweeping,\n Triumphing with his love, and leaping, leaping,\n Drew past the ocean-shelves of seals a-sleeping.\n\n But over starr\u2019d peat-water, where the flag\n Rustles, and listens for the scud of teal;\n Over coast, forest, and bethunder\u2019d crag\n Night\u2014mother of despairs, who proves the steel\n In men, to see if they be dross and slag\n Or fit with trusts and enemies to deal\n Uneyed, alone\u2014diffusing her wide veils\n Bow\u2019d from the heavens to his exultant ear:\n _A questioner awaits thee: rouse!_ The mere\n Slept on, save for the twilight-footed deer.\n\n \u201cThose antler\u2019d shadows of the forest-roof\n Nigh to the shore must be assembled thick,\u201d\n He thought, \u201cand bringing necks round to the hoof\n Or being aslaked and couching, seek to lick\n The fawns. Some heady bucks engage aloof,\n So sharp across the water comes the click\n Of sparring horns.\u201d But was it a vain terror,\n Son of the sword, or one for courage staunch,\n That the herd, dismay\u2019d, at a bound, with a quivering haunch\n Murmur\u2019d away into night at the crack of a branch?\n\n And Deirdre woke. Reverberate from on high\n Amongst the sullen hills, distinct there fell\n A mournful keen, like to the broken cry\n From the house of hostage in some citadel\n Of hostages lifting up their agony\n After the land they must remember well,\n \u201cDeirdre is gone! Gone is the little Deirdre!\u201d\n And she knowing not the voice as voice of man\n Stood up. \u201cLie still, lest thee the spirit ban\n O vein of life, lie still!\u201d But Deirdre ran\n\n Like the moon through brakes, and saw where nought had been\n On the vague shore what seem\u2019d a stone that stood;\n Faceless, rough-hewn, it forward seem\u2019d to lean\n Like the worn pillar of Cenn Cruaich the God.\n She cried across \u201cIf thou with things terrene\n Be number\u2019d, tell me why thy sorrowful blood\n Mourneth, O Cathva, father!\u201d But the stone\n Shiver\u2019d, and broke the staff it lean\u2019d upon,\n Shouting, \u201cWhat! livst thou yet? Begone, begone!\u201d\n\n\n V\n VOICE OF FINTAN _again, out of the First Century_,\n\n Let my lips finish what my lips began.\u2014\n Then to the two beclouded in black boughs\n The third across the water cried \u201cSpeak once!\n Though the earth shake beneath you like a sieve\n With wheels of Connachar, answer me this:\n Naois, could she understand his hate\n Whose arm requiteth\u2014far as runs the wind\u2014\n By me, that blow away the gaze and smile\n From women\u2019s faces; O could Deirdre have guess\u2019d\u2014\n Mourning all night the fading of her kingdoms\n Fled like a song\u2014what means, _a banished man_;\n That he and I must hound thee to the death;\n That thou shalt never see the deep-set eaves,\n The lofty thatch familiar with the doves,\n On thy sad mother Usnach\u2019s house again;\n But drift out like some sea-bird, far, far, hence,\n Far from the red isle of the roes and berries,\n Far from sun-galleries and pleasant d\u00fans\n And swards of lovers,\u2014branded, nationless;\n That none of all thy famous friends, with thee\n Wrestlers on Eman in the summer evenings,\n Shall think thee noble now; and that at last\n I must upheave thy heart\u2019s tough plank to crack it\u2014\n Knowing all this, would this fool follow thee?\u201d\n\n Then spoke Naois, keeping back his wrath,\n \u201cStrange is it one so old should threat with Death!\n Are not both thou and I, are not we all,\n By Death drawn from the wickets of the womb\u2014\n Seal\u2019d with the thumb of Death when we are born?\n As for friends lost (though I believe thee not),\n A man is nourish\u2019d by his enemies\n No less than by his friends. But as for her,\n Because no man shall deem me noble still,\u2014\n Because I like a sea-gull of the isles\n May be driven forth\u2014branded and nationless,\u2014\n Because I shall no more, perhaps, behold\n The deep-set eaves on that all-sacred house,\u2014\n Because the gather\u2019d battle of the powers\n Controlling fortune, breaks upon my head,\u2014\n Yea! for that very cause, lack\u2019d other cause,\n In love the closer,\u2014quenchless,\u2014absolute,\n Would Deirdre choose to follow me. Such pains,\n Se\u00ebr, the kingdoms are of souls like hers!