Poems with Fables in Prose | ||
I:NARRATIVE POEMS
DEIRDRE WEDDED
This narrative poem, published some years before the plays, “Deirdre” of Synge, or the “Deirdre” of W. B. Yeats, does not cover any of the ground touched by these poets. In fact the episode of thirty hours, narrated by the Three Voices, does not, with the exception of two incidents, occur in any of the versions of the famous “Tragical Tale of the Sons of Usnach.” The manner of Deirdre's wooing of Naois is, however, based on an occurrence in a Gaelic version of that tale, in which, on a day (although not, as in this narrative, her marriage day) Deirdre and her women companions “were out on the hillock behind the house enjoying the scene and drinking in the sun's heat. What did they see coming but three men a-journeying. Deirdre was looking at the men that were coming, and wondering at them. When the men neared them, Deirdre remembered the language of the huntsmen, and she said to herself that these were the three sons of Usnach, and that this was Naois, he having what was above the bend of his two shoulders above the men of Erin all.” The three brothers went past without taking any notice of them, and without even glancing at the young girls on the hillock. “What happened but that love for Naois struck the heart of Deirdre, so that she could not but follow after him. She trussed her raiment and went after the three men that went past the base of the knoll, leaving her women attendants there. Aillean and Ardan had heard of the woman that Connachar, King of Ulster, had with him, and they thought that if Naois their brother saw her he would have her himself, more especially as she was not married to the king.” They perceived the woman coming, and called on one another to hasten their steps as they had a long distance to travel and the dusk of night was coming on. They did so. She cried three times, “Naois, son of Usnach, wilt thou leave me?” “What cry is that which it is not well for me to answer, and not easy for me to refuse?” Twice the brothers put him off with excuses. “But the third time Naois and Deirdre met, and Deirdre kissed Naois three times, and a kiss to each of his brothers.” The other incidents in the episodic poem “Deirdre Wedded” are new. They are grounded on knowledge of the localities named.
These were old bards. A tomb like that of Cir, caverned through a hill-ridge, has been found and explored not far from Eman and Armagh, just as it is described in the poem. But the curious may rediscover it for themselves.
This king, or terrestrial divinity, is generally known as Conchobar, or Conor, King of Ulster (Uladh) and Arch-King of Ireland. He is chronicled as reigning about the time of the incarnation of Christ.
Eman, or Emain Macha, was the chief palace of Connachar. It is still seen and named in the “Navan Ring”—enormous earthworks on a hill about two miles west of Armagh. The people from the town and countryside still go up to dance there on holidays. Traces of the Lake of Pearls—into which jewels were cast on a sudden flight—lie in a marsh under Eman. The Callan, or “loud-sounding” river, runs not very far off.
A pre-historic stone fortress—singularly vast —on the edge of the cliffs of Arran Môr, one of the Aran Islands in the Atlantic, west of Galway. The walls are very massive, and were originally built half-cricle-wise, as though half of the ring had broken off and fallen into the sea.
I: THE CHANTERS
I
I stood on the Hill of Time when the sun was fled,And my vision sought where to rest, till it knew the plains
Of my country, the Night's harp, and the moonless bed
Of rivers and bristling forests and sea-board chains.
II
And from many a chanter's mound—none is nameless there—Could I hear, amid rumour eternal, the voice ascend.
With the bones of man endureth his floating hair,
And the song of his spirit on earth is slow to end.
III
Speak to me, speak to me, Fintan, dark in the south,From the west Urmael, and Cir, lying under the pole,
Some chant that ye made, who never spake mouth to mouth,
But over the ridge of ages from soul to soul!
IV
And a strain came out of Dun Tulcha, the yew's shores,From Fintan, the elder than yews, the too old for tears,
“Let us tell him of Deirdre wed, that his heart's doors
Resound, as when kings arrive, with the trees of spears.”
2: VOICE OF FINTAN
Out of the First Century
It was the night when Connachar, high king
Of the four kingdoms, took to wife at last
Deirdre, the wise one, the thrice-beautiful;
It was the night of marriage. Word had sped,
Tokens gone out to every rath and ring
And every pasture on the woody knolls
Green about Eman, of the slaughter blithe
Of sheep and boar, of badger and of stag,
Reddening the ways up to the kingly house—
Of sheep and goats and of the stintless food
That should be poured out to his beggary
By Connachar, that all time should remember
The night he wed the girl from the elf-mound.
Yonside of Assaroe his swineherd found her
Bred in a peaty hillock of the west
By one old crone. Though tribeless she and wild—
Barefoot, and in the red wool chasing cattle
Connachar saw and took, biding his time,
And let queens give her skill the winter long
In webs and brews and dyes and broideries
Up to this night of marriage.
The beam-work in its dome of forest trunks—
They that had been the chantries of the dawn
To blacken songless through a thousand years:—
But never since they sway'd buds in the glens
Or spun the silken-floating violet gleam
Had those spars groan'd above so fierce a breath
Rich with the vapour of the boar! For now
Hundreds with ruddy-glistening faces ran
Jostling round the nine shadows of the blaze
And spread with skins the lengthy beds of men
And soused warm spice of herbs in ale. Here—thither—
Was rousing of age-slumber'd horns, arranging
Smooth banks throughout the house, strawing of rushes,
And cauldrons humm'd before the empty throne
Set high in the shadow of the wall, and bubbled
Inaudible, impatient for the king.
Wide-wafted sank the sun's divinity
On swooning wings, the Lake of Pearls far down
Curdled beneath the unseen seed of rain.
Ramparts run there that by-gone prisoners
Bore once in bags of slime up from the lake
For barriers of the house they most abhorr'd.
Dips lowest to the lakeward, Deirdre stood,
Hearing from distant ridges the faint bleat
Of lambs perturb the dusk—bleats shivering out
Like wool from thorns—there the young Deirdre stood,
Like the moon whose climbing beauty pales the world,
Looking far off on hills whence she was come.
Mountains that lift the holiness of Fire!
Fortitudes, ye that take the brunt of fate!
Send her across the bog a little cloud
Full of the ancient savours, full of peace,
And for its drops she will hold up her heart,
O ye that stand in heaven, far removed!
She ask'd aloud, Wherefore were greens so bare
That but an hour ago shook with the thud
Of racers and of hurlers? Was it late?
The wrinkled nurse replied, Had the child eyes?
Back from a hosting and a desperate prey
For corn and mares and rustless brass and beeves
Naois, with the rest of Usnach's sons,
Had come. She had seen him weary go but now
Heavily up the steep through the king's hedge.
Now on the hill-top, while the woman spoke,
The hosts sway'd round him, and above the press
Connachar, glittering all in torques of gold
And writhen armlets, listen'd from the mound
Of judgment, by the doom-oak at his door.
His beak'd helm took the sunset, but he held
His flint-red eyes in shadow and averse.
And when before him, dark as a young pine,
Unmoved the son of Usnach had told all;
How half his folk had perish'd in the task
By plague or battle, and how poor a spoil
Was driven home, the king cried: “Paragon!
We must go griddle cakes in honey for him!
Bring lavers of pale gold to wash off blood
So precious to us!” Since for many moons
This champion had forsworn the face of softness
And stretched his hungers to the sleety rock,
Call in the smile of women to unlatch
From his grim ribs the iron:—Faugh! Away!
Let Usnach's sons take out again that night
Their broken clans, their piteous cattle thence;
Defeated men should see his gates no more.
Down hill and to the loch to wash his wounds
Chanting—his dark curls waver'd in the wind—
Lest we should think him humbled. Halfway down
The shapes of women loiter'd in the dusk
And one held backward out her arms to take
The latchets of her cloak. But as Naois
Pass'd by them, closely as is heard a sigh—
His vehement flood of soul fierce for the mere—
Glancing not right nor left, O then I saw
The foot of Deirdre stricken motionless—
I saw the stiff cloak many-colour'd sink
Slow to the grass, wrinkling its blazon'd skins
Behind her.
And from the warmth of drinking at his feast
Connachar sent forth to the women's house;
And heralds bade bring also the grey seer,
Cathva, though Cathva had not will'd to come.
But hardly had those erranders gone out
When rose the door-hide: the grey seer came in
Noiseless. He was of fog the night hath spun,
Earth in his hair and on his meagre cheek,
Consumed and shaking, ragged as seaweed,
And to the throne he cried: “Why hast thou called
Me to carousal? Is this bed my work?
Nay—too great clearness underneath the thunder
Shew'd insupportably the things to be.
Shook round her cabin low my skirts of storm,
Far hence, round her peaty hillock in the west,
To shield thee from that devastating face.
My fault is only that I slew her not.
