The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

De Vere, Aubrey (1814-1902)

VOL. I. THE SEARCH AFTER PROSERPINE

II.

VOL. II.

[dedication]

THE LEGENDS OF SAINT PATRICK.

OISEEN THE BARD AND SAINT PATRICK.

LEGENDS OF IRELAND'S HEROIC AGE.

III.

IV.

VI.

VOL. VI. LEGENDS AND RECORDS OF THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE

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II. VOL. II.

xxv

TO THE MEMORY OF WORDSWORTH

THE LEGENDS OF SAINT PATRICK.

THE BAPTISM OF ST. PATRICK.

‘How can the babe baptizéd be
Where font is none, and water none?’
Thus wept the nurse on bended knee,
And swayed the Infant in the sun.

‘The blind priest took that Infant's hand:
With that small hand, above the ground
He signed the Cross. At God's command
A fountain rose with brimming bound.

‘In that pure wave, from Adam's sin
The blind priest cleansed the Babe with awe;
Then, reverently, he washed therein
His old, unseeing face, and saw!

‘He saw the earth; he saw the skies,
And that all-wondrous Child decreed
A pagan nation to baptize,
To give the Gentiles light indeed.’

Thus Secknall sang. Far off and nigh
The clansmen shouted loud and long;
While every mother tossed more high
Her babe, and glorying joined the song.

THE DISBELIEF OF MILCHO,

OR, SAINT PATRICK'S ONE FAILURE.

ARGUMENT.

Fame of St. Patrick goes ever before him, and men of goodwill believe gladly; but Milcho, a mighty merchant, and one given wholly to pride and greed, wills to disbelieve. St. Patrick sends him greeting and gifts; but he, discovering that the prophet welcomed by all had once been his slave, hates him the more. Notwithstanding, he fears that when that prophet arrives, he, too, may be forced to believe, though against his will. He resolves to set fire to his castle and all his wealth, and make new fortunes in far lands. The doom of Milcho, who willed to disbelieve.

When now at Imber Dea

A river in Wicklow.

that precious bark
Freighted with Erin's future, touched the sands
Just where a river, through a woody vale
Curving, with duskier current clave the sea,
Patrick, the Island's great inheritor,
His perilous voyage past, stept forth and knelt
And blessed his God. The peace of those green meads
Cradled 'twixt purple hills and purple deep,
Seemed as the peace of heaven. The sun had set;
But still those summits twinned, the ‘Golden Spears,’
Laughed with his latest beam. The hours went by:
The brethren paced the shore or musing sat,
But still their Patriarch knelt and still gave thanks
For all the marvellous chances of his life
Since those his earlier years when, slave new-trapped,

He comforted on hills of Dalaraide
His hungry heart with God, and, cleansed by pain,
In exile found the spirit's native land.
Eve deepened into night, and still he prayed:
The clear cold stars had crowned the azure vault;
And, risen at midnight from dark seas, the moon
Had quenched those stars, yet Patrick still prayed on:
Till from the river murmuring in the vale,
Far off, and from the morning airs close by
That shook the alders by the river's mouth,
And from his own deep heart a voice there came,
‘Ere yet thou fling'st God's bounty on this land
There is a debt to cancel. Where is he,
Thy five years' lord that scourged thee for his swine?
Alas that wintry face! Alas that heart
Joyless since earliest youth! To him reveal it!
To him declare that God who Man became
To raise man's fall'n estate, as though a man,
All faculties of man unmerged, undimmed,
Had changed to worm and died the prey of worms,
That so the mole might see!’

Thus Patrick mused,
Not ignorant that from low beginnings rise
Oftenest the works of greatness; yet of this
Unweeting, that his failure, one and sole
Through all his more than mortal course, even now
Before that low beginning's threshold lay,
Betwixt it and that Promised Land beyond
A bar of scandal stretched. Not otherwise
Might whatsoe'er was mortal in his strength
Dying, put on the immortal.

With the morn
Deep sleep descended on him. Waking soon,
He rose a man of might, and in that might

Laboured; and God His servant's toil revered;
And gladly on that coast Erin to Christ
Paid her firstfruits. Three days he preached his Lord:
The fourth embarking, cape succeeding cape
They passed, and heard the lowing herds remote
In hollow glens, and smelt the balmy breath
Of gorse on golden hillside; till at eve,
The Imber Domnand

The Malahide River.

reached, on silver sands
Grated their keel. Around them flocked at dawn
Warriors with hunters mixed, and shepherd youths,
And maids with lips as red as mountain berries
And eyes like sloes, or keener eyes, dark-fringed
And gleaming like the blue-black spear. They came
With milk-pail, and with kid, and kindled fire
And spread the genial board. Upon that shore
Full many knelt and gave themselves to Christ,
Strong men, and men at midmost of their hopes
By sickness felled; old chiefs, at life's dim close
That oft had asked, ‘Beyond the grave what hope?’
Worn sailors weary of the toilsome seas,
And craving rest; they, too, that sex which wears
The blended crowns of Chastity and Love;
Wondering, they hailed the Maiden-Motherhood;
And listening children praised the Babe Divine,
And passed Him, each to each.

Ere long, once more
Their sails were spread. Again by grassy marge
They rowed, and sylvan glades. The branching deer
Like flying gleams went by them. Oft the cry
Of fighting clans rang out: but oftener yet
Clamour of rural dance, or mart confused
With many-coloured garb and movements swift,
Pageant sun-bright: or on the sands a throng
Girdled with circle glad some bard whose song

Shook the wild clan as tempest shakes the woods.
Still north the wanderers sailed: at evening, mists
Cumbered the shore and on them leaned the blast,
And fierce rain flashed mingling with dim-lit sea.
All night they toiled; next day at noon they kenned
A seaward stream that shone like golden tress
Severed and random-thrown. That river's mouth
Ere long attained was all with lilies white
As April field with daisies. Entering there
They reached a wood, and disembarked with joy:
There, after thanks to God, silent they sat
In thought, and watched the ripples, dusk yet bright,
That lived and died like things that laughed at time,
On gliding 'neath those many-centuried boughs.
But, midmost, Patrick slept. Then through the trees,
Shy as a fawn half-tamed, now stole, now fled
A boy of such bright aspect, faëry child
He seemed, or babe exposed of royal race:
At last assured beside the Saint he stood,
And dropped on him a flower, and disappeared:
Thus flower on flower from the great woods he brought
And hid them in the bosom of the Saint.
The monks forbade him, saying, ‘Lest thou wake
The master from his sleep.’ But Patrick woke,
And saw the boy, and said, ‘Forbid him not;
The heir of all my kingdom is this child.’
Then spake the brethren, ‘Wilt thou walk with us?’
And he, ‘I will:’ and so for his sweet face
They called his name Benignus: and the boy
Thenceforth was Christ's. Beneath his parent's roof
At night they housed. Nowhere that child would sleep
Except at Patrick's feet. Till Patrick's death
Unchanged to him he clave, and after reigned
The second at Ardmacha.

Now Armagh.

Day by day
They held their course; ere long the hills of Mourne
Loomed through sea-mist: Ulidian summits next
Before them rose: but nearer at their left
Inland with westward channel wound the wave
Changed to sea-lake. Nine miles with chant and hymn
They tracked the gold path of the sinking sun;
Then southward ran 'twixt headland and green isle
And landed. Dewy pastures sunset-dazed,
At leisure paced by mild-eyed milk-white kine
Smiled them a welcome. Onward moved in sight
Swiftly, with shadow far before him cast,
Dichu, that region's lord, a martial man
And merry, and a speaker of the truth.
Pirates he deemed them first and toward them faced
With wolf-hounds twain that watched their master's eye
To spring, or not to spring. The imperious face
Forbidding not, they sprang: but Patrick raised
His hand, and stone-like crouched they chained and still:
Then, Dichu onward striding fierce, the Saint
Between them signed the Cross; and lo, the sword
Froze in his hand, and Dichu stood like stone.
The amazement past, he prayed the man of God
To grace his house; and, side by side, a mile
They clomb the hills. Ascending, Patrick turned,
His heart with prescience filled. Beneath, there lay
A gleaming strait; beyond, a dim vast plain
With many an inlet pierced; a golden marge
Girdled the water-tongues with flag and reed;
But, farther off, a gentle sea-mist changed
The fair green flats to purple. ‘Night comes on;’
Thus Dichu spake, and waited. Patrick then

Advanced once more, and Sabhall soon was reached,
A castle half, half barn. There garnered lay
Much grain, and sun-imbrowned: and Patrick said,
‘Here where the earthly grain was stored for man
The bread of angels man shall eat one day.’
And Patrick loved that place, and Patrick said,
‘King Dichu, give thou to the poor that grain,
To Christ, our Lord, thy barn.’ The strong man stood
In doubt; but prayers of little orphaned babes
Reared by his hand, went up for him that hour:
Therefore that barn he ceded, and to Christ
By Patrick was baptized. Where lay the corn
A convent later rose. There dwelt he oft;
And 'neath its roof more late the stranger sat,
Exile, or kingdom-wearied king, or bard,
That haply blind in age, yet tempest-rocked
By memories of departed glories, drew
With gradual influx into his old heart
Solace of Christian hope.

With Dichu bode
Patrick somewhile, intent from him to learn
The inmost of that people. Oft they spake
Of Milcho. ‘Once his thrall, against my will
In earthly things I served him: for his soul
Needs therefore must I labour. Hard was he;
Unlike those hearts to which God's Truth makes way
Like message from a mother in her grave:
Yet what I can I must. Not heaven itself
Can force belief; for Faith is still good will.’
Dichu laughed aloud: ‘Good will! Milcho's good will!
Neither to others, nor himself, good will
Hath Milcho! Fireless sits he, winter through,
The logs beside his hearth: and as on them
Glimmers the rime, so glimmers on his face

The smile. Convert him! Better thrice to hang him!
Baptize him! He will film your font with ice!
The cold of Milcho's heart has winter-nipt
That glen he dwells in! From the sea it slopes
Unfinished, savage, like some nightmare dream,
Raked by an endless east wind of its own.
On wolf's milk was he suckled, not on woman's!
To Milcho speed! Of Milcho claim belief!
Milcho will shrivel his small eye and say
He scorns to trust himself his father's son,
Nor deems his lands his own by right of race
But clutched by stress of brain! Old Milcho's God
Is gold. Forbear him, sir, or ere you seek him
Make smooth your way with gold.’

Thus Dichu spake;
And Patrick, after musings long, replied:
‘Faith is no gift that gold begets or feeds,
Oftener by gold extinguished. Unto God,
Unbribed, unpurchased, yearns the soul of man;
Yet finds perforce in God its great reward.
Not less this Milcho deems I did him wrong,
His slave, yet fleeing. To requite that loss
Gifts will I send him first by messengers
Ere yet I see his face.’

Then Patrick snet
His messengers to Milcho, speaking thus:
‘If ill befell thy herds through flight of mine
Fourfold that loss requite I, lest, for hate
Of me, thou disesteem my Master's Word.
Likewise I sue thy friendship; and I come
In few days' space, with gift of other gold
Than earth concedes, the Tidings of that God
Who made all worlds, and late His Face hath shown,
Sun-like to man. But thou, rejoice in hope!’

Thus Patrick, once by man advised in part,
Though wont to counsel with his God alone.

Meantime full many a rumour vague had vexed
Milcho much musing. He had dealings large
And distant. Died a chief? He sent and bought
The widow's all; or sold on foodless shores
For usury the leanest of his kine.
Meantime, his dark ships and the populous quays
With news still murmured. First from Imber Dea
Came whispers how a sage had landed late,
And how when Nathi fain had barred his way,
Nathi that spurned Palladius from the land,
That sage with levelled eyes, and kingly front
Had from his presence driven him with a ban
Cur-like and craven; how on bended knee
Sinell believed, the royal man well-loved
Descending from the judgment-seat with joy:
And how when fishers spurned his brethren's quest
For needful food, that sage had raised his rod,
And all the silver harvest of blue streams
Lay black in nets and sand. His wrinkled brow
Wrinkling yet more, thus Milcho answer made:
‘Deceived are those that will to be deceived:
This knave has heard of gold in river-beds,
And comes a deft sand-groper; let him come!
He'll toil ten years ere gold enough he finds
To make a crooked torque.’

From Tara next
The news: ‘Laeghaire, the King, sits close in cloud
Of sullen thought, or storms from court to court,
Because the chiefest of the Druid race
Locru, and Luchat, prophesied long since
That one day from the sea a Priest would come

With Doctrine and a Rite, and dash to earth
Idols, and hurl great monarchs from their thrones;
And lo! At Imber Boindi late there stept
A Priest from roaring waves with Creed and Rite,
And men before him bow.’ Then Milcho spake:
‘Not flesh enough from thy strong bones, Laeghaire,
These Druids, ravens of the woods, have plucked,
But they must pluck thine eyes! Ah priestly race,
I loathe ye! 'Twixt the people and their King
Ever ye rub a sore!’ Last came a voice:
‘This day in Eire thy saying is fulfilled,
Conn of the “Hundred Battles,” from thy throne
Leaping long since, and crying, “O'er the sea
The Prophet cometh, princes in his train,
Bearing for regal sceptres bended staffs,
Which from the land's high places, cliff and peak,
Shall drag the fair flowers down!”’ Scoffing he heard:
‘Conn of the “Hundred Battles!” Had he sent
His hundred thousand kernes to yonder steep
And rolled its boulders down, and built a mole
To fence my laden ships from spring-tide surge,
Far kinglier pattern had he shown, and given
More solace to the land.’

He rose and turned
With sideway leer; and printing with vague step
Irregular the shining sands, on strode
Toward his cold home, alone; and saw by chance
A little bird light-perched, that, being sick,
Plucked from the fissured sea-cliff grains of sand;
And, noting, said, ‘O bird, when beak of thine
From base to crown hath gorged this huge sea-wall,
Then shall that man of Creed and Rite make null
The strong rock of my will!’ Thus Milcho spake,
Feigning the peace not his.