\u201d\n He spoke; he felt her life-blood at his side\n Sprung of the West, the last of human shores,\n Throbbing, \u201cLook forth on everlastingness!\n Through the coil\u2019d waters and the ebb of light\n I\u2019ll be thy sail!\u201d\n\n Over the mist like wool\n No sound; the echo-trembling tarn grew mute.\n But when through matted forest with uproar\n The levy of pursuers, brazen, vast,\n Gush\u2019d like a river, and torch\u2019d chariots drew\n With thunder-footed horses on, and lash\u2019d\n Up to the sedge, and at the Druid\u2019s shape\n Their steamy bellies rose over the brink\n Pawing the mist, and when a terrible voice\n Ask\u2019d of that shape if druid ken saw now\n The twain,\u2014advanced out of the shade of leaves\n Nor Deirdre nor Naois heard reply;\n And like a burning dream the host, dissolving,\n Pass\u2019d. On the pale bank not a torch remain\u2019d.\n They look\u2019d on one another, left alone.\n\n\n THE END\n\n\n\n\n OTHER POEMS\n\n\n\n\n ODE ON A SILVER BIRCH\n _in St James\u2019 Park_\n\n\n 1\n\n Muse, I will show thee, on a grassy mound\n Moving with tufted shadows, albeit bare\n Herself, for yet young April primes the air\n And bloom snow-laden boughs, the tree I love.\n London doth compass it with shores of sound\n And thrills the buds when there\u2019s no breath above\n To shake its fountain beauty. Thus I came\n Along the courtly mere of thicket isles,\n And Spring entoil\u2019d me in a hundred wiles,\n Bringing the heart content without a name.\n Broods, russet-plumed and emerald, steer\u2019d on\n With arrowy wake adown the placid tide\n And in that gloomy pool there rode enskied,\n Aloof, the stately languor of a swan.\n But now the lake sets hither with a breeze\n And crooks the peel\u2019d bole of its planes.\u2014Ah, there\n Thou shall find audience\u2014yon\u2019s my shadowy love!\u2014\n O\u2019er head a rose-grey pigeon beat his wings\n About his \u2019lighted mate, and wooed the bough\n And passion born of sight of mortal things\n In warmth of living, moved and moves me now\n As from the careless height that sways above\n Floateth his voice, the soul of greening trees.\n\n\n 2\n\n Approaching \u2019twixt the herald saplings pale\n Whose light arrayment is a whirl of green\n Of flamelets dropping for a virgin veil,\n I come. Though Hades\u2019 crocus-jets are stayed,\n Soft! for a golden troop instead upsprung\n Gossips apart in yon unfooted glade.\n Broke we on earshot of that frolic tongue\n Straightway would all be husht, they being afraid\n To sing\u2019t to simple ear of mutest maid.\n\n\n 3\n\n But thou, still silver Spirit, unappall\u2019d\n Standest alone, and with thy senses dim\n Feeling the first warmth fledge the unleaf\u00e9d limb\n Hearest not tread of mine, O Sun-enthrall\u2019d!\n What buried God conceived thee, and forestall\u2019d\n In the dull depth thy white and glistering graces\u2014\n That fume of netted drops and subtle laces\n And listening statue-air, by men miscall\u2019d?\n Shower o\u2019er the blue, and sister of blown surf!\n Dream-daughter of the silences of turf!\n Couldst thou but waken and recall the Mind\n Lifts thee to image, then could I reveal\n Wherefore thou seem\u2019st remember\u2019d and I feel\n In thee mine own dream risen and divined!\n\n\n 4\n\n Surely the hymn that charm\u2019d thee from the grass\n Fashion\u2019d me also, and the selfsame lyre\n Sounded accords that out of darkness pass\n And in thy beauty and my song conspire?\n The drum of streets, the fever of our homes,\n Clangours and murk metallurgy of gnomes,\n All are by thee unheard, who dost ignore\n The wisdom of the wise, in dead pasts now\n Dungeon\u2019d as never to ascend; but thou\n Whose being is for the light, and hath no care\n To know itself nor root from whence it sprang,\n Wouldst only murmur, in the heavenly air,\n \u201c_The sun, the sun!_\u201d if but thy spirit sang!\n\n\n 5\n\n O might I show thee by the lute\u2019s devising\n Man, from thy soft turf, flown with light, arising!