 | With the Wild Geese |  |
67
FROM THE RATH
I heard the sound by snatches through the night.
The wind had risen, and the sea in wrath
Shook the small island to its buttresses.
It was a sound of weeping, strangely clear,
Or more than weeping; one which tore the heart,
And filled the brain, and seemed to still the blood.
A sound of sobs, mingled with half-formed words;
The maddened, feeble, helpless, hopeless cry
Of some tormented creature. And it came
From where, perched on the ridge above my head,
The rath rose greyly. Nothing living stirred,
Our little sea-girt world was lapped in sleep,
Yet still that cry rose, rose, and rang again,
Lost in the storm, then rising high and shrill,
Thin as some gnat's hum on a summer's noon;
So clear, so loud, so torturingly shrill,
That Pity's self would fain have struck it dumb.
The wind had risen, and the sea in wrath
Shook the small island to its buttresses.
It was a sound of weeping, strangely clear,
Or more than weeping; one which tore the heart,
And filled the brain, and seemed to still the blood.
A sound of sobs, mingled with half-formed words;
The maddened, feeble, helpless, hopeless cry
68
From where, perched on the ridge above my head,
The rath rose greyly. Nothing living stirred,
Our little sea-girt world was lapped in sleep,
Yet still that cry rose, rose, and rang again,
Lost in the storm, then rising high and shrill,
Thin as some gnat's hum on a summer's noon;
So clear, so loud, so torturingly shrill,
That Pity's self would fain have struck it dumb.
I slept, and, dreaming, lost it. Suddenly
It rose again, and shriller than before,
Shrill with the dreadful shrillness of despair.
It seemed the cry of one that knows its doom,
Yet knows not all; or, shudderingly, fears
Worse than it knows. A horror of the thing
Grew on me as I listened. Next came dawn,
And with the earliest day I climbed the slope,
Passing between tall sentinel rows of stones,
Jaggèd and splintered like some ogre's sword,
And stood within the precincts of the rath.
It rose again, and shriller than before,
Shrill with the dreadful shrillness of despair.
It seemed the cry of one that knows its doom,
Yet knows not all; or, shudderingly, fears
69
Grew on me as I listened. Next came dawn,
And with the earliest day I climbed the slope,
Passing between tall sentinel rows of stones,
Jaggèd and splintered like some ogre's sword,
And stood within the precincts of the rath.
Even in the eye of day it seemed to hold
Some ghostly adumbration from the night,
Some lurking legacy from dead pagan days,
Bloody, and secret, dark, unnameable,
Branding the spot and its unhallowed stones
As with a martyr's curse. The morning smiled;
Its new-born light spread clean along the ridge,
Still wet with rain, or, slipping down the edge,
Awoke an opal hid at every turn.
And tiny new-born trefoils caught the light
On soft red claws, and tender, green-fringed spears;
And busy emmets drove a bustling trade
About the rude base of an old grey cross,
And the sea smiled its own enchanting smile.
Some ghostly adumbration from the night,
Some lurking legacy from dead pagan days,
Bloody, and secret, dark, unnameable,
Branding the spot and its unhallowed stones
As with a martyr's curse. The morning smiled;
Its new-born light spread clean along the ridge,
70
Awoke an opal hid at every turn.
And tiny new-born trefoils caught the light
On soft red claws, and tender, green-fringed spears;
And busy emmets drove a bustling trade
About the rude base of an old grey cross,
And the sea smiled its own enchanting smile.
Only for me the night still marred the day;
Only for me some desecrating touch
Lay on the scene. Some sanguinary trail,
Not to be healed by flower, or sun, or sea.
No, nor by cross. Rather it seemed to mock
The Pity which that cross stood surety for.
What? eighteen centuries? a speck! a span!
One streak of light on Time's dark-pillared dome;
One patch of verdure in a desert's glare;
One tear dropped on the heights of Golgotha.
Only for me some desecrating touch
Lay on the scene. Some sanguinary trail,
Not to be healed by flower, or sun, or sea.
No, nor by cross. Rather it seemed to mock
71
What? eighteen centuries? a speck! a span!
One streak of light on Time's dark-pillared dome;
One patch of verdure in a desert's glare;
One tear dropped on the heights of Golgotha.
Oh weary human drove, slayers and slain,
What ghostly scroll records your unknown deeds?
What unseen track, thorny, and smeared with blood,
Has felt the tread of your unnumbered feet?
Oh wan-eyed Pity, and ye pitiless Fates,
Thin-lipped, cold-visaged, fed on sighs and groans,
What piteous ghosts attend your shadowy halls,
Or moan in troops beneath your leafless woods?
What full-fed rivers, flushed with countless tears,
Go rolling greyly down your brine-filled coasts?
What gulfs, what tides of mortal agony,
Sleep in the Past, that huge unplumbèd sea?
What ghostly scroll records your unknown deeds?
What unseen track, thorny, and smeared with blood,
Has felt the tread of your unnumbered feet?
Oh wan-eyed Pity, and ye pitiless Fates,
Thin-lipped, cold-visaged, fed on sighs and groans,
72
Or moan in troops beneath your leafless woods?
What full-fed rivers, flushed with countless tears,
Go rolling greyly down your brine-filled coasts?
What gulfs, what tides of mortal agony,
Sleep in the Past, that huge unplumbèd sea?
| With the Wild Geese | |