Next day it chanced
Women he heard in converse. Thus the first:
‘If true the news, good speed for him, my boy!
Poor slaves by Milcho scourged on earth shall wear
In heaven a monarch's crown! Good speed for her
His little sister, not reserved like us
To bend beneath these loads.’ To whom her mate:
‘Doubt not the Prophet's tidings! Not in vain
The Power Unknown hath shaped us! Come He must,
Or send, and help His people on their way.
Good is He, or He ne'er had made these babes!’
They passed, and Milcho said, ‘Through hate of me
All men believe! ’And straightway Milcho's face
Grew bleaker than that crab-tree stem forlorn
That hid him, wanner than that sea-sand wet
That whitened round his foot down-pressed.

Time passed.
One morn in bitter mockery Milcho mused:
‘What better laughter than when thief from thief
Pilfers the pilfered goods? Our Druid thief
Two thousand years hath milked and shorn this land;
Now comes the thief outlandish that with him
Would share milk-pail and fleece! O Bacrach old,
To hear thee shout “Impostor!”’ Straight he went
To Bacrach's cell hid in a skirt wind-shav'n
Of low-grown wood, and met, departing thence,
Three sailors sea-tanned from a ship late-beached.
Within a corner huddled, on the floor,
The Druid sat, cowering, and cold, and mazed:
Sudden he rose, and cried, by conquering joy
Clothed as with youth restored: ‘The God Unknown,
That God who made the earth, hath walked the earth!
This hour His Prophet treads the isle! Three men

Have seen him; and their speech is true. To them
That Prophet spake: “Four hundred years ago,
Sinless God's Son on earth for sinners died:
Black grew the world, and graves gave up their dead.”
Thus spake the Seer. Four hundred years ago!
Mark well the time! Of Ulster's Druid race
What man but yearly, those four hundred years,
Trembled that tale recounting which with this,
Tallies as footprint with the foot of man?
Four hundred years ago—that self-same day—
Connor, the son of Nessa, Ulster's King,
Sat throned, and judged his people. As he sat,
Under clear skies, behold, o'er all the earth
Swept a great shadow from the windless east;
And darkness hung upon the air three hours;
Dead fell the birds, and beasts astonied fled.
Then to his Chief of Druids, Connor spake
Whispering; and he, his oracles explored,
Shivering made answer, “From a land accursed,
O King, that shadow sweeps; therein, this hour,
By sinful men sinless God's Son is slain.”
Then Ulster's king, down-dashing sceptre and crown,
Rose, clamouring, “Sinless! Shall the sinless die?”
And madness fell on him; and down that steep
He rushed whereon the Emanian Palace stood,
And reached the grove, Lambraidhè, with two swords,
The sword of battle, and the sword of state,
And hewed and hewed, crying, “Were I but there
Thus they should fall who slay that Sinless One;”
And in that madness died. Old Erin's sons
Beheld this thing; nor ever in the land
Hath ceased the rumour, nor the tear for him
Who, wroth at justice trampled, martyr died.

And now we know that not for any dream
He died, but for the truth: and whensoe'er
The Prophet of that Son of God who died
Sinless for sinners, standeth in this place,
I, Bacrach, oldest Druid in this Isle,
Will rise the first, and kiss his vesture's hem.’

He spake; and Milcho heard, and without speech
Departed from that house.

A later day
When the wild March sunset, gone almost ere come,
By glacial shower was hustled out of life,
Under a blighted ash tree, near his house,
Thus mused the man: ‘Believe, or Disbelieve!
The will does both! Then idiot who would be
For profitless belief to sell himself?
Yet disbelief not less might work our bane!
For, I remember, once a sickly slave
Ill shepherded my flock: I spake him plain;
“When next, through fault of thine, the midnight wolf
Worries my sheep, on yonder tree you hang:”
The blear-eyed idiot looked into my face,
And smiled his disbelief. On that day week
Two lambs lay dead. I hanged him on a tree.
What tree? this tree! Why, this is passing strange!
For, three nights since, I saw him in a dream:
Weakling as wont he stood beside my bed,
And, clutching at his wrenched and livid throat,
Spake thus, “Belief is safest.”’

Ceased the hail
To rattle on the ever barren boughs,
And friendlier sound was heard. Beside his door
Wayworn the messengers of Patrick stood,
And showed the gifts, and held his missive forth.

Then learned that lost one all the truth. That sage
Confessed by miracles, that prophet vouched
By warnings old, that seer by words of might
Subduing all things to himself—that priest,
None other was than the uncomplaining boy
Five years his slave and swineherd! In him rage
Burst forth, with fear commixed, as when a beast
Strains in the toils. ‘Can I alone stand firm?’
He mused; and next, ‘Shall I, in mine old age,
Byword become—the vassal of my slave?
Shall I not rather drive him from my door
With wolf hounds and a curse?’ As thus he stood
He marked the gifts, and bade men bare them in,
And homeward signed the messengers unfed.

But Milcho slept not all that night for thought,
And, forth ere sunrise issuing, paced a moor
Stone-roughened like the graveyard of dead hosts,
Till noontide. Sudden then he stopt, and thus
Discoursed within: ‘A plot from first to last,
The fraudulent bondage, flight, and late return;
For now I mind me of a foolish dream
Chance-sent, yet drawn by him awry. One night
Methought that boy from far hills drenched in rain
Dashed through my halls all fire. From hands and head,
From hair and mouth, forth rushed a flaming fire
White, like white light, and still that mighty flame
Into itself took all. With hands outstretched
I spurned it. On my cradled daughters twain
It turned, and they were ashes. Then in burst
The south wind through the portals of the house,
Tempest rose-sweet, and blew those ashes forth
Wide as the realm. At dawn I sought the knave;

He glossed my vision thus: “That fire is Faith—
Faith in the God Triune, the God made Man,
Sole light wherein I walk, and walking burn;
And they that walk with me shall burn like me
By Faith. But thou that radiance wilt repel,
Housed through ill-will, in Error's endless night.
Not less thy little daughters shall believe
With glory and great joy; and, when they die,
Report of them, like ashes blown abroad,
Shall light far lands, and health to men of Faith
Stream from their dust.” I drave the impostor forth:
Perjured ere long he fled, and now returns
To reap a harvest from his master's dream'—
Thus mused he, while black shadow swept the moor.
So day by day darker was Milcho's heart,
Till, with the endless brooding on one thought,
Began a little flaw within that brain
Whose strength was still his boast. Was no friend nigh?
Alas! what friend had he? All men he scorned;
Knew truly none. In each, the best and sweetest
Near him had ever pined, like stunted growth
Dwarfed by some glacier nigh. The fifth day dawned:
And inly thus he muttered, darkly pale:
‘Five days; in three the messengers returned:
In three—in two—the Accursèd will be here,
Or blacken yonder Sleemish with his crew
Descending. Then those idiots, kerne and slave—
The mighty flame into itself takes all—
Full swarm will fly to meet him! Fool! fool! fool!
The man hath snared me with those gifts he sent;
Else had I barred the mountains: now 'twere late,
My people in revolt. Whole weeks his horde

Will throng my courts, demanding board and bed,
With hosts by Dichu sent to flout my pang,
And sorer make my charge. My granaries sacked,
My larder lean as ship six months ice-bound,
The man I hate will rise, and open shake
The invincible banner of his mad new Faith,
Till all that hear him shout, like winds or waves,
Belief; and I be left sole recusant;
Or else perhaps that Fury who prevails
At times o'er knee-joints of reluctant men,
By magic imped, may crumble into dust
By force my disbelief.’

He raised his head,
And lo, before him lay the sea far ebbed
Sad with a sunset all but gone: the reeds
Sighed in the wind, and sighed a sweeter voice
Oft heard in childhood—now the last time heard:
‘Believe!’ it whispered. Vain the voice! That hour,
Stirred from the abyss, the sins of all his life
Around him rose like night—not one, but all—
That earliest sin which, like a dagger, pierced
His mother's heart; that worst, when summer drouth
Parched the brown vales, and infants thirsting died,
While from full pail he gorged his swine with milk
And flung the rest away. Sin-walled he stood:
God's Angels could not pierce that cincture dread,
Nor he look through it. Yet he dreamed he saw:
His life he saw; its labours, and its gains
Hard won, long-waited, wonder of his foes;
The manifold conquests of a Will oft tried;
Victory, Defeat, Retrieval; last, that scene
Around him spread: the wan sea and grey rocks;
And he was 'ware that on that self-same ledge
He, Milcho, thirty years gone by, had stood,

While pirates pushed to sea, leaving forlorn
On that wild shore a scared and weeping boy,
(His price two yearling kids and half a sheep)
Thenceforth his slave.

Not sole he mused that hour.
The Demon of his House beside him stood
Upon that iron coast, and whispered thus:
‘Masterful man art thou for wit-and strength;
Yet girl-like standst thou brooding! Weave a snare!
He comes for gold, this prophet. All thou hast
Heap in thy house; then fire it! In far lands
Build thee new fortunes. Frustrate thus shall he
Stare but on stones, his destined vassal scaped.’

So fell the whisper; and as one who hears
And does, the stiff-necked man obsequious bent
His strong will to a stronger, and returned,
And gave command to heap within his house
His stored up wealth—yea, all things that were his—
Borne from his ships and granaries. It was done.
Then filled he his huge hall with resinous beams
Seasoned for far sea-voyage, and the ribs
Of ocean-sundering vessels deep in sea;
Which ended, to his topmost tower he clomb,
And therein sat two days, with face to south,
Clutching a brand; and oft through clenched teeth hissed,
Hissed long, ‘Because I will to disbelieve.’
But ere the second sunset two brief hours,
Where comfortless leaned forth that western ridge
Long patched with whiteness by half melted snows,
There crept a gradual shadow. Soon the man
Discerned its import. There they hung—he saw them—

That company detested; hung as when
Storm-boding cloud on mountain hangs half-way
Scarce moving, and in fear the shepherd cries,
‘Would that the worst were come!’ So dread to him
Those Heralds of fair Peace! He gazed upon them
With blood-shot eyes; a moment passed: he stood
Sole in his never festal hall, and flung
His lighted brand into that pile far forth,
And smiled that smile men feared to see, and turned,
And issuing faced the circle of his serfs
That wondering gathered round in thickening mass,
Eyeing that unloved House.

His place he chose
Beside that blighted ash, fronting those towers
Palled with red smoke, and muttered low, ‘So be it!
Worse to be vassal to the man I hate,’
With hueless lips. His whole white face that hour
Was scorched; and blistered was the dead tree's bark;
Yet there he stood; and in that fiery light
His life, no more triumphant, passed once more
In underthought before him, while on spread
The swift, contagious madness of that fire,
And muttered thus, not knowing it, the man,
‘The mighty flame into itself takes all,’
Mechanic iteration. Not alone
Stood he that hour. The Demon of his House
By him once more and closer than of old,
Stood, whispering thus, ‘Thy game is now played out;
Henceforth a byword art thou—rich in youth—
Self-beggared in old age.’ And as the wind
Of that shrill whisper cut his listening soul,
The blazing roof fell in on all his wealth,
Hard-won, long-waited, wonder of his foes;
And, loud as laughter from ten thousand fiends,

Up rushed the fire. With arms outstretched he stood;
Stood firm; then forward with a wild beast's cry
He dashed himself into that terrible flame,
And vanished as a leaf.

Upon a spur
Of Sleemish, eastward on its northern slope,
Stood Patrick and his brethren, travel-worn,
When distant o'er the brown and billowy moor
Rose the white smoke, that changed ere long to flame,
From site unknown; for by the seaward crest
That keep lay hidden. Hands to forehead raised,
Wondering they watched it. One to other spake:
‘The huge Dalriad forest is afire
Ere melted are the winter's snows!’ Another,
‘In vengeance o'er the ocean Creithe or Pict,
Favoured by magic, or by mist, have crossed,
And fired old Milcho's ships.’ But Patrick leaned
Upon his crosier, pale as the ashes wan
Left by a burned out city. Long he stood
Silent, till, sudden, fiercelier soared the flame
Reddening the edges of a cloud low hung;
And, after pause, vibration slow and stern
Troubling the burthened bosom of the air,
Upon a long surge of the northern wind
Came up—a murmur as of wintry seas
Far borne at night. All heard that sound; all felt it;
One only knew its import. Patrick turned;
‘The deed is done: the man I would have saved
Is dead, because he willed to disbelieve.’

Yet Patrick grieved for Milcho, nor that hour
Passed further north. Three days on Sleemish hill
He dwelt in prayer. To Tara's royal halls
Then turned he, and subdued the royal house

And host to Christ, save Erin's king, Laeghaire.
But Milcho's daughters twain to Christ were born
In baptism, and each Emeria named:
Like rose-trees in the garden of the Lord
Grew they and flourished. Dying young, one grave
Received them at Cluanbrain. Healing thence
To many from their relics passed; to more
The spirit's happier healing, Love and Faith.

SAINT PATRICK AT TARA.

The king is wroth with a greater wrath
Than the wrath of Nial or the wrath of Conn!
From his heart to his brow the blood makes path,
And hangs there, a red cloud, beneath his crown.

Is there any who knows not, from south to north,
That Laeghaire to-morrow his birthday keeps?
No fire may be lit upon hill or hearth
Till the king's strong fire in its kingly mirth
Up rushes from Tara's palace steeps!

Yet Patrick has lighted his Paschal fire
At Slane—it is holy Saturday—
And blessed his font 'mid the chaunting choir!
From hill to hill the flame makes way;
While the king looks on it his eyes with ire
Flash red, like Mars, under tresses grey.

The chiefs and the captains with drawn swords rose:
To avenge their Lord and the Realm they swore;
The Druids rose and their garments tore;
‘The strangers to us and our Gods are foes!’

Then the king to Patrick a herald sent,
Who spake, ‘Come up at noon and show
Who lit thy fire and with what intent:
These things the great king Laeghaire would know.’

But Laeghaire had hid twelve men by the way,
Who swore by the sun the Saint to slay.

When the waters of Boyne began to bask
And fields to flash in the rising sun,
The Apostle Evangelist kept his Pasch,
And Erin her grace baptismal won:
Her birthday it was: his font the rock,
He blessed the land, and he blessed his flock.

Then forth to Tara he fared full lowly:
The Staff of Jesus was in his hand:
Twelve priests paced after him chaunting slowly,
Printing their steps on the dewy land.
It was the Resurrection morn:
The lark sang loud o'er the springing corn;
The dove was heard, and the hunter's horn.