Know! it was I that, seeing those cradled limbs
Bright with disaster for the realm and thee,
When she no more was than a litling babe
Flung her away among sea-warding Mountains.
But Muilréa to Ben Gorm said:What is this?
What glee is this disturbs our desolation?
I hear another than the wild duck sheering
Sidelong the wind. Tall as a rush is she,
Sweet as the glitter of the netted lakes!
And Ben Gorm answer'd:We are sick alone:
Let us distil the heavens into a child!
Yea, let our bones appear, the black goat starve
Upon our heads, yet shall this wafted seed
Superabound with ripeness we forgo.
Dark space shall come to heart—silvers of mists— And thou, blue depth of gorges! Connachar,
I heard the plotters, but I let her live!”
And the king ask'd, “Hath any seen her there?”
And Cathva answer'd, “Till thy herdsman found her
Commanded yet again, “Bring us in Deirdre!”
Straightway a woman like the claw of birds,
Decrepit, bright of eye, and innocent,
Stood up beyond the fire. Her fingers play'd—
Play'd with a red stone at her breast. He ask'd,
“Who gave thee, hag, the jewel on thy bosom?”
Now every drinker from the darkest stalls
Perceived the brooch was Deirdre's, and a gift
To her from Connachar. Aghast, the woman
Fumbled at her sere breast, and wept and said,
“It was a gift to me, O Connachar,
This night.” And he, consummate lord of fear,
Our never-counsell'd lord, the Forest-odour'd,
That kept about his heart a zone of chill,
Smiled, though within the gateway of his fort
A surmise crept, as 'neath a load of rushes
Creeps in the stabber. “Fix the pin, Levarcham,
For she that loses such a brooch will grieve.
Why comes not Deirdre?” “Sir, she is not yet
Duly array'd, and so is loth to come.”
O, then, believe me, all the floor was hush,
But a mad discordancy like fifes, drums, brasses,—
Bondmen of old was on the winds released—
Shook every beam and pillar of the house;
And the king said—“Thou hear'st out of the marsh
And she said, “Yea.” “Thou knowest round these walls
How many chariots now are tilted up?”
And she said, “Yea.” “Then, woman, bring with haste
Deirdre, thy charge, into this presence now,
Or limb from limb upon the pleasant grass
Those wheels shall parcel thee at dawn!” And she,
Levarcham that was nurse to Deirdre's childhood,
Lifted her hands and closed her eyes and sang:
“She will come back, but I, I shall not bring her!
O rainbow breathed into the dreadful pine,
Why art thou gone from me? Dearer to me
Than the sobbing of the cuckoo to the shore,
Why art thou gone from me?” She bow'd and wept.
And Connachar came from the throne, and grasping,
As if he felt no heat, the cauldron's brims,
Lean'd through its steams, watching the nurse and said,
“Will these afflicting tears bring Deirdre in?”
But she look'd up and said: “How shall I bring her?
Look now outside thy door, O Connachar!
The black oak with the vision-dripping boughs
Stagger'd as I came up in the night-blast.
In vain it stretches angers to the sky:
It cannot keep the white moon from escape
To sail the tempest; nor, O king, canst thou!”
The cheek of him that listened grew thrice-pale
And his thick nostrils swell'd, his half-shut eyes
Fang'd sheen, and slow dilated; stubbornly
He clutch'd to steady his convulsive frame
The sea-full cauldron; quick, with efforts vast,
Upheaved and swung and pillar'd it on high—
And hoarsely bade, “Take torches!” Every man
Kindled in silence at the hearth divine.
Then Connachar pour'd out upon the blaze
The flood within the vat. The roofs were fill'd
With darkness foul, with hissings and with smoke. . . .
3: VOICE OF CIR
Out of a Century more remote, but unknown
Where tide is at ebb, and out on the airy brim
Glass'd upon cloud and azure stand multitudes
Of the flame-white people of gulls—to the sky-line dim
Into fevers of snows and ocean-wandering cries:
Even so, chanters divine, in some woman's fate
At coming of him to be loved do her dreams arise.
Took the flame of love in her heart at the time of dew,
And clad her in ragged wool from a coffer of bronze,
And walked in the chill of night, for her soul was new.
I could drink up this tempest cold as a burning wine.
Why laugh, my grief, for art thou not bride of a king,
And the drinkers drink to a couch array'd to be thine?”
The house Bron Bhearg—she laid her cheek to the wall
And bless'd them by stealth, with no pang at the sound of groans,
Having that in her rich heart which could heal them all.
She fled, and spied, not a sling-cast off, the flare
Of a torch, and the skull fixed over the gate. And lo,
To the right hand watchmen paced by the water there.
Athwart; for who was this phantom over the grass
And cried, “I am Deirdre!” And sullen they gave her the pass.
To blindness. She pluck'd her steps on that miry road
Through copses alive with storm, till at length a spark
Shew'd the forge where the smith on the heroes' way abode.
With the soft roar of his hide-wing'd fire as it soar'd:
“Has the son of Usnach pass'd?” “Yea, gone back!” With the word
He smote on a ribbon of iron to make him a sword.
The woman fled to the wastes, till she came to a Thorn
Black, by the well of a God, with stars therein kindling
And over it rags fluttering from boughs forlorn.
And leash'd the black-shuddering branch with that tress, and pray'd:
“Sloe-tree, thou snow of the darkness, O hear my prayer,
And thou, black Depth, bubble-breather, vouchsafe thine aid;
Sons of the Earth's profound, that no weeper spurn!
I have look'd on a face, and its kindness ravish't my soul,
But deliverance pass'd; unto you for escape I turn.”
Came the banish'd of Usnach nigh, thrice fifty strong,
As they drove from Eman away on that night of storm;
And Naois spoke with his brothers behind the throng:
Rang on my soul's shield; hark! hear ye it now?”
“It was fate, 'twas the curs't hag that is crouch'd on a bough!”
Rain-dripping mantled the wind. One ran like a roe,
And call'd on that great name from the night-bound wood:
“Stay, long-awaited, stay! for with thee I go!”
Or a gang of the wild geese, going back to the lake!”
But Naois rear'd up the deep-ribb'd Srōn: “Good Srōn,
Thou and I needs must turn for our fame's sake.”
He bent from the withers, the blaze of her, trembling, drew
The breath from his lips and the beat from his heart's life;
And he said, “Who art thou, Queen?” But himself knew.
Him least of all I rob, least of all that live!”
But she cried: “Am I then a colt, that ye snare from a foe
With a bridle's shaking? I am mine own to give!”
And famine rake out thine embers, the lean paw
Of jeopardy find thee. He is not rich in delights
Whose harp is the grey fell in the winter's flaw!”
Horse swollen-vein'd from battle, insulter of death—
Whose back is only a perch for the desert bird—
Whose fore-hooves fight—whose passage is torn with teeth:
To the grief of the weak?” And the lad, deeply-moved, rejoins,
“Mount, then, O woman, behind me!”—and light as a leaf
Drawing her up from his foot to the smoking loins
From Muilréa's moon-glittering peak when the sky is bare,
Scraped naked by nine days' wind, and sweepingly drives
Over night-blurred gulfs and the long glens of the air,
Spouted from isleless ocean to aid his flight—
So fiercely, so steadily gallop'd the sinewy Srōn,
Braced by that double burden to more delight.
As giddy foam-weltering waters dash'd by the hoof
Flee away from the weirs of Callan, even so pass'd
Dark plains away to the world's edge, behind and aloof.
Such sweetness of praise to his horse in the swirl of the flood,
Strain'd forth like a hare's, as his haunches up to the wood
And talon'd things of the forest would waft and sway;
But Naois raised unforgotten that battle-shout
That scatters the thrilling wreath of all fears away.
Till the Crag of the Dances before them did shape and loom,
And the Meads of the Faery Hurlers in silver swam;
Then up to the Gap of the Winds, and the far-seen tomb
And cairn of princes—yea, to mine own bedside—
They adventured! Think ye, sweet bards, that I could lie cold
When my chamber of rock fore-knew that impassion'd stride?
And torn from its wave of chords an imperishable love
To sleep on this breast? For here through the mountain sharp
My grave-chamber tunnell'd is, and one door from above
But forth from the eastern face of the ridge is unquell'd
Wilderness, besown with boulders and grass of harm.
Even in my trance could I feel those riders approach, and beheld
Expectant, unconscious, as one whom his foes arouse;
His heart was a forge, his onset enkindled space,
He shook off the gusty leagues like locks from his brows.
Stolen round him, as dreamy water steals round a shore,
That terror of main kings should unlock no more?
Upward, and wing'd like the kiss of Aengus, strove
For utterance to greet them—encircling their heads that flew—
But who lops the whirlwind's foot or outdreameth love?