\n Him, too, doth hope, the boon without a pang,\n Summon with thrilling finger forth to hang\u2014\n To cast a heaving soul to the wave of wind,\n Sun-passion\u2019d and earth-lodged. Ah, Tree serene\n Dilating in the glow of the unseen,\n We and our roofs and towers magnifical\u2014\n Our Fame\u2019s heroic head against the sky\u2014\n Our loves\u2014and all\n That, with our briefness perfect, rise and die,\u2014\n Like thee must find\n Beauty in a besieging of the dark;\n Our glories on expectancy embark,\n And the height of our ecstasy\u2014\n The touch of infinity\u2014\n Is blind.\n\n\n\n\n A CHARGE\n\n\n If thou hast squander\u2019d years to grave a gem\n Commission\u2019d by thy absent Lord, and while\n \u2019Tis incomplete,\n Others would bribe thy needy skill to them\u2014\n Dismiss them to the street!\n\n Shouldst thou at last discover Beauty\u2019s grove,\n At last be panting on the fragrant verge,\n But in the track,\n Drunk with divine possession, thou meet Love\u2014\n Turn, at her bidding, back.\n\n When round thy ship in tempest Hell appears,\n And every spectre mutters up more dire\n To snatch control\n And loose to madness thy deep-kennell\u2019d Fears\u2014\n Then, to the helm, O Soul!\n\n Last; if upon the cold green-mantling sea\n Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar,\n Both castaway\n And one must perish\u2014let it not be he\n Whom thou art sworn to obey!\n\n\n\n\n SONG FOR THE FUNERAL OF A BOY\n\n\n 1\n\n On stems from silver woods\n Carry him, young companions, to the glen\n Where white Olympus broods;\n Flushes of rustlers shall precede you then\n By bush and glade\n Low-thrilling and afraid;\n And as along its curve of shore ye pass\n The dark tarn ruddied with the pine shall glass,\n Moving to hymns out of its lonely ken,\n The boy\u2019s light bier, with beaded rushes laid.\n\n\n 2\n\n In beeches shall the fawn\n An hoof suspend, to learn from that clear sound\n His eager mate withdrawn\n For ever unto free and sylvan ground.\n Up in her hold\n The wide-wing\u2019d Azure cold\n Mantling in gyre on gyre shall mark him come\n By root-paven paths borne, and great bee\u2019s hum\n Swing through your brief procession, winding round\n The endless alleys up that Mountain old.\n\n\n 3\n\n In some low space of green\n Where fleecy mists, bright runnels newly rain\u2019d,\n And springing wands are seen\n But nothing yet to gnarl\u00ebd eld attain\u2019d\n Let his head nigh\n The chrisom violet lie;\n And put at hand the sling to him most dear,\n The sheaf of arrows light, the dauntless spear,\n The lute untroubled on the heart unstain\u2019d;\n Then, taking hands around him, sing good-bye.\n\n\n 4\n\n Praise limbs that robb\u2019d the cloud\n Of vengeful eagles, and for this rough nest,\n This egg, embraced the loud\n And everlasting sea-crag\u2019s salty breast!\n Praise to the face\n That smiled on nothing base!\n Hymn ye the laughter of his happy soul\u2014\n His secret kindness to your secret dole;\n The heavenly-minded brook shall mourn him best\n When ye have kiss\u2019d his cheek, quitting the place.\n\n\n 5\n\n This ditty from the brake,\n This rainbow from the waters, fades; and Night\n That little pyre shall take\n In flame and cloud;\u2014but O! when the bloom of light\n With breathless glow\n Along the tops of snow\n Tells out to all the valleys Night is done,\u2014\n Think of the boy, ye young companions bright,\n Not without joy; for he hath loved and gone\n As dews that on the uplands shine and go!\n\n\n\n\n COME, LET US MAKE LOVE DEATHLESS\n\n\n Come, let us make love deathless, thou and I,\n Seeing that our footing on the Earth is brief\u2014\n Seeing that her multitudes sweep out to die\n Mocking at all that passes their belief.\n For standard of our love not theirs we take:\n If we go hence to-day\n Fill the high cup that is so soon to break\n With richer wine than they!\n\n Ay, since beyond these walls no heavens there be\n Joy to revive or wasted youth repair,\n I\u2019ll not bedim the lovely flame in thee\n Nor sully the sad splendour that we wear.\n Great be the love, if with the lover dies\n Our greatness past recall,\n And nobler for the fading of those eyes\n The world seen once for all.\n\n\n\n\n CLAVIERS AT NIGHT\n\n\n _I watch\u2019d a white-hair\u2019d Figure like a breeze\n Pass, with a smile, down the bare galleries\n And heard his ancient fingers, as he went,\n Muse on the heart of each blind instrument._\n\n\n SPINET\n\n Shoaling through twilight to my silver tinglings\n The great-ruff\u2019d ladies beset with pearl\n Come out with the gallants in gems of Cadiz\n In lofty capriols with loud spur-jinglings\n In Roman galliard and in blithe coranto\n Learnt in far Otranto\n Brought home in the galleys of the Earl\u2014\n Storm-riding galleys of the haughty Earl\u2014\n To English vallies.