The murderers twelve stood by on the way;
Yet they saw nought save the lambs at play.

A trouble lurked in the monarch's eye
When the guest he counted for dead drew nigh:
He sat in state at his palace gate;
His chiefs and nobles were ranged around;
The Druids like ravens smelt some far fate;
Their eyes were gloomily bent on the ground.
Then spake Laeghaire: ‘He comes—beware!
Let none salute him, or rise from his chair!’

Like some still vision men see by night,
Mitred, with eyes of serene command,
Saint Patrick moved onward in ghostly white:
The Staff of Jesus was in his hand;
Twelve priests paced after him unafraid,
And the boy, Benignus, more like a maid;
Like a maid just wedded he walked and smiled,
To Christ new plighted, that priestly child.

They entered the circle; their anthem ceased;
The Druids their eyes bent earthward still:
On Patrick's brow the glory increased
As a sunrise brightening some sea-beat hill.
The warriors sat silent: strange awe they felt:
The chief bard, Dubtach, rose and knelt!

Then Patrick discoursed of the things to be
When time gives way to eternity,
Of kingdoms that fall, which are dreams not things,
And the Kingdom built by the King of kings.
Of Him he spake who reigns from the Cross;
Of the death which is life, and the life which is loss;
How all things were made by the Infant Lord,
And the small hand the Magian kings adored.
His voice sounded on like a throbbing flood
That swells all night from some far-off wood,
And when it ended—that wondrous strain—
Invisible myriads breathed ‘Amen!’

While he spake, men say that the refluent tide
On the shore by Colpa ceased to sink:
They say that the white stag by Mulla's side
O'er the green marge bending forbore to drink:

That the Brandon eagle forgat to soar;
That no leaf stirred in the wood by Lee:
Such stupor hung the island o'er,
For none might guess what the end would be.

Then whispered the king to a chief close by,
‘It were better for me to believe than die!’

Yet the king believed not; but ordinance gave
That whoso would might believe that word:
So the meek believed, and the wise, and brave,
And Mary's Son as their God adored.
And the Druids, because they could answer nought,
Bowed down to the Faith the stranger brought.
That day on Erin God poured His Spirit:
Yet none like the chief of the bards had merit,
Dubtach! He rose and believed the first,
Ere the great light yet on the rest had burst.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE TWO PRINCESSES.

FEDELM ‘THE RED ROSE,’ AND ETHNA ‘THE FAIR.’

Like two sister fawns that leap,
Borne, as though on viewless wings,
Down bosky glade and ferny steep
To quench their thirst at silver springs,
From Cruachan

The palace of the Kings in Connaught.

palace through gorse and heather,
Raced the Royal Maids together.

Since childhood thus the twain had rushed
Each morn to Clebach's fountain-cell
Ere earliest dawn the East had flushed
To bathe them in its well:
Each morn with joy their young hearts tingled;
Each morn as, conquering cloud or mist,
The first beam with the wavelet mingled,
Mouth to mouth they kissed!

They stand by the fount with their unlooped hair—
A hand each raises—what see they there?
A white Form seated on Clebach stone;
A kinglike presence: the monks stood nigh:
Fronting the dawn he sat alone;
On the star of morning he fixed his eye:
That crozier he grasped shone bright; but brighter
The sunrise flashed from Saint Patrick's mitre!
They gazed without fear. To a kingdom dear
From the day of their birth those Maids had been;
Of wrong they had heard; but it came not near;
They hoped they were dear to the Power unseen.
They knelt when that Vision of Peace they saw;
Knelt, not in fear, but in loving awe:
The ‘Red Rose’ bloomed like that East afar;
The ‘Fair One ’shone like that morning star.

Then Patrick rose: no word he said,
But thrice he made the sacred Sign;
At the first, men say that the demons fled;
At the third flocked round them the Powers divine
Unseen. Like children devout and good,
Hands crossed on their bosoms, the maidens stood.

‘Blessed and holy! This land is Eire:
Whence come ye to her, and the king our sire?’

‘We come from a Kingdom far off, yet near,
Which the wise love well, and the wicked fear:
We come with blessing and come with ban,
We come from the Kingdom of God with man.’

‘Whose is that Kingdom? And say, therein
Are the chiefs all brave, and the maids all fair?
Is it clean from reptiles, and that thing, sin?
Is it like this kingdom of King Laeghaire?’

‘The chiefs of that Kingdom wage war on wrong,
And the clash of their swords is sweet as song;
Fair are the maids, and so pure from taint
The flash of their eyes turns sinner to saint;
There reptile is none, nor the ravening beast;
There light has no shadow, no end the feast.’

‘But say, at that feast hath the poor man place?
Is reverence there for the old head hoar?
For the cripple that never might join the race?
For the maimed that fought, and can fight no more?’

‘Reverence is there for the poor and meek;
And the great King kisses the worn, pale cheek;
And the King's Son waits on the pilgrim guest;
And the Queen takes the little blind child to her breast:
There with a crown is the just man crowned;
But the false and the vengeful are branded and bound
In knots of serpents, and flung without pity
From the bastions and walls of the saintly City.’

Then the eyes of the Maidens grew dark, as though
That judgment of God had before them passed:
And the two sweet faces grew dim with woe;
But the rose and the radiance returned at last.

‘Are gardens there? Are there streams like ours?
Is God white-headed, or youthful and strong?
Hang there the rainbows o'er happy bowers?
Are there sun and moon and the thrush's song?’

‘They have gardens there without noise or strife,
And there is the Tree of immortal Life:
Four rivers circle that blissful bound;
And Spirits float o'er it, and Spirits go round:
There, set in the midst, is the golden throne;
And the Maker of all things sits thereon:
A rainbow o'er-hangs Him; and lo! therein
The beams are His Holy Ones washed from sin.’

As he spake, the hearts of the Maids beat time
To music in heaven of peace and love;
And the deeper sense of that lore sublime
Came out from within them, and down from above;
By degrees came down; by degrees came out:
Who loveth, and hopeth, not long shall doubt.

‘Who is your God? Is love on His brow?
Oh how shall we love Him and find Him? How?’
The pure cheek flamed like the dawn-touched dew:
There was silence: then Patrick began anew.
‘The princes who ride in your father's train
Have courted your love, but sued in vain;—
Look up, O Maidens; make answer free:
What boon desire you, and what would you be?’

‘Pure we would be as yon wreath of foam,
Or the ripple which now yon sunbeams smite:
And joy we would have, and a songful home;
And one to rule us, and Love's delight.’

‘In love God fashioned whatever is,
The hills, and the seas, and the skiey fires;
For love He made them, and endless bliss
Sustains, enkindles, uplifts, inspires:
That God is Father, and Son, and Spirit;
And the true and spotless His peace inherit:
And God made man, with his great sad heart,
That hungers when held from God apart.
Your sire is a King on earth: but I
Would mate you to One who is Lord on high:
There bride is maid: and her joy shall stand,
For the King's Son hath laid on her head His hand.’

As he spake, the eyes of that lovely twain
Grew large with a tearful but glorious light,
Like skies of summer late cleared by rain,
When the full-orbed moon will be soon in sight.

‘That Son of the King—is He fairest of men?
That mate whom He crowns—is she bright and blest?
Does she chase the red deer at His side through the glen?
Does she charm Him with song to His noontide rest?’

‘That King's Son strove in a long, long war:
His people He freed; yet they wounded Him sore;
And still in His hands, and His feet, and His side,
The scars of His sorrow are 'graved, deep-dyed.’

Then the breasts of the Maidens began to heave
Like harbour waves when beyond the bar
The great waves gather, and wet winds grieve,
And the roll of the tempest is heard afar.

‘We will kiss, we will kiss those bleeding feet;
On the bleeding hands our tears shall fall;
And whatever on earth is dear or sweet,
For that wounded heart we renounce them all.

‘Show us the way to His palace-gate:’—
‘That way is thorny, and steep, and straight;
By none can His palace-gate be seen,
Save those who have washed in the waters clean.’

They knelt: on their heads the wave he poured
Thrice in the name of the Triune Lord:
And he signed their brows with the Sign adored.
On Fedelm the ‘Red Rose,’ on Ethna ‘The Fair,’
God's dew shone bright in that morning air:
Some say that Saint Agnes, 'twixt sister and sister,
As the Cross touched each, bent over and kissed her.

Then sang God's new-born Creatures, ‘Behold!
We see God's City from heaven draw nigh:
But we thirst for the fountains divine and cold:
We must see the great King's Son, or die!
Come, Thou that com'st! Our wish is this,
That the body might die, and the soul, set free,
Swell out, like an infant's lips, to the kiss
Of the Lover who filleth infinity!’

‘The City of God, by the water's grace,
Ye see: alone, they behold His Face,
Who have washed in the baths of Death their eyes,
And tasted His Eucharist Sacrifice.’

‘Give us the Sacrifice!’ Each bright head
Bent toward it as sunflowers bend to the sun:
They ate; and the blood from the warm cheek fled:
The exile was over: the home was won:

A starry darkness o'erflowed their brain:
Far waters beat on some heavenly shore:
Like the dying away of a low, sweet strain,
The young life ebbed, and they breathed no more:
In death they smiled, as though on the breast
Of the Mother Maid they had found their rest.

The rumour spread: beside the bier
The King stood mute, and his chiefs and court:
The Druids dark-robed drew surlily near,
And the Bards storm-hearted, and humbler sort:
The ‘Staff of Jesus’ Saint Patrick raised:
Angelic anthems above them swept:
There were that muttered; there were that praised:
But none who looked on that marvel wept.

For they lay on one bed, like Brides new-wed,
By Clebach well; and, the dirge days over,
On their smiling faces a veil was spread,
And a green mound raised that bed to cover.
Such were the ways of those ancient days—
To Patrick for aye that grave was given;
And above it he built a church in their praise;
For in them had Eire been spoused to heaven.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDREN OF FOCHLUT WOOD.

This wood extended along the coast near the present town of Killala.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick makes way into Fochlut Wood by the sea, the oldest of Erin's forests, whence there had been borne unto him, then in a distant land, the Children's Wail from Erin. He meets there two young Virgins, who sing a dirge of man's sorrowful condition. Afterwards they lead him to the fortress of the king, their father. There are sung two songs, a song of Vengeance and a song of Lament; which ended, Saint Patrick makes proclamation of the Advent and of the Resurrection. The king and all his chiefs believe with full contentment.

One day as Patrick sat upon a stone
Judging his people, Pagan babes flocked round,
All light and laughter, angel-like of mien,
Sueing for bread. He gave it, and they ate:
Then said he, ‘Kneel;’ and taught them prayer: but lo!
Sudden the stag hounds' music dinned the wind;
They heard; they sprang; they chased it. Patrick spake;
‘It was the cry of children that I heard
Borne from the black wood o'er the midnight seas:
Where are those children? What avails though Kings
Have bowed before my Gospel, and in awe
Nations knelt low, unless I set mine eyes
On Fochlut Wood?’ Thus speaking, he arose,
And, journeying with the brethren toward the West,
Fronted the confine of that forest old.

Then entered they that darkness; and the wood
Closed as a cavern round them. O'er its roof
Leaned roof of cloud, and hissing ran the wind,
And moaned the trunks for centuries hollowed out
Yet stalwart still. There, rooted in the rock,
Stood the huge growths, by us unnamed, that frowned
Perhaps on Partholan, the parricide,
When that first Pagan settler fugitive
Landed, a man foredoomed. Between the stems
The ravening beast now glared, now fled. Red leaves,
The last year's phantoms, rattled here and there.
The oldest wood that ever grew in Eire
Was Fochlut Wood, and gloomiest. Spirits of Ill
Made it their Palace, and its labyrinths sowed
With poisons. Many a cave, with horrors thronged,
Within it yawned, and many a chasm unseen
Waited the unwary treader. Cry of wolf
Pierced the cold air, and gibbering ghosts were heard;
And o'er the black marsh passed those wandering lights
That lure lost feet. A thousand pathways wound
From gloom to gloom. One only led to light;
That path was sharp with flints.

Then Patrick mused,
‘O life of man, how dark a wood art thou!
Erring how many track thee till Despair,
Sad host, receives them in his crypt-like porch
At nightfall.’ Mute he paced. The brethren feared;
And fearing, knelt to God. Made strong by prayer
Westward once more they trod that dark, sharp way
Till deeper gloom announced the night, then slept
Guarded by angels. But the Saint all night
Watched, strong in prayer. The second day still on
They fared, like mariners o'er strange seas borne,
That keep in mist their soundings when the rocks

Vex the dark strait, and breakers roar unseen.
At last Benignus cried, ‘To God be praise!
He sends us better omens. See! the moss
Brightens the crag!’ Ere long another spake:
‘The worst is past! This freshness in the air
Wafts us a welcome from the great salt sea;
Fair spreads the fern: green buds are on the spray,
And violets throng the grass.’

A few steps more
Brought them to where, with peaceful gleam, there spread
A forest pool that mirrored yew trees twain
With beads like blood-drops hung. A sunset flash
Kindled a glory in the osiers brown
Encircling that still water. From the reeds
A sable bird, gold-circled, slowly rose;
But when the towering tree-tops he outsoared,
Eastward a great wind swept him as a leaf.
Serenely as he rose a music soft
Swelled from afar; but, as that storm o'ertook him
The music changed to one on-rushing note
O'ertaken by a second; both, ere long,
Blended in wail unending. Patrick's brow,
Listening that wail, was altered, and he spake:
‘These were the Voices that I heard when stood
By night beside me in that southern land
God's angel, girt for speed. Letters he bare
Unnumbered, full of woes. He gave me one,
Inscribed, “The Wailing of the Irish Race;”
And as I read that legend on mine ear
Forth from a mighty wood on Erin's coast
There rang the cry of children, “Walk once more
Among us; bring us help!”’ Thus Patrick spake:
Then towards that wailing paced with forward head.

