The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Silent as shades the shadowing monks
O'er cloistral courts might glide;
But the War-Bard strode through the church itself
Like hunter on mountain-side.

The Priest might soften his Compline psalm
Till it seemed but the night-wind's sigh:
Oiseen, if the stag-hunt swept by at mass,
Would echo the stag-hound's cry!

169

And thus one day, while his beads he told,
Fierce thoughts, a rebel breed,
Burst up from old graves in the warrior's heart,
And he stormed at priest and creed.

‘Woe, woe! for the priestly tribe this hour
On the Feinè Hill have sway!
Glad am I that scarce their shapes I see;
Half-blind am I this day.

‘Woe, woe, thou Palace of Cruachan!
Thy sceptre is down and thy sword;
The chase goes over thy grassy roof,
The monk in thy courts is lord!

‘Thou man with the mitre and vestments broad,
And the bearing of grave command,
Rejoice that Diarmid this day is dust!
Right heavy was his clenched hand!

‘Thou man with the bell! I rede thee well:
Were Diorring living this day,
Thy book he would take, and thy bell would break
On the base of yon pillar grey!

‘Thou man with miraculous crosier-staff,
Though puissant thou art, and tall,
Were Goll but here he would dash thy gear
In twain on thy convent wall!

‘Were Conan living, the bald-head shrill,
With the scourge of his scoff and gibe
He would break thy neck, and thy convent wreck,
And lash from the land thy tribe!

170

‘But one of our chiefs had spared thy head—
My Oscar, my son, my child:
He was storm in the foray and fire in the fight,
But in peace he was maiden-mild.’

Then Patrick answered: ‘Old man, old man,
That Pagan realm lies low:
Our home is thine! Forget thy chiefs,
And thy deeds gone by forego!

‘High feast thou hast on the festal days,
And cakes on the days of fast:’
‘Thou liest, thou priest, for in wrath and scorn
Thy cakes to the dogs I cast!’

‘Old man, thou hearest our Christian hymns:
Such strains thou hadst never heard:’
‘Thou liest, thou priest! for in Letter Lee wood
I have listened its famed blackbird!

‘I have heard the music of meeting swords,
And the grating of barks on the strand,
And the shout from the breasts of the men of help
That leaped from the decks to land!

‘Twelve hounds had my sire, with throats like bells,
Loud echoed on lake and bay:
By this hand, they lacked but the baptism rite
To chaunt with thy monks this day!’

Oiseen's white head on his breast dropt down,
Till his hair and his beard, made one,
Shone out like the spine of a frosty hill
Far seen in the wintry sun.

171

‘One question, Patrick! I ask of thee,
Thou king of the saved and shriven:
My sire, and his chiefs, have they their place
In thy City, star-built, of heaven?’

‘Oiseen, old chief of the harp and sword,
That questionest of the soul,
That City they tread not who love but war:
Their realm is a realm of dole.’

‘By this head, thou liest, thou son of Calphurn!
In heaven I would scorn to bide
If my father and Oscar were exiled men,
And no friend at my side.’

‘That City, old man, is the City of Peace:
Loud anthems, not widows' wail:’
‘It is not in bellowings chiefs take joy,
But in songs of the wars of Fail!

‘Are the men in the streets like Baoignè's chiefs?
Great-hearted like us are they?
Do they stretch to the poor the ungrudging hand,
Or turn they their heads away?

‘Thou man with the chaunt, and thou man with the creed,
This thing I demand of thee:
My dog, may he pass through the gates of heaven?
May my wolf-hound enter free?’

‘Old man, not the buzzing gnat may pass,
Nor sunbeam look in unbidden:
The King there sceptred knows all, sees all:
From Him there is nothing hidden.’

172

‘It never was thus with Fionn, our king!
In largess our Fionn delighted:
The hosts of the earth came in and went forth
Unquestioned, and uninvited!’

‘Thy words are the words of madness, old man,
Thy chieftains had rule one day;
Yet a moment of heaven is three times worth
The warriors of Eire for aye!’

Then Oiseen uplifted his old white head:
Like lightning from hoary skies
A flash went forth 'neath the shaggy roofs
Low-bent o'er his sightless eyes:

‘Though my life sinks down, and I sit in the dust,
Blind warrior and grey-haired man,
Mine were they of old, thou priest over bold,
Those chiefs of Baoignè's clan!’