\n They come\n With reverences stately at meeting\n In mockeries sedately retreating\n And stomachers and buckles and rings\n Shake a maze of jewels to the measured strings,\n Of trembling jewels.\n\n Ay, moonlight\u2019s fair in yew-clipt alleys,\n And young Love fledges\n His shafts \u2019twixt cypress hedges.\n Follow the rout, and watch in gentle wind\n The springing moonbeam of the fountain sway\u2019d\n Like to a mountain maid\n Who turns with pois\u00ebd jar\n From bubbling hollow cool.\n\n \u201cBehold, how\u2019t tosses rain of Pleiads hither\n Into main blackness of the pool\u2014\n Rings ever shimmering out and sheen reborn;\n So, thou and I, lady, must die\n To wake, as echoes wake, of yonder horn\n With voiceless over the hills of morn.\n Ah, satin-quilted kirtle,\n Ah, pearled bosom,\n Let slip one flake of blossom,\n Deign but a sprig of myrtle,\n To the poor Fool, panting on his bended knee!\u201d\n But silent grow the long swards cedar-shaded\n Where the young loves were sitting;\n And lo, in the silver-candled hall\n The bat is flitting, flitting.\n The tapestries are dusk upon the wall\n And the ladies bright, brocaded,\n All, with their blushes, faded.\n\n\n HARPSICHORD\n\n Now ye, the delicate patterers of the hush,\n Wings, hither!\n Scarce-rustlers of the sere involv\u00e9d leaf\n Who mourn for summers past with elfin grief,\n Ye who can hear along the inmost lawn\n Ebbings and flowings shrill\n When subtle ballads net the rime-cold daffodil\n And drift over the blue turf so nigh dumb\n They startle not from\u2019s gloom e\u2019en the airy fawn.\n Old Antony on his Nile-barge at dawn\n Caught your deck-walkings countless overhead\n And eased with ye a heart eclipsed and dead.\n Come swift, come soon\n Drift, like a veil over the moon,\n And rising round this crumbling Keep\n Shed ye, upon the sleepless, sleep.\n\n\n CLAVICHORD\n\n Wherefore, poor Fool, dost lie\u2014\n Love, cap and bells put by\u2014\n On thy pallet-bed so stark?\n \u201cI am girt, soul and limb,\n Gainst horror dim.\n Ear tense to hark\n Mine eyeballs strain and swim\n Drowning in foamy dark.\n Comes no shock\n Nor earthly feet\n But the heart\u2019s blood, ebb\u2019d with the chill tower-clock\n To a single beat,\n Clots to a fear\n That God may appear\u2014\n None other eye being near\u2014\n And bare of his mantle of law\n Stand, a giant Spirit beautiful\n Sombre, pale, in avenging mail,\n Wings folded, on this planet\u2019s skull;\n And before Him dropping like fine rain,\n A veil o\u2019 the cloud o\u2019 the dust of kings\n Noiseless descending the old Abyss ...\n Ah then, after this\n How gentle through the dark paths of the brain\n Comes the faint noise of outer things;\n The whirr and shower of wings\u2014\n Satin shufflings of ivy leaves\n Ranging like bees the leaden pane\u2014\n Jolting of carters, cries of falconers\u2014\n The blessed courtyard stirs\n That do in mercy say\n Thou hast another day.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n THE MAN DIGGING\n\n\n The isle was barren. Far as hawk may scan\n In moors it roll\u2019d up to a headland bare\n Save for one narrow patch, by ceaseless care\n Sumptuous with corn. Against the sky a Man\n Digging the waste I saw,\u2014bow\u2019d veteran\n A stubborn spade he drave in stubborn ground\n And root and rock flung sheer without a sound\n Over the bleak edge.... Then anew began.\n\n \u201cYou, who have lodged in the teeth of the abyss\n Your cabin low, and triumph rich as this\n Wrung from the ocean-bitter mountain side,\n What help\u2019d you most to bring such treasure out?\u201d\n He stood, and after scrutiny replied,\n \u201cThe thing on which I lean, the Spade of Doubt.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n SCHIEHALLION\n\n\n Far the grey loch runs\n Up to Schiehallion.\n Lap, lap the water flows\n Where my wee boatie rows;\n Greenly a star shows\n Over Schiehallion.