Ere long they came to where a river broad
Swiftly amid the dense trees winding, brimmed
The flower-enamelled marge, and onward bore
Green branches 'mid its eddies. On the bank
Two virgins stood. Whiter than earliest streak
Of matin pearl dividing dusky clouds
Their raiment; and, as oft in silent woods
White beds of wind-flower lean along the earth-breeze,
So on the river-breeze that raiment wan
Shivered, back blown. Slender they stood and tall,
Their brows with violets bound; while shone, beneath,
The dark blue of their never-tearless eyes.
Then Patrick, ‘For the sake of Him who lays
His blessing on the mourners, O ye maids,
Reveal to me your grief—if yours late sent,
Or sped in careless childhood.’ And the maids:
‘Happy whose careless childhood 'scaped the wound:’
Then she that seemed the saddest added thus:
‘Stranger! this forest is no roof of joy,
Nor we the only mourners; neither fall
Bitterer the widow's nor the orphan's tears
Now than of old; nor sharper than long since
That loss which maketh maiden widowhood.
In childhood first our sorrow came. One eve
Within our foster-parents' low-roofed house
The winter sunset from our bed had waned:
I slept, and sleeping dreamed. Beside the bed
There stood a lovely Lady crowned with stars;
A sword went through her heart. Down from that sword
Blood trickled on the bed, and on the ground.
Sorely I wept. The Lady spake: “My child,
Weep not for me, but for thy country weep;
Her wound is deeper far than mine. Cry loud!

The cry of grief is Prayer.” I woke, all tears;
And lo! my little sister, stiff and cold,
Sat with wide eyes upon the bed upright:
That starry Lady with the bleeding heart
She, too, had seen, and heard her. Clamour vast
Rang out; and all the wall was fiery red;
And flame was on the sea. A hostile clan
Landing in mist, had fired our ships and town,
Our clansmen absent on a foray far,
And stricken many an old man, many a boy
To bondage dragged. Oh night with blood redeemed!
Upon the third day o'er the green waves rushed
The vengeance winged, with axe and torch, to quit
Wrong with new wrong, and many a time since then.
That night sad women on the sea sands toiled,
Drawing from wreck and ruin, beam or plank
To shield their babes. Our foster-parents slain,
Unheeded we, the children of the chief,
Roamed the great forest. There we told our dream
To children likewise orphaned. Sudden fear
Smote them as though themselves had dreamed that dream,
And back from them redoubled upon us;
Until at last from us and them rang out—
The dark wood heard it, and the midnight sea—
A great and bitter cry.’

‘That cry went up,
O children, to the heart of God; and He
Down sent it, pitying, to a far-off land,
And on into my heart. By that first pang
Which left the eternal pallor in your cheeks,
O maids, I pray you, sing once more that song
Ye sang but late. I heard its long last note:
Fain would I hear the song that such death died.’

They sang: not scathless those that sing such song!
Grief, their instructress, of the Muses chief
To hearts by grief unvanquished, to their hearts
Had taught a melody that neither spared
Singer nor listener. Pale when they began,
Paler it left them. He not less was pale
Who, out of trance awaking, thanked them thus:
‘Now know I of that sorrow in you fixed;
What, and how great it is, and bless that Power
Who called me forth from nothing for your sakes,
And sent me to this wood. Maidens, lead on!
A chieftain's daughters ye; and he, your sire,
And with him she who gave you your sweet looks
(Sadder perchance than you in songless age),
They, too, must hear my tidings. Once a Prince
Went solitary from His golden throne,
Tracking the illimitable wastes, to find
One wildered sheep, the meanest of the flock,
And on His shoulders bore it to that House
Where dwelt His Sire. “Good Shepherd” was His Name.
My tidings these: heralds are we, footsore,
That bring the heart-sore comfort.’

On they paced,
On by the rushing river without words.
Beside the elder sister Patrick walked,
Benignus by the younger. Fair her face;
Majestic his, though young. Her looks were sad
And awe-struck; his, fulfilled with secret joy,
Sent forth a gleam as when a morn-touched bay
Through ambush shines of woodlands. Soon they stood
Where sea and river met, and trod a path
Wet with salt spray, and drank the clement breeze,
And saw the quivering of the green gold wave,

And, far beyond, that fierce aggressor's bourn,
Fair haunt for savage race, a purple ridge
By rainy sunbeam gemmed from glen to glen,
Dim waste of wandering lights. The sun, half risen,
Lay half sea-couched. A neighbouring height sent forth
Welcome of baying hounds; and, close at hand,
They reached the chieftain's keep.

A white-haired man
And long since blind, there sat he in his hall,
Untamed by age. At times a fiery gleam
Flashed from his sightless eyes; and oft the red
Burned on his forehead, while with splenetic speech
Stirred by ill news or memory-stung, he banned
Foes and false friend. Pleased by his daughters' tale,
At once he stretched his huge yet aimless hands
In welcome towards his guests. Beside him stood
His mate of forty years by that strong arm
From countless suitors won. Pensive her face:
With parted youth the confidence of youth
Had left her. Beauty, too, though with remorse,
Its seat had half relinquished on a cheek
Long time its boast, and on that willowy form,
So yielding now, where once in strength upsoared
The queenly presence. Tenderest grace not less
Haunted her life's dim twilight—meekness, love—
That humble love, all-giving, that seeks nought,
Self-reverent calm, and modesty in age.
She turned an anxious eye on him she loved;
And, bending, kissed at times that wrinkled hand,
By years and sorrows made his wife far more
Than in her nuptial bloom. These two had lost
Five sons, their hope, in war.

That eve it chanced
High feast was holden in the chieftain's tower

To solemnise his birthday. In they flocked,
Each after each, the warriors of the clan,
Not without pomp heraldic and fair state
Barbaric, yet beseeming. Unto each
Seat was assigned for deeds or lineage old,
And to the chiefs allied. Where each had place
Above him waved his banner. Not for this
Unhonoured were the pilgrim guests. They sat
Where, fed by pinewood and the seeded cone,
The loud hearth blazed. Bathed were the wearied feet
By maidens of the place and nurses grey,
And dried in linen fragrant still with flowers
Of years when those old nurses too were fair.
And now the board was spread, and carved the meat,
And jests ran round, and many a tale was told,
Some rude, but none opprobrious. Banquet done,
Page-led the harper entered, old, and blind:
The noblest ranged his chair, and spread the mat;
The loveliest raised his wine cup, one light hand
Laid on his shoulder, while the golden hair
Commingled with the silver. ‘Sing,’ they cried,
‘The death of Deirdrè; or that desolate sire
That slew his son, unweeting; or that Queen
Who from her palace pacing with fixed eyes
Stared at those heads in dreadful circle ranged,
The heads of traitor-friends that slew her lord
Then mocked the friend they murdered. Leal and true,
The Bard who wrought that vengeance!’ Thus he sang:

‘THE LAY OF THE HEADS.’

The Bard returns to a stricken house:
What shape is that he rears on high?
A withe of the Willow, set round with Heads:
They blot that evening sky.

A Widow meets him at the gates:
What fixes thus that Widow's eye?
She names the name; but she sees not the man,
Nor beyond him that reddening sky.

‘Bard of the Brand, thou Foster-Sire
Of him they slew—their friend—my lord—
What Head is that—the first—that frowns
Like a traitor self-abhorred?’

‘Daughter of Orgill wounded sore,
Thou of the fateful eye serene,
Fergus is he. The feast he made
That snared thy Cuchullene.’

‘What Head is that—the next—half-hid
In curls full lustrous to behold?
They mind me of a hand that once
I saw amid their gold.’

‘'Tis Manadh. He that by the shore
Held rule, and named the waves his steeds:
'Twas he that struck the stroke accursed—
Headless this day he bleeds.’

‘What Head is that close by—so still,
With half-closed lids, and lips that smile?
Methinks I know their voice: methinks
His wine they quaffed erewhile!’

‘'Twas he raised high that severed head:
Thy head he raised, my Foster-Child!
That was the latest stroke I struck:
I struck that stroke, and smiled.’

‘What Heads are those—that twain, so like,
Flushed as with blood by yon red sky?’
‘Each unto each, his Head they rolled;
Red on that grass they lie.’

‘That paler twain, which face the East?’
‘Laegar is one; the other Hilt;
Silent they watched the sport! they share
The doom, that shared the guilt.’

‘Bard of the Vengeance! well thou knew'st
Blood cries for blood! O kind, and true,
How many, kith and kin, have died
That mocked the man they slew?’

‘O Woman of the fateful eye,
The untrembling voice, the marble mould,
Seven hundred men, in house or field,
For the man they mocked, lie cold.’

‘Their wives, thou Bard? their wives? their wives?
Far off, or nigh, through Inisfail,
This hour what are they? Stand they mute
Like me; or make their wail?’

‘O Eimer! women weep and smile;
The young have hope, the young that mourn;
But I am old; my hope was he:
He that can ne'er return!’

‘O Conal! lay me in his grave:
Oh! lay me by my husband's side:
Oh! lay my lips to his in death;’
She spake, and, standing, died.

She fell at last—in death she fell—
She lay, a black shade, on the ground;
And all her women o'er her wailed
Like sea-birds o'er the drowned.

Thus to the blind chief sang that harper blind,
Hymning the vengeance; and the great hall roared
With wrath of those wild listeners. Many a heel
Smote the rough stone in scorn of them that died
Not three days past, so seemed it! Direful hands,
Together dashed, thundered the Avenger's praise.
At last the tide of that fierce tumult ebbed
O'er shores of silence. From her lowly seat
Beside her husband's spake the gentle Queen:
‘My daughters, from your childhood ye were still
A voice of music in your father's house—
Not wrathful music. Sing that song ye made
Or found long since, and yet in forest sing,
If haply Power Unknown may hear and help.’
She spake, and at her word her daughters sang.

‘Lost, lost, all lost! O tell us what is lost?
Behold, this too is hidden! Let him speak,
If any knows. The wounded deer can turn
And see the shaft that quivers in its flank;
The bird looks back upon its broken wing;
But we, the forest children, only know
Our grief is infinite, and hath no name.
What woman-prophet, shrouded in dark veil,
Whispered a Hope sadder than Fear? Long since,
What Father lost His children in the wood?
Some God? And can a God forsake? Perchance
His face is turned to nobler worlds new-made;
Perchance his palace owns some later bride

That hates the dead Queen's children, and with charm
Prevails that they are exiled from his eyes,
The exile's winter theirs—the exile's song.

‘Blood, ever blood! The sword goes raging on
O'er hill and moor; and with it, iron-willed,
Drags on the hand that holds it and the man
To slake its ceaseless thirst for blood of men;
Fire takes the little cot beside the mere,
And leaps upon the upland village: fire
Up clambers to the castle on the crag;
And whom the fire has spared the hunger kills;
And earth draws all into her thousand graves.

‘Ah me! the little linnet knows the branch
Whereon to build; the honey-pasturing bee
Knows the wild heath, and how to shape its cell;
Upon the poisonous berry no bird feeds;
So well their mother, Nature, helps her own.
Mothers forsake not;—can a Father hate?
Who knows but that He yearns—that Sire Unseen—
To clasp His children? All is sweet and sane,
All, all save man! Sweet is the summer flower,
The day-long sunset of the autumnal woods;
Fair is the winter frost; in spring the heart
Shakes to the bleating lamb. O then what thing
Might be the life secure of man with man,
The infant's smile, the mother's kiss, the love
Of lovers, and the untroubled wedded home?
This might have been man's lot. Who sent the woe?
Who formed man first? Who taught him first the ill way?
One creature, only, sins; and he the highest!

‘O Higher than the highest! Thou Whose hand
Made us—Who shaped'st that hand Thou wilt not clasp,
The eye Thou open'st not, the sealed-up ear!
Be mightier than man's sin: for lo, how man
Seeks Thee, and ceases not: through noontide cave
And dark air of the dawn-unlighted peak
To Thee how long he strains the weak, worn eye
If haply he might see Thy vesture's hem
On farthest winds receding! Yea, how oft
Against the blind and tremulous wall of cliff
Tormented by sea surge, he leans his ear
If haply o'er it name of Thine might creep;
Or bends above the torrent-cloven abyss,
If falling flood might lisp it! Power unknown!
He hears it not: Thou hear'st his beating heart
That cries to Thee for ever! From the veil
That shrouds Thee, from the wood, the cloud, the void,
O, by the anguish of all lands evoked,
Look forth! Though, seeing Thee, man's race should die,
One moment let him see Thee! Let him lay
At least his forehead on Thy foot in death!’

So sang the maidens: but the warriors frowned;
And thus the blind king muttered, ‘Bootless weed
Is plaint where help is none!’ But wives and maids
And the thick-crowding poor, that many a time
Had wailed on war-fields o'er their brethren slain,
Went down before that strain as river reeds
Before strong wind, went down when o'er them passed
Its last word, ‘Death’; and grief's infection spread
From least to first; and weeping filled the hall.
Then on Saint Patrick fell compassion great;

He rose amid that concourse, and with voice
And words now lost, alas, or all but lost,
Such that the chief of sight amerced, beheld
The imagined man before him crowned with light,
Proclaimed that God who hideth not His face,
His people's King and Father; open flung
The portals of His realm, that inward rolled,
With music of a million singing spheres
Commanded all to enter. Who was He
Who called the worlds from nought? His name is Love!
In love He made those worlds. They have not lost,
The sun his splendour, nor the moon her light:
That miracle survives. Alas for thee!
Thou better miracle, fair human love,
That splendour shouldst have been of home and hearth,
Now quenched by mortal hate! Whence come our woes
But from our lusts? O desecrated law
By God's own finger on our hearts engraved,
How well art thou avenged! No dream it was,
That primal greatness, and that primal peace:
Man in God's image at the first was made,
A God to rule below!

He told it all—
Creation, and that Sin which marred its face;
And how the great Creator, creature made,
God—God for man incarnate—died for man:
Dead, with His Cross he thundered on the gates
Of Death's blind Hades. Then, with hands outstretched,
His Holy Ones that, in their penance prison
From hope in Him had ceased not, to the light
Flashed from His bleeding hands and branded brow

Through darkness soared: they reign with Him in heaven:
Their brethren we, the children of one Sire.
Long time he spake. The winds forbore their wail;
The woods were hushed. That wondrous tale complete.
Not sudden fell the silence; for, as when
A huge wave forth from ocean toiling mounts
High-arched, in solid bulk, the beach rock-strewn,
Burying his hoar head under echoing cliffs,
And, after pause, refluent to sea returns,
Not all at once is stillness, countless rills
Or devious winding down the steep, or borne
In crystal leap from sea-shelf to sea-well,
And sparry grot replying; gradual thus
With lessening cadence sank that great discourse,
While round him gazed Saint Patrick, now the old
Regarding, now the young, and flung on each
In turn his boundless heart, and gazing longed
As only Apostolic heart can long
To help the helpless.

