Three Irish Bardic Tales Being Metrical Versions of the Three Tales known as The Three Sorrows of Story-telling. By John Todhunter |
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 | Three Irish Bardic Tales |  |
But when they came to lay the brothers in their tomb,
She was a thing distraught. She kissed them o'er and o'er,
Going, like a beast of chase that fondles her dead cubs
Full in the hunter's eye, restlessly to and fro
From bier to bier, tearless, low-moaning. Naisi first,
And Naisi last, she kissed passionately, till her lips
Were dabbled with his blood. At last she rose, and stood
Over them, her great eyes glaring from her white face,
Blood on her piteous lips, blood on her draggled hair,
Blood on her silken robe; yet in her beauty still
Superb and terrible. With such a majesty
Of woe might come once more out of the dreadful past
Some warrior queen, death-pale, risen from some last lost field
Of slaughter, all bestrained with Ireland's dearest blood,
To warn her of new woes. So Deirdrè looked that day
When she stood up to raise her keene over the Sons
Of Usna: and she sang this death-song by their tomb:
She was a thing distraught. She kissed them o'er and o'er,
Going, like a beast of chase that fondles her dead cubs
Full in the hunter's eye, restlessly to and fro
From bier to bier, tearless, low-moaning. Naisi first,
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Were dabbled with his blood. At last she rose, and stood
Over them, her great eyes glaring from her white face,
Blood on her piteous lips, blood on her draggled hair,
Blood on her silken robe; yet in her beauty still
Superb and terrible. With such a majesty
Of woe might come once more out of the dreadful past
Some warrior queen, death-pale, risen from some last lost field
Of slaughter, all bestrained with Ireland's dearest blood,
To warn her of new woes. So Deirdrè looked that day
When she stood up to raise her keene over the Sons
Of Usna: and she sang this death-song by their tomb:
| Three Irish Bardic Tales | |