\n\n She that I wander\u2019d wi\u2019\n Over Schiehallion,\u2014\n How far ayont your ken,\n Crags of the merry glen,\n Stray\u2019d she, that wander\u2019d then\n Down fra Schiehallion!\n\n Sail of the wild swan\n Turn to Schiehallion!\n Here where the rushes rise\n Low the black hunter lies;\n Beat thou the pure skies\n Back to Schiehallion!\n\n\n\n\n THE SHELL\n\n\n I am a Shell out of the Asian sea,\n But my sad Pearl is gone,\n Risen to be Goddess\u2014Venus green is she\n And I cast up alone.\n\n Yet some night shall her brilliance stoop and take\n Unto her ear this shell,\n And hear the whisper of her own heart-break ...\n All that I serve to tell.\n\n\n\n\n THE ROCK OF CLOUD\n\n\n We heard a chanting in the fog\n On the frore face of the sea,\n And stay\u2019d the galley like a log\n To sound that mystery.\n\n And men throng\u2019d up into the bow\n And hail\u2019d the curling rack,\n \u201c_What demon or what spirit thou?_\u201d\n And the lone voice came back,\n\n Came as of one so evil-starr\u2019d\n That he hath done with grief,\n In monotone as keen and hard\n As the bell swung from a reef:\n\n \u201cHuman I am\u2014would I were foam\u2014\n Row hither; ye may hear\n Yet shall not save nor bring me home\n Seek ye a thousand year.\u201d\n\n \u201c_Keep a stout hope._\u201d \u201cI keep no hope.\u201d\n \u201c_Man alive_\u201d \u201cSpare your toil\u2014\u201d\n \u201c_We are upon thee!_\u201d \u201cNay, no rope\n Over the gap shall coil.\u201d\n\n \u201c_Who art thou?_\u201d \u201cI was Pilot once\n On many a ship of mark:\n Went aboard\u2014spoke to none\u2014but steer\u2019d;\n And dropt off in the dark.\n\n \u201cBut one night\u2014Christ!\u2014we struck\u2014we sank.\n I reach\u2019d this rock of wings\n Whereby from every boulder\u2019s flank\n The brown sea-ribbon swings.\n\n \u201cHere, where the sole eye of the Sun\n Did scorch my body bare,\n A great Sea-Spirit rose, and shone\n In the water thrill\u2019d with hair....\n\n \u201cShe lay back on the green abyss\n Beautiful; her spread arms\n Soothed to a poise\u2014a sob\u2014of bliss\n Huge thunders and alarms.\n\n \u201cHer breasts as pearl were dull and pure,\n Her body\u2019s chasted light\n Swam like a cloud; her eyes unsure\n From the great depths were bright.\n\n \u201cThere was no thing of bitterness\n In aught that she could say;\n She call\u2019d my soul, as down a coast\n The Moon calls bay beyond bay\n And they rise\u2014back o\u2019 the uttermost\u2014\n Away, and yet away:\u2014\n\n \u201c\u2018I chose thee from the sinking crews\u2014\n I bore thee up alive\u2014\n Now durst thou follow me and choose\n Under the world to dive?\n\n \u201c\u2018Come! we will catch when stars are out\n The black wave\u2019s spitting crest\n And still, when the Bull of Dawn shall spout,\n Be washing on abreast;\n\n \u201c\u2018Or thee a flame under the seas\n Paven with suns I\u2019ll hide,\n Deathless and boundless and at ease\n In any shape to glide.\n\n \u201c\u2018All waters that on Earth have well\u2019d\n At last to me repair,\u2014\n All mountains starr\u2019d with cities melt\n Into my dreamy air.\n\n \u201c\u2018Set on thy peak under the brink\n I\u2019ll shew thee Storms above,\n The stuff of kingdoms:\u2014they shall sink\n While thou dost teach me love;\n On beaches white as the young Moons\n I\u2019ll sit, and fathom love.\u2019\u201d...\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n \u201c_And what saidst thou?_\u201d \u201cFrom over sea\n I felt a sighing burn\n That made this jagg\u2019d rock seem to me\n More delicate than fern;\n\n \u201cAnd faint as moth-wings I could hear\n Tops of the pine-tree sway\n And the last words spoken in mine ear\n Before the break of day.\n\n \u201cAnd I cried out agonied at heart\n For her that sleeps at home,\n \u2018Brightness, I will not know thine art,\n Nor to thy country come!\u2019\n\n \u201cStraightway she sank\u2014smiling so pale\u2014\n But from the seethe up-broke\u2014\n Never thrash\u2019d off by gust or gale\u2014\n White, everlasting smoke.\n\n \u201cIt feels all over me with stealth\n Of languor that appals;\n It laps my fierce heart in a wealth\n Of soft and rolling walls;\n\n \u201cThis mist no life may pass, save these\n Wave-wing\u2019d, with shrieking voice;\n Stars I discern not, nor the seas\u2014\u201d\n \u201c_O, dost not rue thy choice?