And spoke: “Dost thou know the truth? Look where night is low!
Soon the ants of that mound shall shake the ledge where we stand;
Now the tribes are summon'd, the Night prepares his blow;
Now tackle the arrogant chariots-dogs in their glee
Hang on the leash-slaves, numb in the cockcrow airs.
Why, out of all that host, hast thou singled me?”
Aptest art thou in feats, held in honour more
Than any save bright Cuchullain!” He turn'd as one lost:
“Is this time a time to mock? Are there not four-score
The attemper'd knights of the Red Branch every one?
Nay, though I knead up the whole earth in my dreams,
Nought to such men am I, who have nothing done!”
Thee—wherefore? Ah, how interpret? Today on the slope
Where first by the wall I saw thee at gloam of dews
I knew it was fated. It was not some leaf of hope
That a chief beleaguer'd cons in his desperate camp
And fits to the other half by his wasted lamp.
Half of the symbol—but broken, mayhap to serve
As language to them of the night from powers of the day!”
By the path of the throbbing curlew no step may swerve
And he said: “Glorious is it to me that behind us pursuit
Shall be wide as the red of the morning; for thou art my will!
To the beach of the world of the dead, and beyond it to boot,
But crossing the mires and the torrents I saw strange ease
Afloat, like a spark, on the woman's eyes as she lean'd
Forth, and a shadow betwixt her lips like peace!
4: VOICE OF URMAEL
Out of the Sixth Century
Beside the river-green of Lisnacaun:
“Who is this woman beautiful as light
Sitting in dolour on thy branchèd lawn,
With sun-red hair, entangled as with flight,
Sheening the knees up to her bosom drawn?
What horses mud-besprent so thirstily
Bellying the hush pools with their nostrils wide?”
And the Yew, old as the long mountain-side,
Answer'd, “I saw her hither with Clan Usnach ride!”
Alone!” Naois pray'd. Through broom and bent
Strewn with swift-travelling shadows like their moods,
Leaving below the camp's thin cries, they went;
And never a tress, escaping from her snoods,
Made the brown river with a kiss content,
So safe he raised up Deirdre through the ford.
He should so bear her after to the grave,
Breasting the druid ice, breasting the phantom wave!
And light as notes the Achill shepherd plays
On his twin pipes, they wanton'd light and slow
Up the broad valley. Birds sail'd from the haze
Far up, where darkling copses over-grow
Scarps of the grey cliff from his river'd base.
Diaphaneity, the spirit's beauty,
Along the dimmèd combes did float and reign,
And many a mountain's scarry flank was plain
Through nets of youngling gold betrimm'd with rain.
So endless—beckon'd to the realms of wind
Deirdre broke from his side, and airily
Fled up the slopes, flinging disdains behind,
And paused, and round a little vivid tree
The wolf-skins from her neck began to bind.
Naois watch'd below this incantation;
Then upward on his javelin's length he swung
To catch some old crone's ditty freshly sung,
Bidding that shoot be wise, for yet 'twas young.
Roved they, unwitting of the world outroll'd,
Their ears dinn'd by the breeze's clarion
That quicks the blood while yet the cheek is cold;
Great whitenesses rose past them, brooks ran down,
And step by step Findruim bare and bold
Uplifted. So a swimmer is uplifted,
Horsed on a streaming shoulder of the Sea,
Our hasty master, who to such as we
Tosses some glittering hour of mastery.
Feathery voices, keen and soft and light:
“Mate ye as eagles mate, that on the wing
Grapple—heaven-high—hell-deep—for yours is flight!
Souls like the granite candles of a king,
Flaming unshook amid the noise of night.
What of pursuit, that you to-day should fear it?”
Pursuit they reck'd not, save of wind that pours
Surging and urging on to other shores
Over the restless forest of a thousand doors.
Uncoil the clouds that everlasting stream
Forth from the castles of those islands rare,
Black in the ragged-misted ocean's gleam,
Northward!” But in her bosom's open seam
She set the powder'd yew-spring silently;
“Speak not of me nor give my beauty praise,
Whose beauty is to follow in thy ways,
So that my days be number'd with thy days!”
Their feet wist not if they should soar or run;
They turned, at earth astonish'd, face to face,
Deeming unearthly blessedness begun.
And slow, 'mid nests of running larks, they pace
Drinking from the recesses of the sun
Tremble of those wings that beat light into music.
There the world's ends lay open; open wide
The body's windows. What shall them divide
Who have walk'd once that country side by side?
Fountains of blood and spirit seem to fill?
The woods, over-flowing, cannot bear that such
An hour should be so sweet and yet be still.
Even the low-tangled bushes at a touch
Break into wars of gleemen, thrill on thrill.
O, son of Usnach, bring me not thy glories!
That where no brother goeth I may go,
And kneel to wash thy wounds in caverns bleak and low!”
(He sang) “once after hunting, by the fire
I knelt, and kindling brushwood raised up thee,
Deirdre, nor wist the star of my desire
Should ever walk Findruim's head with me,
Far from a king's loud house and soft attire.
Fain would I thatch us here a booth of hazels,
Thatch it with drift and snow of sea-gulls' wings;
And thy horn'd harp should wonder to its strings,
What spoil is it to-night Naois brings?”
(A neck of the bare down it was, a ledge
Of wind-sleek turf, the lovers roam'd upon,
And sent young rabbits scuttling to the edge
Of underwoods beneath), “I think that you
Some beast—haply a stag—takes harbourage.”
And Deirdre at a word come back from regions
Of bliss too nigh to pain, snatch'd with no fear
Out of his hand the battle-haunted spear
And, questing swiftly down the pasture sheer,
Green-litten air, and there, as seeking fresh
Enemies, one haunch crush'd against the ground
The grey boar slew'd, tusking the tender flesh
Of shoots, his ravage-whetted bulk around:
But, when his ear across the straggling mesh
Of feather'd sticks report of Deirdre found,
He quiver'd, snorted; from his jaws like wine
Foam dripped; the brawny horror of his spine
Bristled with keen spikes like a ridge of pine.
Believed that in the beast sate to ensnare
He of the red eye—little need to ask
The druid-wrinkled hide, the sluttish hair:
This was to escape—how vain poor passion's task!—
Connachar of the illimitable lair!
He crash'd at her! she heaved the point embrown'd
In blood of dragons. Heavily the boar
Grazed by the iron, reel'd, leapt, charged once more
And thrice in passage her frail vesture tore.
(Who pipes to flocks below him on the steep
Cool as the running water, soft as sleep)
Hurls out a flint from peril to debar
And from the boulder'd chasm recall his sheep—
So with a knife Naois leapt and struck.
Strange! in the very fury of a stride
The grey beast like a phantom from his side
Plunged without scathe to thickets undescried.
And laugh'd, “This shall be praised in revels mad
Around Lug's peak, when women scatter grain
Upon the warriors! Why shouldst thou be sad
Pale victory?” But she, “Ah, thus again
Ere night do I imperil thee, and add
Burden to burden!” And he strove to lead her
From grief, and said, “What, bride! thy raiment torn?”
“Content thee, O content thee, man of scorn,
I'll brooch it with no jewel but a thorn!”
Findruim, like the throng about his grave,
Dusk with the swarth locks of ten thousand stems
In naked poise. These make no rustle save
Murmur; bedumb'd with moss that giant nave.
But let Findruim shake out overhead
His old sea-sigh, and when it doth arrive
At once their tawny boles become alive
With gleams that come and go, and they revive
He said, “as by the blueness of a ray
That, dropping through this presence sombre-wall'd,
Burns low about the image of a spray
Of some poor beech-spray witch'd to emerald.
Wilt thou not dance, daughter of heaven, to-day
Free, at last free? For here no moody raindrop
Can reach thee, nor betrayer overpeer;
And none the self-delightful measure hear
That thy soul moves to, quit of mortal ear!”
And on the enmossèd lights begins to dance.
Away, away, far floating like a mist
To fade into some leafy brilliance;
Then, smiling to the inward melodist,
Over the printless turf with slow advance
That crowded glen. But quick, possess'd by strange
Rapture, wider than dreams her motions range,
Till to a span the forests shrink and change.
Hither all promise, all the unlook'd-for boon
Of rainbow'd life, all rare and speechless things
That shine and swell under the brimming Moon.
Who shall pluck tympans? For what need of strings
To waft her blood who is herself the tune—
Herself the warm and breathing melody?
Art come from the Land of the Ever-Young? O stay!
For his heart, after thee rising away,
Falls dark and spirit-faint back to the clay.
Rise after her—long-buried pangs arouse—
About that bosom the grey forests whirl'd,
And tempests with her beauty might espouse;
She rose with the green waters of the world
And the winds heaved with her their depth of boughs.