And he cried, while a spasm his huge frame shook,
‘Dim shadows like men before me,
My father was Fionn, and Oscar my son,
Though to-day ye stand vaunting it o'er me!’

Thus raged Oiseen—'mid the fold of Christ,
Still roaming old deserts wide
In the storm of thought, like a lion old;
Though lamblike at last he died.

173

II. THE DEATH OF OSCAR.

‘Sing us once more of Gahbra's fight,
Old bard, that fight where fell thy son:’
Thus Patrick spake to vexed Oiseen,
And the old man's wrath was gone.

‘Thou of the crosier white! whoe'er
Had seen that plain with carnage spread,
Or friend or foe, had wept for Eire,
And for her princes dead!

‘There lay the arms of mighty chiefs;
There kings in death with helms unbound.
A field of doom it was; a haunt
By deadly spells girt round!

‘Upon his left hand leaned my son:
His shield lay broken by his side:
His right hand clutched his sword: the blood
Rushed from him like a tide.

‘I stayed my spear-shaft on the ground:
O'er him I stooped on bended knee:
On me my Oscar turned his eyes:
He stretched his hand to me.

‘To me my Oscar spake—my son—
The dying man, and all but dead:
“Thou liv'st! For this I thank the Gods!
O father!” thus he said.

174

‘“Rememberest thou that day we fought
Far westward at the Sith of Mor?”
Caoilte thus: “I healed thee then,
Though deep thy wounds and sore:

‘“No cure remains for wounds like these.”’
Here ceased the lamentable sound;—
Five steps Caoilte moved apart;
Then dashed him on the ground.

‘My Oscar stared upon his wounds;
To fields long past his thoughts took flight:
“My son,” I cried, “thou hadst not died
If Fionn had ruled the fight!”

‘O Patrick! I have sung thee lays,
Emprize of others, or my own;
Where he was bravest all were brave;
But his, and his alone,

‘The gracious ways, the voice that smiled,
The heart so loving and so strong:
The women laughed to hear my harp;
They wept at Oscar's song!

‘All night we watched the dying man:
To staunch his blood we strove in vain:
We heard the demon-loaded wind
Along the mountain strain.

‘All night we propped him with our spears:
To staunch his blood we strove in vain;
Till, drenched in falling floods, the moon
Went down beyond the plain.

175

‘Alas! the dawning of that morn,
My Oscar's last! With barren glare
It flashed along the broken arms
And the red pools here and there.

‘Then saw we, pacing from afar,
A kingly form, a shape of woe:
King Fionn it was that toward us moved
With measured footsteps slow:

‘King Fionn himself; and far behind
Came many warriors more of Fail,
Down-gazing on Baoignè's clan
Death-cold, and still, and pale.

‘There lay all dumb the men of might:
There, foot to foot, the foemen, strewn
Like seaweed lines on stormy shores,
Or forests overblown!

‘O! then to hear that cry far borne
On gales new-touched with morning frost!
As though he heard it not, the king
Came, striding o'er that host,

‘Seeking the bodies of his sons:
So on he strode through fog and mist;
And we to meet him moved; for now
That Fionn it was we wist.

‘“All hail to thee, King Fionn! all hail!”
He answered naught, but onward passed
Until he reached that spot where lay
My Oscar sinking fast.

176

‘“Late, late thou com'st: yet thou art here:”
Then answered Fionn, “Alas the day!
My reign is done since thou art gone,
And all this host is clay.”

‘My Oscar gazed upon his face:
He heard the words his grandsire said:
He heard, nor spake: his hand down fell
And his great spirit fled.

‘Then all the warriors, far and near,
Save one that wept, and Fionn, my sire,
Three times upraised a cry that rang
O'er all the land of Eire.

‘Fionn turned from us his face that hour:
We knew that tears adown it crept:
Never, except for Bran his hound,
The king till then had wept.

‘He shed no tear above his son;
Tearless he saw his brother die:
He wept to see my Oscar dead
And the warriors weeping nigh.

‘This is the tale of Gahbra's fight,
Where all the monarchs warred on one;
Where they that wrecked him shared his fate,
And Erin's day was done.