_\u201d\n\n \u201cRue it? Now get back to the Deep,\n For I doubt if men ye be:\n No;\u2014I must keep a steady helm\n By the star I cannot see.\u201d\n\n Passion o\u2019 man! we sprang to oars,\n And sought on, weeping loud,\n All night in earshot of the shores\n But never through the cloud.\n\n\n\n\n SHE COMES NOT WHEN NOON IS ON THE ROSES\n\n\n She comes not when Noon is on the roses\u2014\n Too bright is Day.\n She comes not to the Soul till it reposes\n From work and play.\n\n But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices\n Roll in from Sea,\n By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlight\n She comes to me.\n\n\n\n\n THE NIGHT\n\n\n I put aside the branches\n That clothe the Door in gloom;\n A glow-worm lit the pathway\n And a lamp out of her room\n Shook down a stifled greeting:\n How could it greet aright\n The thirst of years like deserts\n That led up to this night?\n\n But she, like sighing forests,\n Stole on me\u2014full of rest,\n Her hair was like the sea\u2019s wave,\n Whiteness was in her breast,\u2014\n (_So does one come, at night, upon a wall of roses._)\n\n As in a stone of crystal\n The cloudy web and flaw\n\n Turns, at a flash, to rainbows,\n Wing\u2019d I became\u2014I saw\n I sang;\u2014but human singing\n Ceased, in a burning awe.\n\n Slow, amid leaves, in silence\u2014\n Rapt as the holy pray\u2014\n Flame into flame we trembled\n And the world sank away.\n\n\n\n\n MAURYA\u2019S SONG\n\n\n Rushes that grow by the black water\n When will I see you more?\n When will the sorrowful heart forget you,\n Land of the green, green shore?\n When will the field and the small cabin\n See us more\n In the old country?\n\n What is to me all the gold yonder?\n She that bore me is gone.\n Knees that dandled and hands that blessed me\n Colder than any stone;\n Stranger to me than the face of strangers\n Are my own\n In the old country.\n\n Vein o\u2019 my heart, from the lone mountain\n The smoke of the turf will die\n And the stream that sang to the young childer\n Run down alone from the sky:\n On the door-stone, grass,\u2014and the cloud lying\n Where they lie\n In the old country.\n\n\n Tired with the day\u2019s monotony of dream\u00e9d joys\n I turn to a requickening voice,\n A voice whose low tone devastates with nightly thrill\n The cities I have wrought at will:\n Stone forts depart, and armies heroic flee away\n Like the wild snow of spray.\n Deep down the green Broceliande\u2019s branch\u2019d corridors\n That voice of April pours;\n Light as a bird\u2019s light shadow fled across my pages\n A touch disturbs the ages,\n And the crags and spears of Troy and the courts of Charlemain,\n Odin, and the splendid strain\n Of Cuchullain\u2019s self, that with his heart\u2019s high brother strove,\u2014\n Fade, at the low voice I love.\n\n\n\n\n YOU WERE STAY\u2019D\n\n\n You were stay\u2019d in heart on heaven,\n I by none but you forgiven,\u2014\n You unto your Light are taken,\n I of all, in you, forsaken.\n\n Where the night is never broken\n Where for long no speech hath spoken,\n There the ears no longer hearken,\n There the eyeballs wane and darken.\n\n Yet at hours my soul\u2014so bounded\u2014\n By that gloom like blood surrounded\u2014\n Sees in ancient daylight burning\u2014\n Hears departed feet returning.\n\n\n\n\n THE BLOOM\n\n\n Who are these ancients, gnarl\u2019d and moss\u2019d and weigh\u2019d\n This way and that, under the sluggard blue\n And shine of morning\u2014these whose arms are laid\n Low to the grasses and the sheets of dew\u2014\n These bowers rugg\u00ebd within and thickly knit\n But feather\u2019d over with a roseate white\n So frail that the breeze\u2019s touch dismantles it\n And brings from cradled nurseries in flight\u2014\n Snow-soft\u2014the petals down\n In shadows green to drown?\n\n We are the matrons. Bent are we and riven\n Under such years of ripeness manifold\n That unto us a special grace is given,\u2014\n To wear a virgin\u2019s beauty being old.\n Noiseless we wear it; round us in the croft\n These whisperers are leaves of other trees,\n Babblers that have not learn\u2019d by fruitage oft\n To shade the heart with wide serenities\n On tendons knit to bear\n Sweetness in stormy air.