Then vague again as blows the beanfield's odour
As, winnowing with plumes, to the river-brink
The pigeons from the cliff come down to drink.
Listening, like bride whom cunning faery strain
Forth from the trumpet-bruited spousal feast
Steals. But she beckon'd soon, and quick with pain
He ran, he craved at those white feet the least
Pardon; nor, till he felt her hand again
Descend flake-soft, durst spy that she was weeping,
Or kneel with burning murmurs to atone.
For sleep she wept. Long fasting had they gone
And ridden from the breaking of the dawn.
From Sleep's own lake as from a cauldron pass;
He led towards their sound his weary love
And lay before her in the fresh of grass
Resting—the white cirque of the cliffs above—
Against a sun-abandon'd stem there was.
Spray from the strings of water spilling over
The weir of rock, their fever'd cheeks bewet;
And to its sound a voiceless bread they ate,
And drank the troth that is unbroken yet.
By finest skimming of the elfin breeze,
An isle was moor'd, with rushes at its prow
And fraught with haze of deeply-mirror'd trees;
And knowing Deirdre still was mindful how
The boar yet lived, that she might sleep at ease
Naois swore to harbour on that islet.
Nine strides he waded in, on footings nine
Deep, deeper yet, until his basnet's shine
Sank to the cold lips of the lake divine.
Approach'd the pool-god; and the outermost
Had been the black slab whereon druids slay
With stoop and mutter to the water's ghost,
Though since, to glut some whim malign, the fay
Had swell'd over the flags. Of all the host
Few save Naois, and at sore adventure,
Had ta'en this pass. But who would not have press'd
Through straits by the chill-finger'd fiend possess'd
To bear unto that isle Deirdre to rest?
Unhook; cast in this shatter'd helm for spoil!”
He swam and bore her out with happy toil,
Secret and fierce as the flat otter swims
Out of the whistling reeds, as if through oil.
And Deirdre, whiter than the wave-swan floating,
Smiled that he suffer'd her no stroke to urge.
At length they reach the gnarl'd and ivied verge
And from the shallows to the sun emerge.
And sun-tears wrings out of the heavy strands
Of corded hair. He, watching to the close,
Sees not the white silk tissue as she stands
Clinging bedull'd to the clear limbs of rose.
She turn'd and to him stretched misdoubting hands:
“Tell me, ere thou dissolve, O wordless watcher,
Am I that Deirdre that would sit and spin
Beside Keshcorran? Dost thou love me? Then
I touch thee. For I, too, have love within.”
Love-cry! How the steep woods thirst for thy voice,
And gush of a young spring's delicious noise
Driven from the ancient heights whereon 'twas nursed!
Yet, as death's heart is silent, so is joy's.
His mouth spake not; for, as in dusk Glen Treithim
Smelters of bubbling gold brook not to breathe
Reek of the coloured fumes whose hissings wreathe
The brim, he choked at his own spirit's seethe.
“What touch is thine? It hath unearthly powers.
I think thou art the woman Cairbre made
Out of the dazzle and the wind of flowers.
Behold, the flame-like children of the shade,
The buds, about thee rise like servitors!
It seems I had not lipp'd the cup of living
Till thou didst stretch it out. Vaguely I felt
Irreparable waste. Why hast thou dwell'd
Near me on earth so long, yet unbeheld?”
But Twilight shows the distance of the near;
Mixes the soul of suns that disappear;
To make man's eyes approach the eyes of love
In simpleness, in mystery and fear.
All blooms both bright and pale are in her gardens,
All chords both shrill and deep under her hand
Who, sounding forth the richness of the land,
Estrangeth all, that we may understand.
Creak as of eagles' wing-feathers afar
Coasting the grey cliffs. On him slowly rise,
As to Cuchullain came his signal star,
Out of the sheeted rivers, Deirdre's eyes.
And who look'd in them well was girt for war,
Seeing in that gaze all who for love had perish'd:
The queens calamitous unbow'd at last—
The supreme fighters that alone stood fast—
Fealties obscure, unwitness'd, and long past;
By love,—in very essence, force, heat, breath,
Now, now arose in Deirdre's eyes and deign'd
Summons to him—“Canst follow us?” it saith—
Till from that great contagion he hath gain'd
An outlook like to conquest over death.
By this frail brazier's glowings, wherein blend
Coals that no man hath kindled, without end
Born and re-born, from ashes to ascend.
Woman no more—scarce breathing—infinite,
Grave as the fair-brow'd priestess Earth receives
In all her lochs and plains and invers bright
And shores wide-trembling, where one image heaves,
Him that is lord of silence and of light.
Slow the God sigh'd himself from rocks and waters,
But in his soft withdrawals from the air
No creature in the weightless world was there
Uttered its being's secret round the pair.
Taken, as a green fury of ocean takes,
Through the dense thickets smitten with alarm
To the islet's trancèd core. And Deirdre wakes,
Lifting hot lids that shut against the storm,
Lying on a hillock, amid slender brakes
Of grey trees, to the babble of enchantments
From mouths of chill-born flowers. The place was new
To rapture. Branchèd sunbursts plashing through
After, had laid the mound with fire and dew.
A narrow grass-plot shorn as if with scythe
And over two great boulders' wrinkled cheeks
Draws down and knots a hull of saplings lithe,
Well-staunch'd with earthy-odour'd moss and sticks
Known to the feet of birds. This darkness blithe
He frames against the stars for forest sleepers.
The living tide of stars aloft that crept
Compassion'd far below. No wavelet leapt;
And deep rest fell upon them there. They slept.
Aware; mute-rippling shades that isle enwound.
Naois fell through dreams, like the snapt spray
That drops from branch to branch—that stillest sound!—
And while from headlands scarce a league away
The din of the sea-breakers come aground
Roll'd up the valley, he in vision govern'd
His ribbèd skiff under Dun Aengus sweeping,
Triumphing with his love, and leaping, leaping,
Drew past the ocean-shelves of seals a-sleeping.
Rustles, and listens for the scud of teal;
Over coast, forest, and bethunder'd crag
Night—mother of despairs, who proves the steel
In men, to see if they be dross and slag
Or fit with trusts and enemies to deal
Uneyed, alone—diffusing her wide veils
Bow'd from the heavens to his exultant ear:
A questioner awaits thee: rouse! The mere
Slept on, save for the twilight-footed deer.
Nigh to the shore must be assembled thick,”
He thought, “and bringing necks round to the hoof;
Or being aslaked and crouching, seek to lick
The fawns. Some heady bucks engage aloof,
So sharp across the water comes the click
Of sparring horns!” But was it a vain terror,
Son of the sword, or one for courage staunch,
That the herd, dismay'd, at a bound, with a quivering haunch
Murmur'd away into night at the crack of a branch?
Amongst the sullen hills, distinct there fell
A mournful keen, like to the broken cry
From the House of Hostage in some citadel
After the land they must remember well,
“Deirdre is gone! Gone is my young one, Deirdre!”
And she knowing not the voice as voice of man
Stood up. “Lie still, lest thee the spirit ban;
O vein of life, lie still!” But Deirdre ran
On the vague shore a weather'd stone that stood;
Faceless, rough-hewn, it forward seem'd to lean
Like the worn pillar of Cenn Cruaich, the God.
She cried across, “If thou with things terrene
Be number'd, tell me why thy sorrowful blood
Mourneth, O Cathva, father!” But the stone
Shiver'd, and broke the staff it lean'd upon,
Shouting, “What! livst thou yet? Begone, begone!”
5: VOICE OF FINTAN
Again, out of the First Century
Then to the two amidst the island's boughs
The third, across the water, cried: “Confess!
Though the earth shake beneath you like a sieve
With wheels of Connachar, answer me this:
Naois, could she understand his hate
Whose servant and whose iron flail I am—
Whose arm requiteth—far as runs the wind—
By me, that blow away the gaze and smile
From women's faces; O could Deirdre have guess'd—
Mourning all night the losing of her kingdoms
Fled like a song—what means, a banished man:
That he and I must hound thee to the death;
That thou shalt never see the deep-set eaves,
The lofty thatch familiar with the doves,
On thy sad mother Usnach's house again,
But drift out like some sea-bird, far, far, hence,
Far from the red isle of the roes and berries,
Far from sun-galleries and pleasant dúns
And swards of lovers,—branded, nationless;
That none of all thy famous friends, with thee
Wrestlers on Eman in the summer evenings,
I must upheave thy heart's tough plank to crack it—
Knowing all this, would this fool follow thee?”
“Strange is it one so old should threat with Death!
Are not both thou and I, are not we all,
By Death drawn from the wickets of the womb—
Seal'd with the thumb of Death when we are born?