‘On Gahbra's field the curse came down:
Our voice is changed from that of men:
We sigh by night: we sigh by day:
We learned that lesson then.

177

‘O! many a prince was laid that day
In narrow cairn and lonely cave;
But all the far-famed Rath thenceforth
Became my Oscar's grave!

‘Patrick, I pray the Lord of Life—
Patrick, do thou His grace implore—
That death may still my heart ere long:
This night my pain is sore.’

III. OISEEN'S YOUTH.

‘Patrick! thy priests do ill to jeer,
Not me, but Oscar's self, and Fionn:
Wise are they; but the dead are dear:
This deed is not well done.

‘Who dares to say the king lies bound
By angel hosts in bonds abhorred?
Had these lain bound, great Fionn had found
And freed them with his sword!

‘Had Fionn but heard thine Eve lament
The apple stol'n—the curse on men—
For eric apples he had sent,
Shiploads threescore and ten!

‘Likewise that Serpent slain had he!
Fionn ever said this way was best,
To kill the bad that killed should be,
And be loving to the rest.

178

Patrick, a pact with thee I make:
Because my warriors they deride
With thee to heaven my father take,
And leave thy priests outside!

‘Patrick, this other boon I crave,
That I to thee in heaven may sing
Full loud the glories of the brave
To thee and Him, thy King!’

‘Oiseen, in heaven the praises swell
To God alone from Soul and Saint:—’
‘Then, Patrick, I their deeds will tell
In a little whisper faint!

‘Who says that Fionn his sentence waits
In some dark realm, the thrall of sin?
Fionn would have burst that kingdom's gates,
Or ruled himself therein!’

‘Old man, have peace! To warriors true
None know what Grace in death is given:
Some served that Truth they never knew;
Some hail it first in heaven.

‘Old man, for once thy chiefs forget—’
(Thus oft the Saint his rage beguiled):
‘Sing us thine own glad youth, while yet
A stripling, or a child.’

‘O Patrick, glad that time and dear!
It wrought no greatness, gained no gain;
Not less those things thou long'st to hear
Thou shalt not seek in vain.

179

‘My mother was a princess, turned
By magic to a milk-white doe:—
Such tale, a wondering child, I learned:
True was it? Who can know?

‘I know but this, that yet a boy,
I raced beside her like the wind:
We heard the hunter's horn with joy,
And left the pack behind.

‘A strength was mine that knew no bound,
A witless strength that nothing planned:
When came the hour, the deed I found
Unsought for in my hand.

‘Forth from a cave I stept at Beigh:
O'er mountain cliffs the loose clouds rushed:
With them I raced, and reached ere they
The loud seas sandhill-hushed.

‘By Brandon's Head an eagle brown
O'erhung our wave-borne coracle:
I hurled at him my lance, and down
Like falling stars he fell.

‘On that green shore of Ardrakese
I made an untamed horse my slave,
And forced him far o'er heaving seas,
And reinless rode the wave.

‘Methinks my brow I might have laid
Against a bull's, and there and then
Have pushed him backward up the glade,
And down the rocky glen!

180

‘So ran my youth through dark and bright
In deeds half jest. Their time is gone:
The glorious works of thoughtful might
For Oscar were and Fionn!

‘Where met the hosts in mirth I fought:
My war-fields still with revel rang:
My sword with such a God was fraught
That while it smote it sang!

‘My spear, unbidden to my hand
Leaped, hawk-wise, for the battle's sake:
Forth launched, it flashed along the land
With music in its wake.

‘I bore a shield so charged and stored
With rage and yearnings for the fight,
When foes drew near it shook, and roared
Like breakers in the night:

‘But when at last the iron feast
Of war its hungry heart had stilled,
It murmured like a whispering priest
Or frothing pail new-filled!’

‘Say, knew'st thou never fear or awe?’
Thus Patrick; and the Bard replied,
‘Yea, once: for once a man I saw
Who—not in battle—died!

‘I sang the things I loved; the fight;
The chance inspired that all decides;
That pause of death, when Fate and Flight
Drag back the battle tides:

181

‘The swords that blent their lightnings blue;
The midnight march; the city's sack:
The advancing ridge of spears that threw
The levelled sunrise back.