‘Fair, O friends, the bourn
We dwell in! Holy King makes happy land:
Our King is in our midst. He gave us gifts;
Laws that are Love, the sovereignty of Truth.
What, sirs, ye knew Him not! But ye by signs
Foresaw His coming, as, when buds are red
Ye say, “The spring is nigh us.” Him, unknown,
Each loved who loved his brother! Shepherd youths,
Who spread the pasture green beneath your lambs
And freshened it with snow-fed stream and mist?
Who but that Love unseen? Grey mariners,
Who lulled the rough seas round your midnight nets,
And sent the landward breeze? Pale sufferers wan,
Rejoice! His are ye; yea, and His the most!

Have ye not watched the eagle that upstirs
Her nest, then undersails her falling brood
And stays them on her plumes, and bears them up
Till, taught by proof, they learn their unguessed powers
And breast the storm? Thus God stirs up His people;
Thus proves by pain. Ye too, O hearths well-loved!
How oft your sin-stained sanctities ye mourned!
Wives! from the cradle reigns the Bethelem Babe!
Maidens! henceforth the Virgin Mother spreads
Her shining veil above you!

‘Speak aloud,
Chieftains world-famed! I hear the ancient blood
That leaps against your hearts! What? Warriors ye!
Danger your birthright, and your pastime death!
Behold your foes! They stand before you plain:
Ill passions, base ambitions, falsehood, hate:
Wage war on these! A King is in your host!
His hands no roses plucked but on the Cross:
He came not hand of man in woman's tasks
To mesh. In woman's hand, in childhood's hand,
Much more in man's, He lodged His conquering sword;
Them too His soldiers named, and vowed to war.
Rise, clan of Kings, rise, champions of man's race,
Heaven's sun-clad army militant on earth,
One victory gained, the realm decreed is ours.
The bridal bells ring out, for Low with High
Is wed in endless nuptials. It is past,
The sin, the exile, and the grief. O man,
Take thou, renewed, thy sister-mate by hand;
Know well thy dignity, and hers: return,
And meet once more Thy Maker, for He walks

Once more within thy garden, in the cool
Of the world's eve!’

The words that Patrick spake
Were words of power. Not futile did they fall:
But, probing, healed a sorrowing people's wound.
Round him they stood, as oft in Grecian days,
Some haughty city sieged, her penitent sons
Thronging green Pnyx or templed Forum hushed
Hung listening on that People's one true Voice,
The man that ne'er had flattered, ne'er deceived,
Nursed no false hope. It was the time of Faith;
Open was then man's ear, open his heart:
Pride spurned not then that chiefest strength of man
The power, by Truth confronted, to believe.
Not savage was that wild, barbaric race:
Spirit was in them. On their knees they sank,
With foreheads lowly bent; and when they rose
Such sound went forth as when late anchored fleet
Touched by dawn breeze, shakes out its canvas broad
And sweeps into new waters. Man with man
Clasped hands; and each in each a something saw
Till then unseen. As though flesh-bound no more,
Their souls had touched. One Truth, the Spirit's life,
Lived in them all, a vast and common joy.
And yet as when, that Pentecostal morn,
Each heard the Apostle in his native tongue,
So now, on each, that Truth, that Joy, that Life
Shone forth with beam diverse. Deep peace to one
Those tidings seemed, a still vale after storm;
To one a sacred rule, steadying the world;
A third exulting saw his youthful hope
Written in stars; a fourth triumphant hailed
The just cause, long oppressed. Some laughed, some wept:

But she, that aged chieftain's mournful wife
Clasped to her boding breast his hoary head
Loud clamouring, ‘Death is dead; and not for long
That dreadful grave can part us.’ Last of all,
He too believed. That hoary head had shaped
Full many a crafty scheme:—behind them all
Nature held fast her own.

O happy night!
Back through the gloom of centuries sin-defaced
With what a saintly radiance thou dost shine!
They slept not, on the loud-resounding shore
In glory roaming. Many a feud that night
Lay down in holy grave, or, mockery made,
Was quenched in its own shame. Far shone the fires
Crowning dark hills with gladness: soared the song;
And heralds sped from coast to coast to tell
How He the Lord of all, no Power Unknown
But like a man rejoicing in his house,
Ruled the glad earth. That demon-haunted wood,
Sad Erin's saddest region, yet, men say,
Tenderest for all its sadness, rang at last
With hymns of men and angels. Onward sailed
High o'er the long, unbreaking, azure waves
A mighty moon, full-faced, as though on winds
Of rapture borne. With earliest red of dawn
Northward once more the wingèd war-ships rushed
Swift as of old to that long hated shore—
Not now with axe and torch. His Name they bare
Who linked in one the nations.

On a cliff
Where Fochlut's Wood blackened the northern sea
A convent rose. Therein those sisters twain
Whose cry had summoned Patrick o'er the deep,
Abode, no longer weepers. Pallid still,

In radiance now their faces shone; and sweet
Their psalms amid the clangour of rough brine.
Ten years in praise to God and good to men,
That happy precinct housed them. In their morn
Grief had for them her great work perfected;
Their eve was bright as childhood. When the hour
Came for their blissful transit, from their lips
Pealed forth ere death that great triumphant chant
Sung by the Virgin Mother. Ages passed;
And, year by year, on wintry nights, that song
Alone the sailors heard—a cry of joy.

SAINT PATRICK AND KING LAEGHAIRE.

‘Thou son of Calphurn, in peace go forth!
This hand shall slay them whoe'er shall slay thee!
The earles shall stand to their necks in earth
Till they die of thirst who mock or stay thee!

‘But my father, Nial, who is dead long since,
Permits not me to believe thy word;
For the servants of Jesus, thy heavenly Prince,
Once dead, lie flat as in sleep, interred:
But we are as men that through dark floods wade;
We stand in our black graves undismayed;
Our faces are turned to the race abhorred,
And at each hand by us stand spear or sword,
Ready to strike at the last great day,
Ready to trample them back into clay!

‘This is my realm, and men call it Eire
Wherein I have lived and live in hate
Like Nial before me and Erc his sire,
Of the race Lagenian, ill-named the Great!’

Thus spake Laeghaire, and his host rushed on,
A river of blood as yet unshed:—
At noon they fought: and at set of sun
That king lay captive, that host lay dead!

The Lagenian loosed him, but bade him swear
He would never demand of them Tribute more:
So Laeghaire by the dread ‘God-Elements’ swore,
By the moon divine and the earth and air;
He swore by the wind and the broad sunshine
That circle for ever both land and sea,
By the long-backed rivers, and mighty wine,
By the cloud far-seeing, by herb and tree,
By the boon spring shower, and by autumn's fan.
By woman's breast, and the head of man,
By Night and the noonday Demon he swore
He would claim the Boarian Tribute no more.

But with time wrath waxed; and he brake his faith:
Then the dread ‘God-Elements’ wrought his death;
For the Wind and Sun-Strength by Cassi's side
Came down and smote on his head that he died.
Death-sick three days on his throne he sate;
Then died, as his father died, great in hate.

They buried their king upon Tara's hill,
In his grave upright—there stands he still:
Upright there stands he as men that wade
By night through a castle-moat, undismayed;

On his head is the crown; the spear in his hand;
And he looks to the hated Lagenian land.

Such rites in the time of wrath and wrong
Were Eire's: baptized, they were hers no longer:
For Patrick had taught her his sweet new song,
‘Though hate is strong, yet love is stronger.’

SAINT PATRICK AND THE IMPOSTOR;

OR, MAC KYLE OF MAN.

ARGUMENT.

Mac Kyle, a child of death, dwells in a forest with other men like unto himself, that slay whom they will. Saint Patrick coming to that wood, a certain Impostor devises how he may be deceived and killed; but God smites the Impostor through his own snare, and he dies. Mac Kyle believes, and demanding penance is baptized. Afterwards he preaches in Manann Isle, and becomes a great Saint.

In Uladh, near Magh Inis, lived a chief,
Fierce man and fell. From orphaned childhood he
Through lawless youth to blood-stained middle age
Had rushed as stormy morn to stormier noon,
Working, except that still he spared the poor,
All wrongs with iron will; a child of death.
Thus spake he to his followers, while the woods
Snow-cumbered creaked, their scales of icy mail
Angered by winter winds: ‘At last he comes,
He that deceives the people with great signs,
And for the tinkling of a little gold
Preaches new Gods. Where rises yonder smoke

Beyond the pinewood, camps this Lord of Dupes:
How say ye? Shall he track o'er Uladh's plains,
As o'er the land beside, his venomous way?
Forth with your swords! and if that God he serves
Can save him, let him prove it!’

Dark with wrath
Thus spake Mac Kyle; and all his men approved,
Shouting, while downward fell the snows hard-caked
Loosened by shock of forest-echoed hands,
Save Garban. Crafty he, and full of lies,
That thing which Patrick hated. Sideway first
Glancing, as though some secret foe were nigh,
He spake: ‘Mac Kyle! a counsel for thine ear!
A man of counsel I, as thou of war!
The people love this stranger. Patrick slain,
Their wrath will blaze against us, and demand
An eric for his head. Let us by craft
Unravel first his craft: then safe our choice;
We slay a traitor, or great ransom take:
Impostors lack not gold. Lay me as dead
Upon a bier: above me spread yon cloth,
And make your wail: and when the seer draws nigh
Worship him, crying, “Lo, our friend is dead!
Kneel, prophet, kneel, and pray that God thou serv'st
To raise him.” If he kneels, no prophet he,
But like the race of mortals. Sweep the cloth
Straight from my face; then, laughing, I will rise.’

Thus counselled Garban; and the counsel pleased;
Yet pleased not God. Upon a bier, branch-strewn,
They laid their man, and o'er him spread a cloth;
Then, moving towards that smoke behind the pines,
They found the Saint and brought him to that bier,
And made their moan—and Garban 'neath that cloth

Smiled as he heard it—‘Lo, our friend is dead!
Great prophet, kneel; and pray the God thou serv'st
To raise him from the dead.’

The man of God
Upon them fixed a sentence-speaking eye:
‘Yea! he is dead. In this ye have not lied:
Behold, this day shall Garban's covering be
The covering of the dead. Remove that cloth.’

Then drew they from his face the cloth; and lo!
Beneath it Garban lay, a corpse stone-cold.

Amazement fell upon that bandit throng,
Contemplating that corpse, and on Mac Kyle
Grief for his friend, remorse, and strong belief,
A threefold power: for she that at his birth,
Her brief life faithful to that Law she knew,
Had died, in region where desires are crowned
That hour was strong in prayer. ‘From God he came,’
Thus cried they; ‘and we worked a work accursed,
Tempting God's prophet.’ Patrick heard, and spake;
‘Not me ye tempted, but the God I serve.’
At last Mac Kyle made answer: ‘I have sinned;
I, and this people, whom I made to sin:
Now therefore to thy God we yield ourselves
Liegemen henceforth, his thralls as slave to Lord,
Or horse to master. That which thou command'st
That will we do.’ And Patrick said, ‘Believe;
Confess your sins; and be baptized to God,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit,
And live true life.’ Then Patrick where he stood
Above the dead, with hands uplifted preached
To these in anguish and in terror bowed
The tidings of great joy from Bethlehem's Crib

To Calvary's Cross. Sudden upon his knees,
Heart-pierced, as though he saw that Head thornpierced,
Fell that wild chief, and was baptized to God;
And, lifting up his great strong hands, while still
The waters streamed adown his matted locks,
He cried, ‘Alas, my master, and my sire!
I sinned a mighty sin; for in my heart
Fixed was my purpose, soon as thou hadst knelt,
To slay thee with my sword. Therefore judge thou
What eric I must pay to quit my sin?’
Him Patrick answered, ‘God shall be thy Judge:
Arise, and to the seaside flee, as one
That flies his foe. There shalt thou find a boat
Made of one hide: eat nought, and nothing take
Except one cloak alone: but in that boat
Sit thou, and bear the sin-mark on thy brow,
Facing the waves, oarless and rudderless;
And bind the boat chain thrice around thy feet,
And fling the key with strength into the main,
Far as thou canst: and wheresoe'er the breath
Of God shall waft thee, there till death abide
Working the Will Divine.’ Then spake that chief,
‘I, that commanded others, can obey;
Such lore alone is mine: but for this man
That sinned my sin, alas, to see him thus!’
To whom the Saint, ‘For him, when thou art gone,
My prayer shall rise. If God will raise the dead
He knows: not I.’

Then rose that chief, and rushed
Down to the shore, as one that flies his foe;
Nor ate, nor drank, nor spake to wife or child,
But loosed a little boat, of one hide made,
And sat therein, and round his ankles wound

The boat chain thrice; and flung the key far forth
Above the ridged sea foam. The Lord of all
Gave ordinance to the wind, and, as a leaf
Swift rushed that boat, oarless and rudderless,
Over the on-shouldering, broad-backed, glaucous wave
Slow-rising like the rising of a world,
And purple wastes beyond, with funeral plume
Crested, a pallid pomp. All night the chief
Under the roaring tempest heard the voice
That preached the Son of Man; and when the morn
Shone out, his coracle drew near the surge
Reboant on Manann's Isle. Not unbeheld
Rose it, and fell; not unregarded danced
A black spot on the inrolling ridge, then hung
Suspense upon the mile-long cataract
That, overtoppling, changed grass-green to light,
And drowned the shores in foam. Upon the sands
Two white-haired Elders in the salt air knelt,
Offering to God their early orisons,
Coninri and Romael. Sixty years
These two unto a hard and stubborn race
Had preached the Word; and gaining by their toil
But thirty souls, had daily prayed their God
To send ere yet they died some ampler arm,
And reap the ill-grown harvest of their youth.
Ten years they prayed, not doubting, and from God,
Who hastens not, this answer had received,
‘Ye shall not die until ye see his face.’
Therefore, each morning, peered they o'er the waves,
Long-watching. These through breakers dragged the man,
Their wished-for prize, half-frozen, and nigh to death,
And bare him to their cell, and warmed and fed him,
And heaped his couch with skins. Deep sleep he slept

Till evening lay upon the level sea
With roses strewn like bridal chamber's floor:
Within it one star shone. Rested, he woke
And sought the shore. From earth, and sea, and sky,
Then passed into his spirit the Spirit of Love:
And there he vowed his vow, fierce chief no more,
But soldier of the cross.