As for friends lost (though I believe it not),
A man is nourish'd by his enemies
No less than by his friends. But as for her,
Because no man shall deem me noble still,—
Because I like a sea-gull of the isles
May be driven forth—branded and nationless,—
Because I shall no more, perhaps, behold
The deep-set eaves on that all-sacred house,—
Because the gather'd battle of the powers
Controlling fortune, breaks upon my head,—
Yea! for that very cause, lack'd other cause,
In love the closer, quenchless, absolute,
Would Deirdre choose to follow me. Such pains,
Seër, the kingdoms are of souls like hers!”
He spoke; he felt her life-blood at his side
Sprung of the West, the last of human shores
Throbbing, “Look forth on everlastingness!
I'll be thy sail!”
No sound; the echo-trembling tarn grew mute.
But when through matted forest with uproar
The levy of pursuers, brazen, vast,
The thick pursuing host of Connachar,
Gush'd like a river, and torch'd chariots drew
With thunder-footed horses on, and lash'd
Up to the sedge, and at the Druid's shape
Their steamy bellies rose over the brink
Pawing the mist, and when a terrible voice
Ask'd of that shape if druid ken saw now
The twain,—advanced out of the shade of leaves
Nor Deirdre nor Naois heard reply;
For Cathva waved his lean arm toward the north
And mounted with the host, and signed them, “On!”
Pity had seized him for that hidden pair;
And like a burning dream the host, dissolving,
Pass'd. On the pale bank not a torch remain'd.
They look'd on one another, left alone.
THE ROCK OF CLOUD
Youghal, the strand of yews,
We stood away, off Brandon,
Three nights out on the cruise.
The third day out from land
That none could see his shipmate's face,
Nor the helm in his own hand.
Hath ship no enemy;
But we heard a chanting through the mist
On the cold face of the sea
That night, and lay upon our oars
Amazed that this should be.
Or was it man? But one
We knew had such a sea-rough voice—
The Clockgate-keeper's son.
And hail'd with might and main,
“What hell-spawn or what spirit thou?”
And the hoarse voice came again,
That he hath done with grief,
A voice of dread, and harsh and hard
As the bell swung from a reef:
Row hither! ye may hear
Yet shall not save, nor bring me home,
Seek ye ten thousand year!”
“Man alive . . .” “Spare your speech—”
“We are upon thee!” “Nay, no rope
Over the gap will reach.”
On many a ship of mark:
Through many a pitchy night I steered,
But there came a night too dark.
I reached this Rock of wings
Whereby from every boulder's flank
The brown sea-ribbon swings.
Did scorch my body bare,
A great Sea-Spirit rose, and shone
In the water thrill'd with hair.
Beautiful; her spread arms
Soothed to a poise—a sob—of bliss
Huge thunders and alarms.
Her body's chastened light
Swam like a cloud; her eyes unsure
From the great depths were bright.
In aught that she could say;
She called my soul, as down a coast
The Moon calls, bay beyond bay,
And they rise—back o' the uttermost—
Away, and yet away:—
I bore thee up alive;
Now durst thou follow me and choose
Under the world to dive?
Thy Godship, by some spell!
But there thy heart shall have its want,
And there shall all be well.
The black wave's spitting crest,
And still, when the Bull of Dawn shall spout,
Be washing on abreast!
Who hast known no happy hour,
Through coral gulfs, over the lip
Of islands like a flower,
And fresh thee in the drench of youth
Beyond an April's power.
Cauldron'd in giant vallies—
To hang high as the rainbow hangs
Or bask among sea-lilies!
Such as men know not here,
Shall make thy senses infinite—
Shall let thy heart be clear.
Quivering with rays I'll hide,
Deathless and boundless and at ease
In any shape to glide.
At last to me repair,—
All mountains starr'd with cities melt
Into my dreamy air!
As thou to me all men?
Thou shalt have all the souls in me
To gaze with. Haste thee then!
I'll show thee storms above,
The sands of kingdoms;—they shall sink
While thou dost teach me love;
On beaches white as the young moons
I'll sit and fathom love!’”
At that song not to go
And let thy heart take heed no more
When the Spirit called thee so!”
But what she did not say,
Suck'd griefs out of the colour'd world,
And time out of the day.”
I felt a sighing burn
That made this wrathy rock to me
More delicate than fern;
Them heave, that stand in line
By the mud-banks of Blackwater,
The many-voicèd pine,
That I clung against the ground,
Shaking in utter folly, while
Myself was like a wound.
For her that sleeps at home,
‘Brightness, I will not know thine art,
Nor to thy country come!’
But from the seethe up-broke—
Never thrashed off by gust or gale—
White, everlasting smoke.
With numbness that appals;
It laps my fierce heart endlessly
In soft and rolling walls;
Wave-wing'd, with puling voice;
Stars I discern not, nor the seas—”
“O, dost not rue thy choice?”
For I doubt if ye be men.”
And to us from the cloud-breathing deep
No answer came again.
We pulled on, weeping loud,
All night in earshot of the rock,
But never through the cloud.
Ere we had done the cruise,
To the wall'd town of my mother's folk,
Youghal, the strand of yews,
And the women waiting on the quay,
They carried back the news.
THE QUEEN OF GOTHLAND
I
That care for treasure-trove!
Ploughland and forest, quarry, fell,
Castle and pleasure-grove.
All that his house had heaped, he took
And shared among his mountain folk,
And wasted as they throve;
Then flung the rest, all that he had,
Round the white neck of love!
Ay, in pearls for his young love.
Shrewdly may be as I or you
The virtue that's in gold;
But this despotic man we lost
Had faults and manifold.
He had a something in the brain
Never could bide his proper gain;
He was not of the Clan of Take,
The Clan of Get and Hold!
There, in a savage discontent,
The Count would sit receiving rent:
He took the silver that you brought
And thrust you back the gold.
“I'd hew with you down to the rock,
Down to the rock!” he cried,
And working at your side!”
Well, he stript himself, he showed his thew,
he bared himself in pride,
He dared with you, he shared with you,
And you for him had died!
And you heard his simple gusty laugh,
And felt, and you were sure,
'Twas thirsting for the fire of life
That made and kept him poor;
And that he would keep the fire of life
As pure as fire is pure!
So impetuously, so seriously,
Then grimly, nigh deliriously,
He fought, he played, for love;
But he lost, and vanished utterly.
II
Merry had watched him crave:
And the day she married Gothland's King
When her father's town was brave
With flags, drums, seething battlements,
After a duel for her sake
Wounded and nigh the grave,
(Think you that could his spirit break
Or force the Count's head on his breast
Like any quivering slave?)
He arose, lean in his uniform,
Pulse not a stroke too fast,
And saw her start aghast,
And she, the drawn face and the frown.
On gallant knee downcast
He tendered her his secret gift,
The poor enthusiast!
Out of his square palm's brawny foil
She took the pearls. Faint gems entoil
Clasp-opals of their massy coil.
Then, with a jibe, he passed. . . .
She stood, she sighed, she took the gift
Because it was the last;
Took that amazing gift of pearls
(Unweeting all he gave)
Thrice-pityingly, reluctantly,
As 'twere a soul to save.
With her bride's diadem,
And she locked away that coil of pearls
With many a holy gem
In a casket in her chambers high,
And thought no more of them.
Ah, dark towers! Fort of faerie,
Steep as Jerusalem!
III
Three years; and one night there was foundUp to the heather drawn,
The Count's boat, lying on the moor—
Inland, instead of out to sea—
But no boat there at dawn!
Some said he had appeared that night,
Dour as a thunderstroke,
And asked her for no more than this,
That she should slip the yoke:
Make off then in the dawning dim
Came she but in her smock to him,
And for kingdom, share his cloak!
Told how she seized a riding-whip
And slashed across his bearded lip
The hardy libertine.
But who puts faith in such a tale?
What eye the Count had seen?
No! . . . Winters wore. The King grew bald.
All Gothland was serene.
IV
Who never could take rest,
She stept down from the bed of kings
And rode to south and west.
From the lightly-faithful bed of kings
She rode, they say, and drest
In her white silken wedding-gown
Alone through many a drowsy town;
Hardly she drew the rein by night
For the fire within her breast.
At the corners of her keep
Had marched a music old and proud
For the waking of her sleep,
But the rousing voice she listened for
Was the sea's against the steep.
That comes again to hand!
Bring me the bird that shows the pass
Into a blither land,
And the tune I never heard before
Is the tune I understand!
Who greatly have believed?
And whither shall I fly, my heart,
That so hath been deceived?
It does no good to speak aloud,
Save to the wind, save to the cloud!
Make room for my disdain!
Make room, Ægean-breathing Dawn!
Cypress above the plain,
I will inhabit silence; then
I shall begin to reign.