‘And yet my harp could still the storm,
Redeem the babe from magic blight,
Restore to human heart and form
The unhappy spell-bound knight.

‘And some could hear a sobbing hind
Among my chords; and some would swear
They heard that kiss of branch and wind
That lulled the wild-deer's lair!

‘I sang not lusts: where base men thronged
I sat not, neither harped for gold:
My song no gracious foeman wronged,
No woman's secret told.

‘I sang not hate: with healing breath
Gladness of heaven my harp-strings flung
On bosoms true, but shamed to death
False heart, and ruthless tongue.

‘I sang not lies: amid the flocks
I sang when sunset flushed the spray,
Or when the white moon scaled the rocks
And glared upon the bay.

‘My stately music I rehearsed
On shadowing cliffs, when, far below,
In rolled the moon-necked wave and burst
And changed black shores to snow.

182

‘But now I tread a darker brink:
Far down, unfriendlier waters moan:
And now of vanished times I think:
Now of that bourn unknown.

‘I strike my harp; I make good cheer:
Yet scarce myself can catch its sound:
I see but phantoms bending near
When feasters press around.

‘Say, Patrick of the mystic lore,
Shall I, when this old head lies low,
My Oscar see, and Fionn, once more,
And race beside that Doe?’

IV. OISEEN'S QUESTION.

O Patrick, taught by Him, the Unknown,
These questions answer ere I die:
Why, when the trees at evening moan,
Why must an old man sigh?

No kinsmen of my stock are they
Though reared was I in sylvan cell:
Love-whispers once they breathed: this day
They mutter but ‘Farewell!’

What mean the floods? Of old they said,
‘Thus, thus, ye chiefs, ye clans, sweep on:’
They whiten still their rocky bed:
Those chiefs and clans are gone!

183

What Power is that which daily heaves
O'er earth's dark verge the rising sun,
As large the Druid Alph believes,
As Tork or Mangerton?

A woman once in youthful flower
Her infant laid upon my knee:
What was it shook my heart that hour?
I live—O, where is he?

What thing is Youth, which speeds so fast?
What thing is Life, which lags so long?
Trapped, trapped we are by age at last
In a net of fraud and wrong!

I cheated am by eld—or cheat—
Heart-young as leaves in sun that bask:
Is that fresh heart a counterfeit,
Or this grey shape a mask?

Some say 'tis folly to be moved:
‘The dog, he dieth—why not thou?’
They lie! We loved!—ill deeds reproved,—
Is Oscar nothing now?

O Patrick of the crosier-staff,
The wondrous Book, and anthems slow,
If thou the riddle know'st but half,
Help those who nothing know!

Who made the worlds? the soul? Man's race?
The man that knoweth, he is man!
I, once a prince, will serve in place
Clansman of that man's clan!

184

V. OISEEN'S GRATEFUL COUNSEL.

‘Patrick, 'tis right thy house should roof
This else unshielded head!
Reverence is due to Prince and Bard,
To dying men, and dead.

‘Patrick, I think that thou, like me,
Descend'st from princely line;
And if thy sires were saints, what help?
Needs must their ways be thine!

‘Patrick, thy brethren's songs are naught!
Thin wails from breasts ill-fed:
Nor valour yet, nor kindness throve
On lentils and hard bread!

‘Their songs rouse none to gen'rous rage:
All Lent they seemed to flow
From hearts of hapless men that sinned
Some great sin long ago.

‘I judge not such. What man of men
Could live man's life aright
Who ne'er had learned its best of joys,
Full banquet, and free fight?

‘Patrick, I give thee counsel good,
Since good thou art:—Each day
Feed thrice thy saints with flesh and wine:
Then lock them up to pray!

185

‘Likewise, if reverence thou wouldst win,
Take thou good spoil at need!
No chief should live on gifts—they least
High chiefs of rite and creed!

‘Patrick, I love thy song of One
Who fought with fiends for man,
Who vanquished Death, and rapt from Hell
The old warriors of his clan.

‘That tale is true! The best we think,
Or dream, that God can do!
Who doubts that legend's truth is fool,
Who scoffs it is untrue.

‘But, Patrick, they who know that Truth
Should walk in pride and mirth:
Why not? Their warriors reign in heaven!
Their loved ones of the hearth!