The weeks ran on,
And daily those grey Elders ministered
God's teaching to that chief, demanding still,
‘Son, understandst thou? Gird thee like a man
To clasp, and hold, the total Faith of Christ,
And give us leave to die.’ The months fled fast:
Ere violets bloomed, he knew the creed; and when
Far heathery hills purpled the autumnal air,
He sang the psalter whole. That tale he told
Had power, and Patrick's name. His strenous arm
Labouring with theirs, reaped harvest heavy and sound,
Till wondering gazed their wearied eyes on barns
Knee-deep in grain. At last an eve there fell,
When, on the shore in commune, with such might
Discoursed that pilgrim of the things of God,
Such insight calm, and wisdom reverence-born,
Each on the other gazing in their hearts
Received once more an answer from the Lord,
‘Now is your task completed: ye shall die.’

Then on the red sand knelt those Elders twain
With hands upraised, and all their hoary hair
Tinged like the foam-wreaths by that setting sun,
And sang their ‘Nunc Dimittis.’ At its close
High on the sandhills, 'mid the tall hard grass
That sighed eternal o'er the unbounded waste

With ceaseless yearnings like their own for death
They found the place where first, that bark descried,
Their sighs were changed to songs. That spot they marked,
And said, ‘Our resurrection place is here:’
And, on the third day dying, in that place
The man who loved them laid them, at their heads
Planting one cross because their hearts were one
And one their lives. The snowy-breasted bird
Of ocean o'er their undivided graves
Oft flew with wailing note; but they rejoiced
'Mid God's high realm glittering in endless youth.

These two with Christ, on him, their son in Christ,
Their mantle fell; and strength to him was given.
Long time he toiled alone; then round him flocked
Helpers from far. At last, by voice of all
He gat the Island's great episcopate,
And king-like ruled the region. This is he,
Mac Kyle of Uladh, bishop, and Penitent,
Saint Patrick's missioner in Manann's Isle,
Sinner one time, and, after sinner, Saint
World-famous. May his prayer for sinners plead!

The Isle of Man.

SAINT PATRICK AT CASHEL;

OR, THE BAPTISM OF AENGUS.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick goes to Cashel of the Kings to celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation. Aengus, who reigns there, receives him with all honour. He and his people believe, and by Baptism are added unto the Church. Aengus desires to resign his sovereignty, and become a monk. The Saint suffers not this, because he had discovered by two notable signs, both at the baptism of Aengus and before it, that the Prince is of those who are called by God to rule men.

When Patrick now o'er Ulster's forest bound,
And Connact, echoing to the western wave,
And Leinster, fair with hill-suspended woods,
Had raised the cross, and where the deep night ruled,
Splendour had sent of everlasting light,
Sole peace of warring hearts, to Munster next,
Thomond and Desmond, Heber's portion old,
He turned; and, fired by love that mocks at rest
Pushed on through raging storm the whole night long,
Intent to hold the Annunciation Feast
At Cashel of the Kings. The royal keep
High-seated on its Rock, as morning broke
Faced them at last; and at the self-same hour
Aengus, in his father's absence lord,
Rising from happy sleep and heaven-sent dreams
Went forth on duteous tasks. With sudden start
The prince stept back; for, o'er the fortress court
Like grove storm-levelled lay the idols huge,

False gods and foul that long had awed the land,
Prone, without hand of man. O'er-awed he gazed;
Then on the air there rang a sound of hymns,
And by the eastern gate Saint Patrick stood,
The brethren round him. On their shaggy garb
Auroral mist, struck by the rising sun,
Glittered, that diamond-panoplied they seemed,
And as a heavenly vision. At that sight
The youth, descending with a wildered joy,
Welcomed his guests: and, ere an hour, the streets
Sparkled far down like flowering meads in spring,
So thronged the folk in holiday attire
To see the man far-famed. ‘Who spurns our gods!’
Once they had cried in wrath: but, year by year,
Tidings of some deliverance great and strange,
Some life more noble, some sublimer hope,
Some regal race enthroned beyond the grave,
Had reached them from afar. The best believed,
Great hearts for whom nor earthly love sufficed
Nor earthly fame. The meaner scoffed: yet all
Desired the man. Delay had edged their thirst.

Then Patrick, standing up among them, spake,
And God was with him. Not as when loose tongue
Babbles vain rumour, or the Sophist spins
Thought's air-hung cobwebs gay with Fancy's dews,
Spake he, but words of might, as when a man
Bears witness to the things which he has seen,
And tells of that he knows: and as the harp
Attested is by rapture of the ear,
And sunlight by consenting of the eye
That, seeing, knows it sees, and neither craves
Inferior demonstration, so his words
Self-proved, went forth and conquered: for man's mind,

Created in His image who is Truth,
Challenged by truth, with recognizing voice
Cries out ‘Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,’
And cleaves thereto. In all that listening host
One vast, dilating heart yearned to its God.
Then burst the bond of years. No haunting doubt
They knew. God dropped on them the robe of Truth
Sun-like: down fell the many-coloured weed
Of error: and, reclothed ere yet unclothed,
They walked a new-born earth. The blinded Past
Fled, vanquished. Glorious more than strange it seemed
That He who fashioned man should come to man,
And raise by ruling. They, His trumpet heard,
In glory spurned demons misdeemed for gods:
The great chief had returned: the clan enthralled
Trod down the usurping foe.

Then rose the cry,
‘Join us to Christ!’ His strong eyes on them set,
Patrick replied, ‘Know ye what thing ye seek,
Ye that would fain be house-mates with my King?
Ye seek His Cross!’ He paused, then added slow:
‘If ye be liegeful, sirs, decree the day,
His baptism shall be yours.’

That eve, while shone
The sunset on the green-touched woods, that, grazed
By onward flight of unalighting spring,
Caught warmth yet scarcely flamed, Aengus stood
With Patrick in a westward-facing tower
Which overlooked far regions town-besprent,
And lit with winding waters. Thus he spake:
‘My Father! what is sovereignty of man?
Say, can I shield yon host from death, from sin,
Taking them up into my breast, like God?

I trow not so! Mine be the lowliest place
Following thy King who left his Father's throne
To walk the lowliest!’ Patrick answered thus:
‘Best lot thou choosest, son. If thine that lot
Thou know'st not yet; nor I. The Lord, thy God,
Will teach us.’

When the day decreed had dawned
Loud rang the bull-horn; and on every breeze
Floated the banners, saffron, green, and blue;
While issuing from the horizon's utmost verge
The full-voiced People flocked. So swarmed of old
Some migratory nation, instinct-urged
To fly their native wastes sad winter's realm;
So thronged on southern slopes when, far below,
Shone out the plains of promise. Bright they came!
No summer sea could wear a blithsomer sheen
Though every dancing crest and milky plume
Ran on with rainbows braided. Minstrel songs
Wafted like winds those onward hosts, or swayed
Or stayed them; while among them heralds passed
Lifting white wands of office. Foremost rode
Aileel, the younger brother of the prince:
He ruled a milk-white horse. Fluttered, breeze-borne
His mantle green, while all his golden hair
Streamed back redundant from the ring of gold
Circling his head uncovered. Loveliest light
Of innocence and joy was on that face:
Full well the young maids marked it! Brighter yet
Beamed he, his brother noting. On the verge
Of Cashel's Rock that hour Aengus stood,
By Patrick's side. That concourse nearer now
He gazed upon it, crying, with clasped hands,
‘My Father, fair is sunrise, fair the sea,
The hills, the plains, the wind-stirred wood, the maid;

But what is like a People onward borne
In gladness? When I see that sight, my heart
Expands like palace-gates wide open flung
That say to all men, “Enter.”’ Then the Saint
Laid on that royal head a hand of might,
And said, ‘The Will of God decrees thee King!
Son of this People art thou: Sire one day
Thou shalt be! Son and Sire in one are King.
Shepherd for God thy flock, thou Shepherd true!’
He spake: that word was ratified in Heaven.

Meantime that multitude innumerable
Had reached the Rock, and, now the winding road
In pomp ascending, faced those fair-wrought gates
Which, by the warders at the prince's sign
Drawn back, to all gave entrance. In they streamed,
Filling the central courtway. Patrick stood
High stationed on a prostrate idol's base,
In vestments of the Vigil of that Feast
The Annunciation, which with annual boon
Whispers, while melting snows dilate those streams
Purer than snows, to universal earth
That Maiden Mother's joy. The Apostle watched
The advancing throng, and gave them welcome thus:
‘As though into the great Triumphant Church,
O guests of God, ye flock! Her place is Heaven:
Sirs! we this day are militant below:
Not less, advance in faith. Behold your crowns—
Obedience and Endurance.’

There and then
The Rite began: his people's Chief and Head
Beside the font Aengus stood; his face
Sweet as a child's, yet grave as front of eld:
For reverence he had laid his crown aside,

And from the deep hair to the unsandalled feet
Was raimented in white. With mitred head
And massive book, forward Saint Patrick leaned,
Stayed by the gem-wrought crosier. Prayer on prayer
Went up to God; while gift on gift from God,
All Angel-like, invisibly to man,
Descended. Thrice above that princely brow
Patrick the cleansing waters poured, and traced
Three times thereon the Venerable Sign,
Naming the Name Triune. The Rite complete,
A westruck that concourse downward gazed. At last
Lifting their eyes, they marked the prince's face
That pale it was though bright, anguished and pale,
While from his naked foot a blood-stream gushed
And o'er the pavement welled. The crosier's point,
Weighted with weight of all that priestly form,
Had pierced it through. ‘Why suffer'dst thou so long
The pain in silence?’ Patrick spake, heart-grieved:
Smiling, Aengus answered, ‘O my Sire,
I thought, thus called to follow Him whose feet
Were pierced with nails, haply the blissful Rite
Bore witness to their sorrows.’

At that word
The large eyes of the Apostolic man
Grew larger; and within them lived that light
Not fed by moon or sun, a visible flash
Of that invisible lightning which from God
Vibrates ethereal through the world of souls,
Vivific strength of Saints. The mitred brow
Uptowered sublime: the strong, yet wrinkled hands,
Ascending, ceased not, till the crosier's head
Glittered above the concourse like a star.
At last his hands disparting, down he drew
From Heaven the Royal Blessing, speaking thus:

‘For this cause may the blessing, Sire of kings,
Cleave to thy seed for ever! Spear and sword
Before them fall! In glory may the race
Of Nafrach's sons, Aengus, and Aileel,
Hold sway on Cashel's summit! Be their kings
Great-hearted men, potent to rule and guard
Their people; just to judge them; warriors strong;
Sage counsellors; faithful shepherds; men of God,
That so through them the everlasting King
May flood their land with blessing.’ Thus he spake:
And round him all that nation said, ‘Amen.’
Thus held they feast in Cashel of the Kings
That day till all that land was clothed with Christ:
And when the parting came from Cashel's steep
Patrick the People's Blessing thus forth sent:
‘The Blessing fall upon the pasture broad,
On fruitful mead, and every corn-clad hill,
And woodland rich with flowers that children love:
Unnumbered be the homesteads, and the hearths:—
A blessing on the women, and the men,
On youth, and maiden, and the suckling babe:
A blessing on the fruit-bestowing tree,
And foodful river tide. Be true; be pure,
Not living from below, but from above,
As men that over-top the world. And raise
Here, on this rock, high place of idols once,
A kingly church to God. The same shall stand
For aye, or, wrecked, from ruin rise restored,
His witness till He cometh. Over Eire
The Blessing speed till time shall be no more
From Cashel of the Kings.’

The Saint fared forth:
The People bare him through their kingdom broad
With banner and with song; but o'er its bound

The women of that People followed still
A half day's journey with lamenting voice;
Then silent knelt, lifting their babes on high;
And, crowned with two-fold blessing, home returned.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDLESS MOTHER.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick finds an aged Pagan Woman making great lamentation above a tomb which she believes to be that of her son. He kneels beside her in prayer, while around them a wondrous tempest sweeps. After a long time, he declares unto her the Death of Christ, and how, through that Death, the Dead are blessed. Lastly, he dissuades her from her rage of grief, and admonishes her to pray for her son on a tomb hard by. which is his indeed. The woman believes, and, being consoled by a Sign of Heaven, departs in peace.

Across his breast one hundred times each day
Saint Patrick drew the Venerable Sign,
And sixty times by night: and whensoe'er
In travel Cross was seen far off or nigh
On lonely moor, or rock, or heathy hill,
For Erin then was sown with Christian seed,
He sought it, and before it knelt. Yet once,
While cold in winter shone the star of eve
Upon their board, thus spake a youthful monk:
‘Three times this day, my father, didst thou pass
The Cross of Christ unmarked. At morn thou saw'st
A last year's lamb that by it sheltered lay,
At noon a dove that near it sat and mourned,
At eve a little child that round it raced,

Well pleased with each; yet saw'st thou not that Cross,
Nor mad'st thou any reverence!’ At that word
Wondering, the Saint arose, and left the meat,
And, wondering, went to venerate that Cross.
Dark was the earth and dank ere yet he reached
That spot; and lo! where lamb had lain, and dove
Had mourned, and child had raced, there stood indeed
High-raised, the Cross of Christ. Before it long
He prayed, and kneeling, marked that on a tomb
That Cross was raised. Then, inly moved by God,
The Saint demanded, ‘Who, of them that walked
The sun-warmed earth lies here in darkness hid?’
And answer made a lamentable Voice:
‘Pagan I lived, my own soul's bane:—when dead,
Men buried here my body.’ Patrick then:
‘How stands the Cross of Christ on Pagan grave?’
And answered thus the lamentable Voice:
‘A woman's work. She had been absent long;
Her son had died: near mine his grave was made;
Half blind was she through fleeting of her tears,
And, erring, raised the Cross upon my tomb,
Misdeeming it for his. Nightly she comes,
Wailing as only Pagan mothers wail;
So wailed my mother once, while pain tenfold
Ran through my bodiless being. For her sake,
If pity dwells on earth or highest heaven,
May it this mourner comfort! Christian she,
And capable of pity.’