Why mad? He had a play
Played out for him, and him alone.
The boards are bare, the footlights lit,
The house fills, tier on tier,
The vasty arch bedazzles. . . . Now
Among the oaks and deer,
With every grass-blade lustred through,
What tragic gods I hear!
Night-heavy, my sole crown,
Falls round me like a close despair
And veils me on the throne.
See! The Players change as quick as kings!—
The eve-mist changes. So
I'll waver with unstable things,
And go with things that go!
And lash me to the mast,
And sail by many a siren cave
Till peril's charm be past.
I'll wash this gaze in gaze of flowers
In some Greek olive glen,
And listen till I find my soul
In places far from men.
Whose whimsies none resist—
Who, satiate with all-yieldingness,
Can change lands as I list,
Of Life the rhapsodist!
If I too sharp-set find the yoke
Of earth's monotony,
Then for these poor and common folk
What must it be, what must it be?
How can I give them ease?
I will forget them—play the Muse
Of all bright ironies.
Since what I asked the gods refuse,
I will have Glory's kiss!
Failure that's great—among great things
At least deny not this!
The hound that comes not back,
The horse I cannot break at will,
And a leap to end the track!
My soul it shall be hunting still
Though the night it may be black.
Rumour hath ever rung;
But rather than such honour grant
Me, Glory, to die young,
Full of the passion thou didst plant,
Sure that I could have shaped the chant
Woman hath never sung!
But juices more sublime!
I'll see the world's green acre shrink
While life is at the prime!
I'll lift my horse up on the brink
As he had wings to climb,
And pledge thee, Glory, ere I sink
Into the night of time!”
V
She rode for many a year,
A vagabond and scholar queen
Whose body knew no fear
(Her fear was of the spirit pent
For madness dogged her as she went),
She chose the foam for outrider
And the wind for cavalier.
Empress, and in a line
Of oldest lineage she was first
Of ladies that must shine;
To her deserted spouse returned—
Returned, at what a cost!—
Mute, mute she wore her dazzling thorns,
But all dear things she lost.
For chance among her nearest kin
Strange havoc did contrive;
The gods made horror thrive;
Brothers and sons were shamed and shot,
Or sisters burned alive.
She stared into Fate's eyes accurst
And, seeing no glint divine,
Closed her wise tragic lips, this first
Of ladies that must shine.
Ah, dolour that might never speak! . . .
Yet as the herd-boy on the peak
Gathers the forest's roar and shade
Into the pipe he idly made,
So in this ditty even I
Would murmur all that mighty sigh!
VI
Off Epirus, in the sea,
She built a Grecian pleasure-house
Altar'd to poetry
And Heine. (May the clan that own
The palace now adore his stone
As piously as she!)
She said: and from the north
Sent for a girl's toys, jewelries.
But lo! when they come forth
In that clear Adriatic morn,
The coil of pearls, so long unworn,
Lay lustreless and dead.
Men wise in country lore,
Whose bee-hive cluster of white cells
Juts on the Corfiote shore,
Where shall I sain them back to white
And how sick pearls restore?” . . .
And one looked up from his lentil pan,
Like an olive, silvery-hoar,
This Monk they sent her for a guide
To row her out at the ebb-tide.
That secret place to learn,
His wrinkled hands pulled on the loom,
His eye serene and stern,
A Charon in the boat of doom,
Unblinking, taciturn.
The plash of oars in chime,
And came a smell from the rocky bays
Of lentisk-bush and thyme.
Sea-gnawn, with bouldered base,
“O can you see yon headland high
With the slant cave in its face?
Where your sick pearls must lie;
At its mouth is the sea-otter's hole
And a slant slit is the sky.
The walls aloft are green with slime,
And the sea-birds' dung is soft with time
Along the ledges high.”
They went the sea-birds' way
Into the cavern's foul descent;
Above, the roofs of mountain leant
That plunge down to the spray.
At last they heard a black wave wash,
The subterranean channel plash,
That never sees the day.
Felt them all, long unworn,
And in the gloom, swift and unseen,
She kissed those pearls as they had been
The love-babe never born;
And dropt them in the salt, salt wave
With tears of the forlorn.
Beneath the break of foam!
Far have ye wandered, suffered much;
To that ye wandered from
We give you back, thrice-noble pearls,
Perfect again and pure again
In that which is your home!”
Of cold and wingèd things
Alarmed escaping from their lair,
Blasts and torch-flickerings.
That speak'st this requiem?”
“One that sees peak'd and stormy towers
Steep as Jerusalem,
Battlements grey, and over all
One window like a gem,
And a young girl, weeping on the wall,
That wears a diadem!”
She takes the high torch from his hand
To search till she discerns
That manèd visage, trace by trace,—
The solemn-sounding mountain's base
Rough'd to a humorous savage face
Wherein the granite burns. . . .
Of departure's sick delay
Prints on the warm, cleft, trembling soul
The thing it takes away!
Your northern night dwells in me here!
In my Greek island cell
How oft I shut my eyes and smell
Your sweetbriar by the northern shore
And hear that fountain play!
Its spouted rabble of loud drops
Hangs in the evening still!
November woods becloud the turf
By the dove-house squat and chill.
All's hush; and a ragged thunder-storm
Comes up over towers and wood;
White doves beat in a throbbing swarm
Against the thunder-cloud
As though they had thy transport been—
The yielding of my flame-foot Queen!
We pace together up the sward
As they circle over the firth;
The moonfall on thy coifless hair
Makes glamour of the earth. . . .
And then, leaning on the parapet,
‘Ah!’ thou say'st, ‘before passion's voice
All, all is overset:—
But what's a madman's passion worth?’ . . .
Well, hast thou learnt it yet?
We are too wise and old;
Thou hast brought back the young man's pearls
Before his heart is cold! . . .
As happened long ago!
Calm is the Earth, though from its side
A moon was torn! What woe!
Yet time hath filled the wound with salt
And solitary flow.
To mingle each with each.
Thou hadst to be thyself—to become
Thyself the last, high, tragic song
Of this our piercèd Christendom,
Too high, too sad, for speech! . . .
Saved in some vessel we see not,
Some dark urn of the Lord,
Is shed this everlasting loss,
This waste of spirit poured.
Labour of the hands is mine;
Content, among my lentils here,
And the obscurity divine.”
VII
Her tasks, without demur;
Amid the shining cares of state
Were lentils grown for her.
But not long had the pair to wait,
O not long to endure!
Stabbed by some crazy boor,
The old Monk in his convent died
The death of the obscure.
Snapt is your rusty chain!
Sucked out to the sea-darkness fresh,
Released and born again,
Somewhere beneath that ruddy crag,
That blue Ionian main,
Freely (for who shall seek the fort,
Angelokastron?) there
Unknown of all men ye may now
Beauty and sheen repair!
APOLLO AND THE SEAMAN
I: APOLLO'S COMING
Furred like a merchant fine,
And sate with a Sailor at an Inn
Sharing a jug of wine.
Thither the God conveyed?
Or green and floating cloudlet caught
On the fringes of a glade?
Descending from the hills,
Though far and wide before him blew
The friendly daffodils;
No shepherd had discovered him
On upland pastures bare
By dew-pond or green Roman camp:
No voice aloft in air
With kine in rolling combes,
Where bells blow up from all the plain
To headlands spring perfumes,
Of little lambs unyeaned,
Or sung him to the billowy woods
With spray of buds begreened,
Of orchards deep-ravined—
To overflow with sound,
Warning the grassy commons all
In vales for miles around:
Wake, skylit river-sward!
Chases and meres and misty shires
Be ready for your lord!”
On the blithe edge of the down,
To the sea-coast his errand was
And the smoke-hanging town.
And black sea-bastions thronged
With masts of the sea-traffickers
For whom his spirit longed.
And creaking of the cranes,
Gay barges hailed and poled along,
And rattling fall of chains,
He sate and took his ease
Where bowsprits of the swarthy ships
Came thrusting to the quays.
2: THE RUMOUR
ApolloAnd why are you cast down?
With lapfuls of the guineas light
Come you not back to town?
Aloft the slippy mast
Are they not glad to land, my lad,
On steady ground at last?”
A heavy chin he raised,
And sidelong through the harbour bluffs
Looked out like man amazed.
Seaman
Abroad for many a year,
Your blood like mine it would have struck
At the strange news I hear.
And the dance along the quays,
But I could not find it in my heart
To care for shows like these;
Bear on through the dark land,
And little houses here still rock
And sway—they would not stand—
That the ship I serve upon—
The great ship Immortality—
Was gone down, like the sun. . . .
3: THE SHIP
ApolloAnd whence did that craft hail, sailor,
Of which you seem so fond?