\n\n\n\n\n IN THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE, VERONA\n\n\n Two architects of Italy\u2014austere\n Men who could fashion nothing small\u2014refused\n To die with life, and for their purpose used\n This dim and topless Amphitheatre.\n\n Some C\u00e6sar trench\u2019d the orb of its ellipse\n And call\u2019d on distant provinces to swell\n Resonant arches whence his World could scan,\n Tier above tier, the fighters and the ships.\n\n But Dante\u2014having raised, as dreamer can,\n Higher tenfold these walls immutable\u2014\n Sole in the night arena, grew aware\n He was himself the thing spectacular\n Seized by the ever-thirsting gaze of Hell,\u2014\n Here, on the empty sand, a banish\u2019d man.\n\n\n\n\n A WINTER SONG\n\n\n _To Alice Meynell_\n\n Lady, through grasses stiff with rime\n And wraith-hung trees I wander\n Where the red sun at pitch of prime\n Half of his might must squander;\n Narrow the track\n As I look back\n On traces green behind me,\u2014\n I go alone\n To think upon\n A face, where none\n Shall find me.\n\n Birds peal; but each grim grove its shroud\n Retains, as to betoken\n Though the young lawn should wave off cloud\n These would have Night unbroken,\u2014\n Desire no plash\n Of the Lake awash\u2014\n No gold but gold that\u2019s glinted\n In still device\n From the breast of ice\n Whose summer cries\n Have stinted.\n\n But in a great and glittering space\n The black Elm doth restore me\n To you. Empower\u2019d with patient grace\n Musing she stands before me,\u2014\n Her webs divine\n Ghosted with fine\n Remembrance few can capture;\n Her very shade\n On greenness laid\n Is white,\u2014is made\n Of rapture!\n\n\n\n\n THE NUTTER\n\n\n 1\n\n I am the Autumn. Rising from the throne\n I watch the pageant of my courtiers pass;\n Chestnuts\u2019 canary-feather\u2019d beauty strown\u2014\n The lime\u2019s gold tribute at his foot amass\u2014\n Then fragile jewels from the larches blown\n Enrich with disarray the trembling grass,\n Until the beggar\u2019d elms, too proud to bend,\n Emblaze a hundred winds with my rash kingdom\u2019s end.\n\n\n 2\n\n But look! within the beech\u2019s burning house\n Some Nutter, deaf to shouts of fellow-thieves,\n Hath flung him with his crook to dream and drowse\n Flush-cheek\u2019d, alone, upon the mounded leaves.\n The curious squirrel headlong from his eaves\n Creeps down to mark: then drops with sudden souse;\n The still-come culvers burst away\u2014and flits\n The beechmast-feasting multitude of shadowy tits.\n\n\n 3\n\n Where are thy friends? Gone on to sack the glades,\n My rooms of tatter\u2019d state, not to return.\n No moth-bright brambles and no rainy braids\n Of ivy, mid the sheen and smoke of fern,\n Could trammel-up the tempest of their raids.\n Up, boy! pursue them down the misty burn!\n But on his bosom tann\u2019d, in slumber fast,\n Patter\u2019d the mimic shower of ever-dropping mast.\n\n\n 4\n\n What, lad? The last of my poor banquet lose\n To thy wild kin of air? For them the dell\n O\u2019er-briar\u2019d hath lean rose-berries and yews\n And scarlet fruits of ash, that ere they swell\n The missel-thrushes, fluttering, poise to choose,\u2014\n Privet is theirs and briony as well,\n And redwings wait for the frost-mellow\u2019d sloe,\n Their orchard is the spinney-side\u2014Awake, and go!\n\n\n 5\n\n Leaf-driven, my young October in a while\n Awoke bemazed\u2014on ragged knee arose\n Snatch\u2019d at his crook, and hid a sham\u00e9d smile\n Vaulting the ruddy brambles. As he goes\n Far off I hear his voice; so freshet flows\n Warbling to wander many a forest mile\u2014\n So Dryad may her rooty pool forsake\n Afraid, or antler\u2019d shadow melt into the brake.\n\n\n 6\n\n And I go too,\u2014ah! not with mortal things\n Naked of riches here to flutter down\u2014\n But soar and tremble in a million wings\n Above the fen, the coastland, and the town\n Forth by the dark sea\u2019s sunken islands boune\n Sweeping to choir Apollo where he sings\n Unslain! The midsea lamp, that hears the sky\n Roaring all night with passage, knows that it is I.\n\n\n\n\n SHAKESPEARE\n\n\n If many a daring spirit must discover\n The chartless world, why should they glory lack?\n Because athwart the skyline they sank over\n Few, few, the shipmen be that have come back.