Then the Saint
Cried loud, ‘O God, Thou seest this Pagan's heart,
That love within it dwells: therefore not his
That doom of Souls all hate, and self-exiled

To whom Thy Presence were a woe twice told.
Eternal Pity! pity Thou Thy work;—
Sole Peace of them that love Thee, grant him peace.’
Thus Patrick prayed; and in the heaven of heavens
God heard His servant's prayer. Then Patrick mused:
‘Now know I why I passed that Cross unmarked;
It was not that it seemed.’

As thus he knelt,
Behold, upon the cold and bitter wind
Rang wail on wail; and o'er the moor there moved
What seemed a woman's if a human form.
That miserable phantom onward came
With cry succeeding cry that sank or swelled
As dipped or rose the moor. Arrived at last,
She heeded not the Saint, but on that grave
Dashed herself down. Long time that woman wailed;
And Patrick, long, for reverence of her woe
Forbore. At last he spake low-toned as when
Best listener knows not when the strain begins.
‘Daughter! the sparrow falls not to the ground
Without his Maker. He that made thy son
Hath sent His Son to bear all woes of men,
And vanquish every foe—the latest, Death.’
Then rolled that woman on the Saint an eye
As when the last survivor of a host
Glares on some pitying conqueror. ‘Ho! the man
That treads upon my grief! He ne'er had sons;
And thou, O son of mine, hast left no sons,
Though oft I said, “When I am old, his babes
Shall climb my knees.” My boast was mine in youth;
But now mine age is made a barren stock
And as a blighted briar.’ In grief she turned;
And as on blackening tarn gust follows gust,

Again came wail on wail. On strode the night:
The jagged forehead of that forest old
Alone was seen: all else was gloom. At last
With voice, though kind, upbraiding, Patrick spake:
‘Daughter, thy grief is wilful and it errs;
Errs like those sad and tear-bewildered eyes
That for a Christian's take a Pagan's grave,
And for a son's a stranger's. Ah! poor child,
Thy pride it was to raise, where lay thy son,
A Cross, his memory's honour. By thee close
All dewed and glimmering in yon rising moon,
Low lies a grave unhonoured, and unknown:
No cross stands on it; yet upon its breast
Graved shalt thou find what Christian tomb ne'er lacks,
The Cross of Christ. Woman, there lies thy son.’

She rose; she found that other tomb; she knelt;
And o'er it went her wandering palms, as though
Some stone-blind mother o'er an infant's face
Should spread an agonising hand, intent
To choose betwixt her own and counterfeit;
She found that cross deep-grav'n, and further sign
Close by, to her well known. One piercing shriek—
Another moment, and her body lay
Along that grave with kisses, and wild hands
As when some forest beast tears up the ground,
Seeking its prey there hidden. Then once more
Rang the wild wail above that lonely heath,
While roared far off the vast invisible woods,
And with them strove the blast, in eddies dire
Whirling both branch and bough. Through hurrying clouds
The scared moon rushed like ship that naked glares

One moment, lightning-lighted in the storm,
Anon in wild waves drowned. An hour went by:
Still wailed that woman, and the tempest roared;
While in the heart of ruin Patrick prayed.
He loved that woman. Unto Patrick dear,
Dear as God's Church was still the single Soul,
Dearest the suffering Soul. He gave her time;
He let the floods of anguish spend themselves:
But when her wail sank low; when woods were mute,
And where the skiey madness late had raged
Shone the blue heaven, he spake with voice in strength
Gentle like that which calmed the Syrian lake:
‘My sister, God hath shown me of thy wound,
And wherefore with the blind old Pagan's cry
Hopeless thou mourn'st. Returned from far, thou found'st
Thy son had Christian died, and saw'st the Cross
On Christian graves: and ill thy heart endured
That tomb so dear should lack its reverence meet.
To him thou gav'st the Cross, albeit that Cross
Inly thou know'st not yet. That knowledge thine,
Thou hadst not left thy son amerced of prayer,
And given him tears, not succour.’ ‘Yea,’ she said,
‘Of this new Faith I little understand,
Being an aged woman and in woe:
But since my son was Christian, such am I;
And since the Christian tomb is decked with Cross
He shall not lack his right.’

Then Patrick spake:
‘O woman, hearken, for through me thy son
Invokes thee. All night long for thee, unknown,
My hands have risen: but thou hast raised no prayer
For him, thy dearest; nor from founts of God,
Though brimful, hast thou drawn for lips that thirst.

Arise, and kneel, and hear thy loved one's cry:
Too long he waiteth. Blessed are the dead:
They rest in God's high Will. But more than peace,
The rapturous vision of the Face of God,
Won by the Cross of Christ—for that they thirst
As thou, if viewless stood thy son close by,
Wouldst thirst to see his countenance. Eyes sin-scaled
Not yet can see their God. Prayer speeds the time:
The living help the dead; all praise to Him
Who blends His children in a league of help,
Making all good one good. Eternal Love!
Not thine the will that love should cease with life,
Or, living, cease from service, barren made,
A stagnant gall eating the mourner's heart
That hour when love should stretch a hand of might
Up o'er the grave to heaven. O great in love,
Perfect love's work: for well, sad heart, I know,
Hadst thou not trained thy son in virtuous ways,
Christian he ne'er had been.’

Those later words
That solitary mourner understood,
The earlier but in part, and answered thus:
‘A loftier Cross, and farther seen, shall rise
Upon this grave new-found! No hireling hands—
Mine own shall raise it; yea, though thirty years
Should sweat beneath the task.’ And Patrick said:
‘What means the Cross? That lore thou lack'st now learn.’
Then that which Kings desired to know, and seers
And prophets vigil-blind—that Crown of Truths,
Scandal of fools, yet conqueror of the world,
To her, that midnight mourner, he divulged,
Record authentic: how in sorrow and sin
The earth had groaned; how pity, like a sword,

Had pierced the great Paternal Heart in heaven;
How He, the Light of Light, and God of God,
Had man become, and died upon the Cross,
Vanquishing thus both sorrow and sin, and risen,
The might of death o'erthrown; and how the gates
Of heaven rolled inwards as the Anointed King
Resurgent and ascending through them passed
In triumph with His Holy Dead; and how
The just, thenceforth death-freed, the self-same gates
Entering, shall share the everlasting throne.
Thus Patrick spake, and many a stately theme
Rehearsed beside, higher than heaven, and yet
Near as the farthest can alone be near.
Then in that grief-worn creature's bosom old
Contentions rose, and fiercer fires than burn
In sultry breasts of youth: and all her past,
Both good and evil, woke, in sleep long sealed;
And all the powers and forces of her soul
Rushed every way through darkness seeking light,
Like winds or tides. Beside her Patrick prayed,
And mightier than his preaching was his prayer,
Sheltering that crisis dread. At last beneath
The great Life-Giver's breath that Human Soul,
An inner world vaster than planet worlds,
In undulation swayed, as when of old
The Spirit of God above the waters moved
Creative, while the blind and shapeless void
Yearned into form, and form grew meet for life,
And downward through the abysses Law ran forth
With touch soul-soft, and seas from lands retired,
And light from dark, and wondering Nature passed
Through storm to calm,and all things found their home.

Silence long time endured; at last, clear-voiced

Her head not turning, thus the woman spake:
‘That God who Man became—who died, and lives,—
Say, died He for my son?’ And Patrick said,
‘Yea, for thy son He died. Kneel, woman, kneel!
Nor doubt, for mighty is a mother's prayer,
That He who in the eternal light is throned,
Lifting the roseate and the nail-pierced palm,
Will make in heaven the Venerable Sign,
For He it is prays in us, and that Soul
Thou lov'st pass on to glory.’

At his word
She knelt, and unto God, with help of God,
Uprushed the strength of prayer, as when the cloud
Uprushes past some beetling mountain wall
From billowy deeps unseen. Long time she prayed;
While heaven and earth grew silent as that night
When rose the Saviour. Sudden ceased the prayer:
And rang upon the night her jubilant cry,
‘I saw a Sign in Heaven. Far inward rolled
The gates; and glory flashed from God; and he
I love his entrance won.’ Then, fair and tall,
That woman stood with hands upraised to heaven,
The dusky shadow of her youth renewed,
And instant Patrick spake, ‘Give thanks to God,
And speed thee home, and sleep; and since thy son
No children left, take to thee orphans twain
And rear them, in his honour, unto Christ;
And yearly, when the death-day of thy son
Returns, his birth-day name it; call thy friends;
Give alms; and range the poor around thy door,
So shall they feast, and pray. Woman, farewell:
All night the dark upon thy face hath lain;
Yet shall we know each other, met in heaven.’

Then blithe of foot that Mother crossed the moor;
And when she reached her door a zone of white
Loosening along a cloud that walled the east
Revealed the coming dawn. That dawn ere long
Lay, unawaking, on a face serene,
On tearless lids, and quiet, open palms,
On stormless couch and raiment calm that hid
A breast if faded now, yet happier far
Than when in prime its youthful wave first heaved
Rocking a sleeping Infant.

SAINT PATRICK AT THE FEAST OF KNOCK CAE;

OR, THE FOUNDING OF MUNGRET.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick, being bidden to a feast, discourses on the way against the pride of the Bards, for whom Fiacc pleads. Derball, a scoffer, requires the Saint to remove a mountain. He kneels down and prays, and Derball avers that the mountain moved. Notwithstanding, Derball believes not, but departs. The Saint declares that he saw not whether the mountain moved. He places Nessan over his convent at Mungret because he had given a little wether to the hungry. Nessan's mother grudged the gift; and Saint Patrick prophesies that her grave shall not be in her son's church.

In Limneach,

Limerick. The far-famed Monastery of Mungret was within three miles of Limerick.

ere he reached it, fame there ran
Of Patrick's words and works. Before his feet
Aileel had fallen, loud wailing, with his wife,
And cried, ‘Our child is slain by savage beasts;
But thou, O prophet, if that God thou serv'st

Be God indeed, restore him!’ Patrick turned
To Malach, praised of all men. ‘Brother, kneel,
And raise you child.’ But Malach answered, ‘Nay,
Lest, tempting God, His service I should shame.’
Then Patrick, ‘Answer of the base is thine;
And base shall be that house thou builds't on earth,
Little, and low. A man may fail in prayer:
What then? Thank God! the fault is ours not His,
And ours alone the shame.’ The Apostle turned
To Ibar, and to Ailbè, bishops twain,
And bade them raise the child. They heard and knelt:
And Patrick knelt between them; and these three
Upheaved a wondrous strength of prayer: and lo!
All pale, yet shining, rose the child, and sat,
Lifting small hands, and preached to those around,
And straightway they believed, and were baptized.

Thus with loud rumour all the land was full,
And some believed; some doubted; and a chief,
Lonan, the son of Eirc, that half believed,
Willing to draw from Patrick wonder and sign,
By messengers besought him, saying, ‘Come,
For in thy reverence waits thy servant's feast
Spread on Knock Cae.’ That pleasant hill ascends
Westward of Ara, girt by rivers twain,
Maigue, lily-lighted, and the ‘Morning Star’
Once ‘Samhair’ named, that eastward through the woods
Winding, upon its rapids earliest meets
The morn, and flings it far o'er mead and plain.

From Limneach therefore Patrick, while the dawn,
Still dusk, its joyous secret kept, went forth,

O'er dustless road soon lost in dewy fields,
And groves that, touched by wakening winds, began
To load damp airs with scent. That time it was
When beech leaves lose their silken gloss, and maids
From whitest brows depose the hawthorn white,
Red rose in turn enthroning. Earliest gleams
Glimmered on leaves that shook like wings of birds:
Saint Patrick marked them well. He turned to Fiacc—
‘God might have changed to Pentecostal tongues
The leaves of all the forests in the world,
And bade them sing His love! He wrought not thus:
A little hint He gives us and no more.
Alone the willing see. Thus they sin less
Who, if they saw, seeing would disbelieve.
Hark to that note! O foolish woodland choirs!
Ye sing but idle loves; and, idler far,
The bards sing war—war only!’

Answered thus
The monk bard-loving: ‘Sing it! Ay, and make!
The keys of all the tempests hang on zones
Of those cloud-spirits! They, too, can “bind and loose:”
A bard incensed hath proved a kingdom's doom!
Such Aidan. Upon cakes of meal his host,
King Aileach, fed him in a fireless hall:
The bard complained not—ay, but issuing forth,
Sang in dark wood a keen and venomed song
That raised on the king's countenance plague-spots three;
Who saw him named them Scorn, Dishonour, Shame,
And blighted those three oak trees nigh his door.
What next? Before a month that realm lay drowned

In blood; and fire went o'er the opprobrious house!’
Thus spake the youth, and blushed at his own zeal
For bardic fame: then added, ‘Strange the power
Of song! My father, do I vainly dream
Oft thinking that the bards, perchance the birds,
Sing something vaster than they think or know?
Some fire immortal lives within their strings:
Therefore the people love them. War divine,
God's war on sin—true love-song best and sweetest—
Perforce they chaunt in spirit, not wars of clans:
Yea, one day, conscious, they shall sing that song;
One day by river clear of south or north,
Pagan no more, the laurelled head shall rise,
And chaunt the Warfare of the Realm of Souls,
The anguish and the cleansing, last the crown—
Prelude of songs celestial!’

Patrick smiled:
‘Still, as at first, a lover of the bards!
Hard task was mine to win thee to the cowl!
Dubtach, thy master, sole in Tara's hall
Who made me reverence, mocked my quest. He said,
“Fiacc thou wouldst?—my Fiacc? Few days gone by
I sent the boy with poems to the kings;
He loves me: hardly will he leave the songs
To wear thy tonsure!” As he spake, behold,
Thou enter'dst. Sudden hands on Dubtach's head
I laid, as though to gird with tonsure crown:
Then rose thy clamour, “Erin's chief of bards
A tonsured man! Me, father, take, not him!
Far less the loss to Erin and the Songs!”
Down knelt'st thou; and, ere long, old Dubtach's floor
Shone with thy vernal locks, like forest paths

Made gold by leaves of autumn!’