Seaman
It was some harbour of the East,
Back o' beyond, back o' beyond!
Apollo
What shipwrights' hammers rang on her,
The stout ship and the leal?
In what green forest inlet lay
Her cradle and her keel?
Seaman
Framed us her stormy frame,
And ribbed and beamed and stanchioned her,
And gave her strength a name.
A sight the half as fine
As when she hove up from the East
On our horizon-line!
Paddled by tribes of bronze,
Under mud-built villages of palms
Glide, statelier than swans,
And Isis' frail moon-golden skiff
Restore him to that barque of life
Whose years are millions.
Into bows of Argo piece
Oak of Dodona, ere she slid
To find the golden fleece:
Ay, and triremes of the marble isles
Pursue from Salamis.
Dipping in mass the oar,
And centaur-carven caravels,
And galleons big with ore,
Dromonds, and mountain'd argosies
That sack the globe no more:
Heap'd thunder, roaring squall—
And their fadings, like the fleet of stars
That floateth over all.
Was she not more divine
Who, challenged by Death's muffled drums,
Gave Death the countersign?
It set aflame your blood
To feel her in the slack of peace
Come booming up the flood,
As she cast away the deep,
The morning star swung from a spar
And every sail asleep.
From the sea-winds' scud and psalm,
Her masts, they trembled in a leash—
You laid on them your palm—
They quivered over with great life
That never could be calm.
On the lone path to the pole,
White as the spread of sail on her
That lent wings to your soul—
What was her build, that boat of yours
So proud upon the sea?
What was her make of hull and deck,
What suit of sails had she?
Seaman
Her stretch of sail so white, so white,
By no man's hand unfurled,
Was Heaven!
Apollo
And the decks you kept so bright?
Seaman
For us, this bustling World.
Apollo
And the hold and cockpit out of sight,
Pitch dark and ill to smell,
Full of the friends of your delight?
Seaman
That was the pit of Hell!
4: THE TIDINGS
SeamanHow think of her decayed!
Or that the maker of that ship
Could let his creature fade!
More unbridled—unforgettable—was never creature made.
That seemed through storm to climb!
Sent down, like any cockle-shell
To tangle and to slime!
His monstrous hands between
Whirl her among his crazy locks
Into an eddy green?
With not enough sea-room,
Or clear of land that she was lost,
Where hard gales can blow home?
Ambushed her? or some ledge
Of false lights—or uncharted reef—
Broke her back upon its edge?
Off an island precipice
With weariness, like man's weariness,
Of everything that is,
That through the channel swings
Crumbled that side like a sea-cliff,
As one crumbles little things.
Apollo
Her end was none, my lad, of these!
But first, if you must know,
Mutiny of those friends of yours
In irons down below.
Seaman
And how got you, Sir Merchantman,
This news—or bitter jest?
Apollo
From the East unto the West.
From the old coasts to fly
And bear you ever out and on
Was I, and none but I!”
Wine spilt out of his glass
Dripp'd to the floor; but not a sound
From his parch'd mouth would pass.
5: THE TALE OF APOLLO
Apollo(musing)
Scarcely a ripple ran
From thine incommensurable side
O dim leviathan,
Rumours 'gainst thee to probe,
Leaving afar, engraved in shade,
Many a dreaming silver globe,
And approached thee on the middle sea
Wrapt in my darkling robe.
Of Heaven and Earth and Hell,
Spread strange commotion as I near'd
Over the starred sea-swell.
That rebel! mirror'd bright,
And Saturn in his moat of moons
Glass'd in unsounded night:
The million-litten vault below
Breathed, in a slumber light.
When frosts ere dawn are brisk
And early spring boughs knitted close
Across the red moon's disk,
Of light branch-feeding deer,
One sees upflushing some glen's brow
Camp-fire of mountaineer
All gnarled, loom down estranged
At wanton fire about their knees
With moon-fire interchanged—
Loomed down out of the sky;
Sails that had drunk Earth's soul immense
Hung pierced and slung awry,
An idle tattered shame.
Was this the keen fire-spirited prow
Ark of the heaving flame,
That keel of mystery,
Loosed, after toilings beyond count,
To plunge from the Daedalian mount
To stem futurity?
Each white celestial vail,
Rage seized me, like your emperor
Trajan—how goes the tale?—
Who on Tigris, twice defeated, tore
His gold wolves from the sail. . . .
Escaped, lulled, rose again,
Confused blasts—insolent uproar
From torch'd and naked men,
As 'twere some wind from Africa's
Tropic and demon'd fen.
Knotted at grips they swayed
And writhed. Unkennelled Hell was loose
And swarmed in escalade.
But when Hell's desperate brood
Saw me, they shouted, “Lord of Light,
Release!” Ruinous strew'd,
Fell on their faces on the decks
That breathless multitude.
Stepp'd through them. Stern he comes,
Stirring their night-bound forest hearts
Like distant savage drums,
Shaking his torch—is peace!
Not thou, tardy deliverer,
But I, confer release!
Superb the funeral pyre
Of Heaven and Earth! . . . Kindle it Hell,
To glut this God's desire!”
Rear'd, long before the crash—
Like hollow oak that long outliveth
Coil of the lightning's lash;
Time with thy falling rang!
He, first of all the ship, was free
And fled without a pang.
Heads rose, and dropped again.
They quailed, they flinched before my gaze,
My light to them was pain!
Shadows of wreckage on the masts
Went streaming down the main.
I raised it by the chin,
Upturned the pallid chronicle
Read the thing purposed, by the bone,
The thing done, by the skin.
Heavy-soul'd, torn with vice,
The murderous, with the flitting smile,
The drunkard, blue as ice;
Incomplete and colourable things,
Whose breathings must be lies.
Within their breasts to thrive
Had blown like glass the body's case
Or stamped its clay alive.
I mused—(All hung upon a hair!)
Why need the dead survive?
Had passions scooped their bed;
Old lavas down the rigid cheek,
Meseemed, were still unshed;
I read the eyes of him athirst
Only for things beyond;
Whose strata, tossed in molten dreams,
Would never correspond
With things about him, for he willed
To die unparagoned.
Like beaten, sodden corn,
How cast them with derision back,
That throng of the forlorn,
As with a hand of steel,
Condemn them to endurance back
And still to think and feel,
While tears that might not fall for them
Did on my cheek congeal?
Swelling like undertone
That dins within the wildest gale,
Utter'd aloud mine own.
Their piteous hands, to me:
“Since bonds we cannot bear, nor sight,
Be thou our sanctuary!
Open again the narrow gate—
Let us no longer be!”
With bitter conflict bled,
Veer'd in their wrath, hoarsely unjust,
Arraigned me for these dead—
Spat on their own high bliss, and craved
To stand in Hades' stead!
Not taught thee to perdure,
My Boat of Years? Lo, in man's dust
So mixed—so long impure—
Came light! I summoned up each soul
And round its neck secure
Fastened this token: “Fudge thyself!”
That justice might be sure.
That viewless sanhedrim
Of presences starry-cresseted
Who erst through waters dim
Had breathed the towering sails along,
My faithful seraphim.
Steadfastly to behold
Bulwarks charred, ay, drunken masts
And slow deep-labouring hold,
And helmless spars divine—
Beheld the horror of those decks
Bloodied with mystic wine;
Even the little fluttering Genius reft
From the wrecked and flameless shrine,
Ascendant by my skill,
To sound what wild sea-victory
Swing'st there, triumphant still?
Why spared they wholly to shatter thee?
Thy rippling veils from feet to breasts
Winds from the future fill,
This bolted fabric vast
That disciplined through many wars
Man's courage in the past,—
And well, well, hath she served her Lord—
Unseaworthy at last!”
Dream-element I caught
Her crew—every half-foundered soul
Wherewith her hold was fraught;
After their wanderings long,
Both quick and dead. Hangs on thy breast
The token of my song?
Yes—the “Judge thyself” hung there)
Remembering then their mad outburst
Of quaint hope and despair,
When nothing else escapes,
Like breakers on the capes,
Scarce able to forbear,
I smote the great hull to a ghost,—
The mighty masts to air. . . .
Seaman
What! is there not even left enough
Of that so noble craft,
A gang-board or a plank or two,
To lash into a raft?
Apollo
But then you shall not weep;
Nor hear aloft her pipes of cheer
Nor the wail under the deep.
Hull-down—a radiance dim—
Loftier than air of Earth, up-sprung
To planes beyond its rim,
A phantom you may see,
Derelict—drifting out of hail—
Lost Immortality!
6: THE REBUKE
Had melted to a lie
He fronted him upon his feet
As who should Gods defy—
Syllables choked not in his throat,
He met him eye to eye.