‘I would that all Baoignè's host
Had lived to hear thy word:
Their swords had made the man who wrought
That deed all Erin's Lord!

‘I would that like my Oscar thou
Couldst harp—or fight at need;
That feast of Fionn's were thine; that Fionn
Had shared thy Great One's deed!

‘Patrick! this tangled good and ill
Make all man's life perplext:
My chiefs were earth's best breed:—I think
Thy saints and thou come next!’

186

VI. OISEEN'S MISGIVINGS.

When now Oiseen lay sick, and none
Heard in the court, his tread,
To Patrick thus he spake, while blew
The spring breeze on his bed:

‘Patrick! if this be true, that He,
Thy Great One died for man,
Right just it were such chief should rule
All mankind for his clan.

‘If this be true that He who died
For Oscar died, and Fionn,
Then gladly would I die for Him,
Or kéile of his, live on.

‘Patrick, to me this day there came
A thought unthought before,
That Oscar's self perchance with years
Had grown—like me—heartsore.

‘Patrick, if He thou serv'st should keep
My dead son glad and strong
Though reft from me, I pledge to Him
In heaven my sword and song!

187

‘For I have seen the sweet face fade,
The stately frame grow weak:
And I have felt the tear-drop freeze
Upon an unkissed cheek.

‘Patrick, there are who shake in age
Aghast at sins of youth;—
If Faith of thine retrieves the past,
That Faith must needs be Truth.

‘For thrice I saw a foul deed done
By youthful chiefs in war;
And once I heard a traitor lie,
Albeit his head was hoar.

‘But woe to priests that say men sinned
Who erred but by mischance!
My Oscar heard not of thy King—
Who blames such ignorance?

‘For their sake whom I loved I trust:
That Creed thou sing'st is sound,
Though fancies mingled with my songs,
False weed from truthfullest ground.

‘But woe to priests who swear that Fionn
Lies chained and shamed this day!
Burn such with fire, or fling them bound
To be the wild-boar's prey!

‘Patrick! I think two men in me
For victory strive and cry;
Pray thou thy God to help the best
And bid the bad one die.’

Céile, client, dependant, but with rights.

188

VII. OISEEN'S VISION.

As, dim through snowy flakes, the dawn
Peered o'er the moorlands frore,
The old, snow-headed Bard, Oiseen,
Sat by the convent door.

His chin he propped on that clenched hand
Of old in battles feared:
And like a silver flood far-kenned
Down streamed to earth his beard.

That sun his eyes could see no more
Their thin lids loved to feel:
It rose; and on his cheek a tear
Began to uncongeal.

Then slowly thus he spake: ‘Three times
This thought has come to me,
Patrick, that I am older thrice
Than I am famed to be:

‘For on the ruins of that house,
Once stately to behold,
Where feasted Fionn the king, there sighs
A wood of alders old.

‘And on my Oscar's grave three elms
Have risen, and mouldered three;
And by my father's cairn the oak
Is now a hollow tree.

189

‘Patrick, of me they noised a tale,
That down beneath a lake
A hundred years I lived, unchanged,
For a Faery Lady's sake:

‘They said that, home when I returned,
The men I loved were dead;
And that the whiteness fell that hour
Like snow upon my head.

‘That was a dream of mine in youth—
The witless deemed it true:
Far other dream was mine in age:
A dream that no man knew.

‘For though I sang of things loved well,
I hid the things loved best:—
Patrick, to thee that later dream
This day shall be confessed.

‘On Gahbra's field my Oscar fell:
Last died my father, Fionn:
The wind went o'er their grassy mounds;
I heard it, and lived on.

‘I loved no more the lark by Lee,
Nor yet the battle-cry;
For that cause in a dell, one day,
I laid me down to die.

‘The cold went on into my heart:
Methought that I lay dead:
Yet knew I that two angels waved
Their wings above my head.

190

‘They spake, “This man, for Erin's sake
Shall tarry here an age—
Till He Who died to Erin comes—
In this still hermitage:

‘“That so, ere yet that great old time
Is wholly gone and past,
Her manlier with her saintly day
May blend in bridal fast.

‘“And since of deadly deeds he sang
Above him we will sing
The Death that saved: and we from him
Will keep the gadfly's sting.