\n\n Yet one, wreck\u2019d oft, hath by a giddy cord\n The rugged head of Destiny regain\u2019d\u2014\n One from the maelstrom\u2019s lap hath swum aboard\u2014\n One from the polar sleep himself unchain\u2019d.\n\n But he, acquainted well with every tone\n Of madness whining in his shroudage slender,\n From storm and mutiny emerged alone\n Self-righted from the dreadful self-surrender:\n\n Rich from the isles where sojourn long is death\n Won back to cool Thames and Elizabeth,\n Sea-weary, yes, but human still, and whole,\u2014\n A circumnavigator of the soul.\n\n\n\n\n NOTES\n\n\n_Deirdre Wed._ This episode of thirty hours, delivered by the Three\nVoices, does not occur in any of the versions of the famous \u201cTragical\ntale of the Sons of Usnach.\u201d But the manner of Deirdre\u2019s wooing of Naois\nis based on an incident in a Gaelic version of that tale, in which, on a\nday (not her marriage day) Deirdre and her women companions \u201cwere out on\nthe hillock behind the house enjoying the scene and drinking in the\nsun\u2019s heat. What did they see coming but three men a-journeying. Deirdre\nwas looking at the men that were coming, and wondering at them. When the\nmen neared them, Deirdre remembered the language of the huntsmen and she\nsaid to herself that these were the three sons of Usnach, and that this\nwas Naois, he having what was above the bend of his two shoulders above\nthe men of Erin all.\u201d The three brothers went past without taking any\nnotice of them, and without even glancing at the young girls on the\nhillock. \u201cWhat happened but that love for Naois struck the heart of\nDeirdre, so that she could not but follow after him. She trussed her\nraiment and went after the three men that went past the base of the\nknoll, leaving her women attendants there. Aillean and Ardan had heard\nof the women that Connachar, King of Ulster, had with him, and they\nthought that if Naois their brother saw her he would have her himself,\nmore especially as she was not married to the king.\u201d They perceived the\nwoman coming and called on one another to hasten their steps as they had\na long distance to travel and the dusk of night was coming on. They did\nso. She cried three times \u201cNaois, son of Usnach, wilt thou leave me?\u201d\n\u201cWhat cry is that which it is not well for me to answer, and not easy\nfor me to refuse?\u201d Twice the brothers put him off with excuses. \u201cBut the\nthird time Naois and Deirdre met, and Deirdre kissed Naois three times\nand a kiss to each of his brothers.\u201d All other incidents in the episodic\npoem _Deirdre Wed_ are new.\n\n_Fintan_; _Urmael_; _Cir_. These were old bards. I have myself found and\nexplored a tomb like that of Cir, caverned through a hill-ridge, not far\nfrom Eman and Armagh, just as it is described in the poem. But the\ncurious may rediscover it for themselves.\n\n_Connachar._ This king, or terrestrial divinity, is generally known as\nConchobar, or Conor, King of Ulster (Uladh) and Arch-King of Ireland. He\nis chronicled as reigning about the time of the Incarnation of Christ.\n\n_Eman_, or Emain Macha, was the chief palace of Connachar. It is still\nseen and named in the \u201cNavan Ring\u201d\u2014enormous earthworks on a hill about\ntwo miles west of Armagh. The people from the town and country side\nstill go up to dance there on holidays. Traces of the Lake of\nPearls\u2014where jewels were cast in on a sudden flight, lie in a marsh\nunder Eman. The _Callan_, or \u201cloud-sounding\u201d river, runs not very far\noff.\n\n_Dun Aengus._ A prehistoric stone fortress\u2014singularly vast\u2014on the edge\nof the cliffs of Arran M\u00f4r, an island in the Atlantic, west of Galway.\nThe walls are very massive, and lie half-circle-wise, as if half had\nbroken off and fallen into the sea.\n\n\n\n\n PRINTED BY\n TURNBULL AND SPEARS,\n EDINBURGH\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n Page Changed from Changed to\n\n 71 With volcelest over the hills of With voiceless over the hills of\n morn morn\n\n \u25cf Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.\n \u25cf Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"Deirdre wed and other poems","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":11863}