Anger. His spirit swelled
Manful—the stronger in his grief
By all that he had quelled.
This is the great landfall!
This coil of warehouses and quays
And taverns—this is all!
Well was it that we trusted thee!
Else—how had we achieved
Good luck? But then we had a friend
Wholly to be believed.
This land of milk and balm!
For this our innocent took wounds
Drawn on as by a ghost, that ends
Like a catspaw in a calm!
A captain in his tent
Sealed a despatch; the rider died
That with the letter went;
The letter—saved—was found a blank!
Thine was the message sent,
Say, how wilt thou now make amends
For what was vainly spent?”
The beamwork of the room
To its last crevices was lit;
So terribly illume
The God's eyes—all his presence seemed
Outwardly to consume;
And throbbings of the mind,
Condensed into a single flame,
Across that board confined
Shot the human shade, a skeleton,
Clean on the wall behind
The man.
When I invented thee
To utter Mind, as guest and mate
Of a voiceless family,
On yon ship's heaving shelves,
Selfhood that never can contrive—
However lightning-like it strive—
To escape, in its inmost, deepest dive
My Self beneath your selves,
Myriad human hopes and fears,
And laboured at this shipwright's task
A hundred thousand years.
As earthly ships of wood?
Or that thy voyage never was
And wasted all your blood?
What! Hast not felt the invisible
Nor faintly understood?
A rag, a tomb forlorn;
The tides of men obey a ghost,
The ghost of the unborn.
Quake up man's silly crust,
And rock thy reason from its state
And crack its towers to dust.
Surging out of the vast
On crest of wave after wave, for aye
To sweep till time be past:—
Feel'st thou no wind behind those waves
All washing on one way?
Organs of the invisible
Yes, thou hast felt their sway!
“Truth,” “Justice,” “Liberty,”
Heralding symbols thou employ'st?
They are employing thee!
Yes, thou hast felt their sway,
The buried city of thy heart
Knows thou art less than they.
Unknown and drear indeed,
Thou, the adventure of my cloud,
The sailing of my seed!
Closer the fountain-head
Than this wood table in my grasp
Or yonder loaf of bread;
But must we, ever-living one,
Go out when we are dead?
When the arms that held us close and dear,
When the love that we are used
To mingle with, are wrenched away
And the body's kiss is loosed?”
Leaning across the wine
Heavily took those shoulders young
Into his grasp divine.
Apollo
My son, my prodigal—
Since every brave song hath its close
Your own life, end it shall;
Yes, utterly shall meet an end.
Be it heroical!
Dread you to die aboard?
To lay you down beside your love
With the sunset on your sword? . . .
7: THE NEW SHIP
Apollo(continuing)
Should I Man's soul prepare
For the new venture, bolder yet,
On which he now must dare?
You come not back the same!
Behind the door of your dull brow
Have sprung up doubt and blame—
This once low-cabined pate
Hollows deep-chambered—is become
Tribunal—hall of state
For the assembled thrones of angels—roof
For an assize of fate!
From lap of things inform
And flung to embraces of the sea
Caresses of the storm!
Now electrified, subtler-energied,
Starker-willed, battle-warm,
Thou comest, thou comest again to me! . . .
Son of tumult, gloom enorm,
I have new jeopardy for thee
And new eyes yet to form!
Stand upon Earth! Away!
Long hath the journey been by night,
But roseate breaks the day;
Like a scroll I unfold the mountain-tops
And the windings of the bay.
Thou shalt not see its end.
Earth is the ship. Thou shalt have time
To find the Earth thy friend!
Seaman
Is there a hand upon her helm?
Apollo
Her wash of overwhelming dawns,
Her tide that never tires—
Her tranquil heave of seasons—flowers—
All that in thee aspires!
With outspread wing serene
She circles!—thought rolls under her,
The flash from the unseen.
Here's to her mission, wingèd rock,
Bluff-bowed and heavy keel'd
Through the night-watches swinging on
Still under orders sealed!
Of her errand far and surgy;
No witch's magic brew of sleep,
Nor smoke of thaumaturgy;
Failed of the port assigned,
The overwhelming globe takes on
Her altar-flame of mind.
See that the oils that feed the lamp
Fail not!
Seaman
What are those oils?
Apollo
These are the sacred oils
On fragrant thin-flamed thymele
Lost on the deep like melody—
They who, as I My Self disperse
In them through the tragic universe,
Scatter themselves in toils.
Waking—sense after sense—
New understandings—endless, no,
But more and more intense.
Buoyant as swimmers be
Makes thee divine, perhaps at last
Wholly delivers thee.
Seaman
The man exclaimed, “Delivers me!
How, if this death descends?
I am a man and not a race.
What matters, if self ends?
Speak! quick, my brain is worn and cold,
Little it comprehends.”
Apollo
I too, like thee, have striven.
I too am launched from the profound
And past; I too am driven
In turn upon the stream of storms
From fountains beyond heaven;
To me, too, light is mystery,
The greater light half-given.
Ah, how make plain the goal obscure
Of thy journey but begun?”
Again the God smiled on the man
And asked, “Hast thou a son?”
He nodded. “And never yet hast guessed
That thou and he are one!
On the self-same bough and stem,
Whose branches are murmuring everywhere
And the heaven floods all of them! . . .
Between you—between all that live—
Runs no gulf wide nor deep—
But a sheen'd veil, thinner than any veil,
Thin as the veil of sleep.
The self-veil's subtle strand,
Dawns it not? For that dawn thy heart
Hath eye—shall understand;
Before its seeing rock-walls melt
And cracks the mortal band.
Of thy slow-kindling mind
Can see in the heart's light at length
All strange sons of mankind,
Then Earth—that else were but a strait
Rock-sepulchre—is new:
Of what account to it is death?
Its glowing, through and through,
Moveth, alive with a God's breath,
Translucent as the dew!”
8: THE EMBARCATION
The bright haze sounded on;
Walls, air and shadows vibrant still,
The God himself was gone.
Was the thing dreamed? The Tavern wall
Solid? Still it rang.
Feverish he threw the lattice back;
Outside fluttered and sang
Trees of a tract of narrow yards
Behind dark tenements,
The nearest garden vacant—rope
Eked out its broken fence.
Naked it lay—brown mould bestrewn
With refuse crockery—yet
A pear-tree in its darkest nook
Bowered it in delicate
Whiteness. Beyond its further pale
Above a wall-flower bed
Women were hanging linen out—
One stoop'd a kerchief'd head.
In lime-trees idle rooks were cawing;
Even to his upper room
Came wafted from some distant plot
Fragrance like thyme's perfume;
Adrift from zigzag chimney-stacks
And ancient courtyards, soft
Blue smoke was breathed amongst the trees;
Here, in the window where he stood
A cherry stretched its limb,
Half the diaphanous clusters clear
Enlumined, and half dim.
Green swift immortal Spring was here—
Spring in her lovely trim—
And whether it were ship or no,
The Earth seemed good to him.
Had he been Greek, or nurtured well
In lore of sages gone,
He would have felt her like that ship
Ascribed to Hieron,
Which, beside its deck-house luxuries
Of baths and bronzes fine,
Carried a pergola's green walk,
Shade-galleries of vine,
For awnings, fruit-espaliers
From buried urns in line.
By many a cobbled wynd
Behung with mariner's wares, uphill
He strode with seething mind.
Above in the shady market-place
Unwonted silence reigned.
Under their patched umbrella stalls
Few flower-sellers remained;
But one, with old face like a map
Wrinkled by good and evil hap,
Stretched forth her palm. It rained.
The sky loured overcast.
Soon pavements leapt with plashing drops;
And as he hasty passed
He heard a burst of chanted sound,
And glanced up at the vast
Shadow that over huddled roofs
Loomed, pinnacled and grey. . . .
The spired cathedral thunderously
And widely seemed to sway;
Like Earth upon her pilgrimage
Buffeting on from age to age,
It still was under way.
Rain pelting on his cheek,
But the shower half-ceased before he found
The bourn he seemed to seek,
Beneath that April cloud,
And nigh the doorway he looked up
Keen-eyed. He could have vowed,
Yes, 'twas his wife stood shining there,
Yonder, where lintels dripped!
With soft, profound, familiar look
Low-laughing forth she slipped.
Released bright drops that fell)
And bade him watch, but not disturb
Now vapour'd were the cobble-stones;
The runnel where they stood
Fleeted adown the middle street,
Rays gleaming on its mud,
When lo! he saw a child, their son,
Squatted beside the flood,
And lost to aught beside.
Wholly absorbed, aloof, intent;
Upon that ruffling tide
Of paper, white and gay;
And watched, with grave ecstatic smile,
Its glories whirled away.
Poems with Fables in Prose | ||