‘“For him an age, for us an hour,
Here, like a cradled child,
Shall sleep the man whose hand was red,
Whose heart was undefiled.”

‘Patrick! That vision, was it truth?
Or fancy's mocking gleam?
That I should tarry till He came—
'Twas not, 'twas not a dream!

‘And wondrous is mine age, I know;
For whiter than the thorn
Was this once-honoured head, ere yet
The men now white were born:

‘And on my Oscar's grave three elms
Have risen, and mouldered three;
And on my father's grave, the oak
Is now a hollow tree.

191

Then said the monks, ‘His brain is hurt:’
But Patrick said, ‘They lie!
Thou God that lov'st thy grey-haired child,
Would I for him might die!’

And Patrick cried, ‘Oiseen! the thirst
Of God is in thy breast!
He who has dealt thy heart the wound
Ere long will give it rest!’

VIII. OISEEN'S GOOD CONFESSION.

A month went by, but still Oiseen,
Like seas that cannot rest,
Made change from calm to storm, nor e'er
God's Truth aright confessed.

For still he mingled scoff with praise,
And clamoured oft that Eire
Were heaven to him, if Oscar trod
Her mountains—and his sire.

The end drew near. Death-still he lay
Upon his wolf-skin bed;
And now he smiled in sleep, and now
Murmured of warriors dead.

192

God's Saint drew near; bent o'er him; spake:
‘A fair Child died one day:
Four weeks had passed, yet, changeless still,
Like child asleep he lay.

‘They could not hide him in the ground
Though hand and heart were chill,
For round his lips the smile avouched
That soul was in him still.

‘Then lo! a Man of God came by
And stood beside the bier,
And spake, “A Pagan house is this,
And yet a Saint lies here!

‘“God shaped this Child His praise to sing
To a blind and Pagan race;
And till that song is sung, in heaven
He may not see God's Face.”

‘The Man of God his censer took,
Above that Child he bowed;
With an Altar-coal he touched its tongue
And the dead Child sang aloud.

‘The Child sat up that dead had been,
And singing praised his Lord;
And all the Pagans knelt around
And Christ, their God, adored.

‘Oiseen! like larks beside thy Lee
So loud he sang that hymn:
And straight baptized he was, and died;
And, dead, his face grew dim.

193

‘So then, since Christ had caught to heaven
The fair soul washed from sin,
A little grave they dug, and laid
The little Saint therein.

‘And ever as fell the night, that grave
Shone like the Shepherds' star,
With happy beam, and homeward drew
Some wanderer from afar.

‘Oiseen! thy Land is like that Child!
Thou call'st her dead—thy Land—
For cold is Fionn, thy sire; and he,
He was her strong right hand!

‘And cold is Oscar now, thy son;
Her mighty heart was he:
Oiseen! let dead at last be dead;
Let living, living be!

‘Her great old Past is gone at last:
Her lordlier Future waits:
Yet entrance never can she find
Till Faith unbars the gates.

‘Son of thy Country's mightiest King!
Bard of her Royal Race!
Thee, too, God's Altar-Fire hath touched:
Show thou to Eire His Face!

‘Prince of thy country's songful choir!
Thou wert her golden tongue!
Sing thou her new song, “I believe,”
Give thou to God her song!’

194

Then suddenly that old man stood,
And made his arms a cross:
And light was his from heaven that changed
All earth to dust and dross:

And, pierced by beams from those two Hands
Of Jesus crucified,
His Erin of two thousand years
Held forth her hands and died:

For all her sceptres by a Reed
He saw that hour o'erborne;
And all her crowns he saw go down
Before that Crown of Thorn.

As shines the sun through snowy haze
Oiseen's white head forth shone:
‘In God the Father I believe,’
He sang, ‘and Mary's Son:’

And, onward as the swan-chaunt swept
Adown the Creed's broad flood,
In radiance waxed his face, as though
He saw the Face of God.

Then Patrick with his wondering monks,
Knelt down, and said, ‘Amen,’
While slowly dropped a sun that ne'er
Saw that white head again.

The rite complete, the old man sank,
And turned him on his side:
Next morning, as the Lauds began,
‘My Son,’ he said, and died.

University of Virginia Library

OISEEN THE BARD AND SAINT PATRICK.

I. THE GREAT CONTENTION.