As he spake,
The sun, new-risen, flashed on a breast of wood
That answered from a thousand jubilant throats:
Then Fiacc, with all their music in his face,
Resumed: ‘My father, upon Tara's steep
Patient thou sat'st whole months, sifting with care
The laws of Eire, recasting for all time,
Ill laws from good dissevering, as that Day
Shall sever tares from wheat. I see thee still,
As then we saw—thy clenched hand lost in beard
Propping thy chin; thy forehead wrinkle-trenched
Above that wondrous tome, the “Senchus Mohr,”
Like his, that Hebrew lawgiver's, who sat
Throned on the clouded Mount, while far below
The Tribes waited in awe. Now answer make!
Three bishops, and three brehons, and three kings,
Ye toiled—who helped thee best?’ ‘Dubtach, the bard,’
Patrick replied—‘Yea, wise was he, and knew
Man's heart like his own strings.’ ‘All bards are wise,’
Shouted the youth, ‘except when war they wage
On thee, the wisest. In their music bath
They cleanse man's heart, not less, and thus prepare,
Though hating thee, thy way. The bards are wise
For all except themselves. Shall God not save them,
He who would save the worst? Such grace were hard
Unless, death past, their souls to birds might change,
And in the darksomest grove of Paradise
Lament, amerced, their error, yet rejoice
In souls that walked obedient!’ ‘Darksomest grove,’
Patrick made answer; ‘darksome is their life;

Darksome their pride, their love, their joys, their hopes;
Darksome, though gleams of happier lore they have,
Their light! Seest thou yon forest floor, and o'er it,
The ivy's flash—earth-light? Such light is theirs:
By such can no man walk.’

Thus, gay or grave,
Conversed they, while the Brethren paced behind;
Till now the morn crowded each cottage door
With clustered heads. They reached ere long in woods
A hamlet small. Here on the weedy thatch
White fruit-bloom fell: through shadow, there, went round
The swinging mill-wheel tagged with silver fringe;
Here rang the mallet; there was heard remote
The one note of the love-contented bird.
Though warm the sun, in shade the young spring morn
Was edged with winter yet, and icy film
Glazed the deep ruts. The swarthy smith worked hard,
And working sang; the wheelwright toiled close by;
An armourer next to these: through flaming smoke
Glared the fierce hands that on the anvil fell
In thunder down. A sorcerer stood apart
Kneading Death's messenger, that missile ball,
The Lia Laimbhè. To his heart he clasped it,
And o'er it muttered spells with flatteries mixed:
‘Hail, little daughter mine! 'Twixt hand and heart
I knead thee! From the Red Sea came that sand
Which, blent with viper's poison, makes thy flesh!
Be thou no shadow wandering on the air!
Rush through the battle gloom as red-combed snake

Cleaves the blind waters! On! like Witch's glance,
Or forkèd flash, or shaft of summer pest,
And woe to him that meets thee! Mouth blood-red
My daughter hath:—not healing be her kiss!’
Thus he. In shade he stood, and phrensy-fired;
And yet he marked who watched him. Without word
Him Patrick passed; but spake to all the rest
With voice so kindly reverent, ‘Is not this,’
Men asked, ‘the preacher of the “Tidings Good?”’
‘What tidings? Has he found a mine?’ ‘He speaks
To princes as to brothers; to the hind
As we to princes' children! Yea, when mute,
Saith not his face “Rejoice”?’

At times the Saint
Laid on the head of age his strong right hand,
Gentle as touch of soft-accosting eyes;
And once before an open door he stopped,
Silent. Within, all glowing like a rose,
A mother stood for pleasure of her babes
That—in them still the warmth of couch late left—
Around her gambolled. On his face, as hers,
Their sport regarding, long time lay the smile;
Then crept a shadow o'er it, and he spake
In sadness: ‘Woman! when a hundred years
Have passed, with opening flower and falling snow,
Where then will be thy children?’ Like a cloud
Fear and great wrath fell on her. From the wall
She snatched a battle-axe and raised it high
In both hands, clamouring, ‘Wouldst thou slay my babes?’
He answered, ‘I would save them. Woman, hear!
Seest thou yon floating shape? It died a worm;
It lives, the blue-winged angel of spring meads:

Thy children, likewise, if they serve my King,
Death past, shall find them wings.’ Then to her cheek
The bloom returned, and splendour to her eye;
And catching to her breast, that larger swelled,
A child, she wept, ‘Oh, would that he might live
For ever! Prophet, speak! thy words are good!
Their father, too, must hear thee.’ Patrick said,
‘Not so; nor falls this seed on every road;’
Then added thus: ‘Yon child, by all the rest
Cherished as though he were some infant God,
Is none of thine.’ She answered, ‘None of ours;
A great chief sent him here for fosterage.’
Then he: ‘All men on earth the children are
Of One who keeps them here in fosterage:
They see not yet His face; but He sees them,
Yea, and decrees their seasons and their times:
Like infants, they must learn Him first by touch,
Through nature, and her gifts—by hearing next,
The hearing of the ear, and that is Faith—
By Vision last. Woman, these things are hard;
But thou to Limneach come in three days' time,
Likewise thy husband; there, by Sangul's Well,

Now called Saint Patrick's Well, close to Limerick.

Thou shalt know all.’

The Saint had reached ere long
That festal mount. Thousands with bannered line
Scaled it light-hearted. Never favourite lamb
In ribands decked shone brighter than that hour
The fair flank of Knock Cae. Heath-scented airs
Lightened the clambering toil. At times the Saint
Stayed on their course the crowds, and towards the Truth
Drew them by parable, or record old,
Oftener by question sage. Not all believed:
Of such was Derball. Man of wealth and wit,

Nor wise, nor warlike, toward the Saint he strode
With bubble-seething brain, and head high tossed,
And cried, ‘Great Seer! remove yon mountain blue,
Cenn Abhrat, by thy prayer! That done, to thee
Fealty I pledge.’ Saint Patrick knelt in prayer:
Soon Derball cried, ‘The central ridge descends;—
Southward, beyond it, Longa's lake shines out
In sunlight flashing!’ At his word drew near
The men of Erin. Derball homeward turned,
Mocking: ‘Believe who will, believe not I!
Me more imports it o'er my foodful fields
To draw the Maigue's rich waters than to stare
At moving hills.’ But certain of that throng,
Light men, obsequious unto Derball's laugh,
Questioned of Patrick if the mountain moved.
He answered, ‘On the ground mine eyes were fixed;
Nought saw I. Haply, through defect of mine,
It moved not. Derball said the mountain moved;
Yet kept he not his pledge, but disbelieved.
“Faith can move mountains.” Never said my King
That mountains moved could move reluctant faith
In unbelieving heart.’ With sad, calm voice
He spake; and Derball's laughter frustrate died.
Meantime, high up on that thyme-scented hill
By shadows swept, and lights, and rapturous winds,
Lonan prepared the feast, and, with that chief,
Mantan, a deacon. Tables fair were spread;
And tents with branches gay. Beside those tents
Stood the sweet-breathing, mournful, slow-eyed kine
With hazel-shielded horns, and gave their milk
Gravely to merry maidens. Low the sun
Had fallen, when, Patrick near the summit now,
There burst on him a wandering troop, wild-eyed,
With scant and quaint array. O'er sunburnt brows

They wore sere wreaths; their piebald vests were stained,
And lean their looks, and sad: some piped, some sang,
Some tossed the juggler's ball. ‘From far we came,’
They cried; ‘we faint with hunger; give us food!’
Upon them Patrick bent a pitying eye,
And said, ‘Where Lonan and where Mantan toil
Go ye, and pray them, for mine honour's sake,
To gladden you with meat.’ But Lonan said,
And Mantan, ‘Nay, but when the feast is o'er,
The fragments shall be yours.’ With darkening brow
The Saint of that denial heard, and cried,
‘He cometh from the North, even now he cometh,
For whom the Blessing is reserved; he cometh
Bearing a little wether at his back:’
And, straightway, through the thicket evening-dazed
A shepherd—by him walked his mother—pushed,
Bearing a little wether. Patrick said,
‘Give them to eat. They hunger.’ Gladly then
That shepherd youth gave them the wether small:
With both his hands outstretched, and liberal smile,
He gave it, though, with angry eye askance
His mother grudged it sore. The wether theirs,
As though earth-swallowed, vanished that wild tribe,
Fearing that mother's eye.

Then Patrick spake
To Lonan, ‘Zealous is thy service, friend;
Yet of thy house no king shall sit on throne,
No bishop bless the people.’ Turning then
To Mantan, thus he spake, ‘Careful art thou
Of many things; not less that church thou raisest
Shall not be of the honoured in the land;
And in its chancel waste the mountain kine
Shall couch above thy grave.’ To Nessan last

Thus spake he: ‘Thou that didst the hungry feed,
The poor of Christ, that know not yet His name,
And, helping them that cried to me for help,
Cherish mine honour, like a palm one day
Shall rise thy greatness.’ Nessan's mother old
For pardon knelt. He blessed her hoary head,
Yet added, mournful, ‘Not within the church
That Nessan serves shall lie his mother's grave.’
Then Nessan he baptized, and on him bound
Ere long the deacon's grade, and placed him, later,
Priest o'er his church at Mungret. Centuries ten
It stood, a convent round it as a star
Forth sending beams of glory and of grace
O'er woods Teutonic and the Tyrrhene Sea.
Yet Nessan's mother in her son's great church
Slept not; nor where the mass bell tinkled low:
West of the church her grave, to his—her son's—
Neighbouring, yet severed by the chancel wall.

Thus from the morning star to evening star
Went by that day. In Erin many such
Saint Patrick lived using well pleased the chance
Or great or small, since all things come from God:
And well the people loved him, being one
Who sat amid their marriage feasts, and saw,
Where sin was not, in all things beauty and love.
But, ere he passed from Munster, longing fell
On Patrick's heart to view in all its breadth
Her river-flood, and bless its western waves;
Therefore, forth journeying, to that hill he went,

Knock Patrick.

Highest among the wave-girt, heathy hills,
That still sustains his name, and saw the flood
At widest stretched, and that green Isle

Foynes Island.

hard by,

And northern Thomond. From its coasts her sons
Rushed countless forth in skiff and coracle
Smiting blue wave to white, till Sheenan's sound

The Shannon.

Ceased, in their clamour lost. That hour from God
Power fell on Patrick; and in spirit he saw,
Invisible to flesh, the western coasts,
And the ocean way, and, far beyond, that land
The Future's heritage, and prophesied
Of Brendan who ere long in wicker boat
Should over-ride the mountains of the deep,
Shielded by God, and tread—no fable then—
Fabled Hesperia. Last of all he saw
More near, thy hermit home, Senanus;—‘Hail,
Isle of blue ocean and the river's mouth!

Scattery. There were seven churches on this small island, of which considerable remains still exist.

The People's Lamp, their Counsel's Head, is thine!’
That hour shone out through cloud the westering sun
And paved the wave with fire: that hour not less
Strong in his God, westward his face he set,
Westward and north, and spread his arms abroad,
And drew the blessing down, and flung it far:
‘A blessing on the warriors, and the clans,
A blessing on high field, and golden vales,
On sea-like plain and on the showery ridge,
On river-ripple, cliff, and murmuring deep,
On seaward peaks, harbours, and towns, and ports;
A blessing on the sand beneath the ships:
On all descend the Blessing!’ Thus he prayed,
Great-hearted; and from all the populous hills
And waters came the People's vast ‘Amen!’

Now Limerick.

Foynes.

SAINT PATRICK AND KING EOCHAID.

ARGUMENT.

King Eochaid submits himself to the Christian Law because Saint Patrick has delivered his son from bonds, yet only after making a pact that he is not, like the meaner sort, to be baptized. In this stubbornness he persists, though otherwise a kindly king; and after many years, he dies. Saint Patrick had refused to see his living face; yet after death he prays by the death-bed. Life returns to the dead; and sitting up, like one sore amazed, he demands baptism. The Saint baptizes him, and offers him a choice either to reign over all Erin for fifteen years, or to die. Eochaid chooses to die, and so departs.

Eochaid, son of Crimther, reigned, a King
Northward in Clochar.

Now Clogher.

Dearer to his heart
Than kingdom or than people or than life
Was he, the boy long wished for. Dear was she,
Keinè, his daughter. Babyhood's white star,
Beauteous in childhood, now in maiden dawn
She witched the world with beauty. From her eyes
A light went forth like morning o'er the sea;
Sweeter her voice than wind on harp; her smile
Could stay men's breath. With wingèd feet she trod
The yearning earth that, if it could, like waves
Had swelled to meet their pressure. Ah, the pang!
Beauty, the immortal promise, like a cheat
If unwed glides into the shadow land,
Childless and twice defeated. Beauty wed
To mate unworthy, suffers worse eclipse—
‘Ill choice between two ills!’ thus spleenful cried
Eochaid; but not his the pensive grief:
He would have kept his daughter in his house

For ever; yet, since better might not be,
Himself he chose her out a mate, and frowned,
And said, ‘The dog must have her.’ But the maid
Wished not for marriage. Tender was her heart;
Yet though her twentieth year had o'er her flown,
And though her tears had dewed a mother's grave,
In her there lurked, not flower of womanhood,
But flower of angel texture. All around
To her was love. The crown of earthly love
Seemed but its crown of mockery. Love Divine—
For that she yearned, and yet she knew it not;
Knew less that love she feared.

She walked in woods
While all the green leaves, drenched by sunset's gold,
Upon a shower-bespangled sycamore
Shivered, and birds among them choir on choir
Chanted her praise—or spring's. ‘Ill sung,’ she laughed,
‘My dainty minstrels! Grant to me your wings,
And I for them will teach you song of mine:
Listen!’ A carol from her lip there gushed
That, ere its time, might well have called the spring
From winter's coldest cave. It ceased; she turned.
Beside her Patrick stood. His hand he raised
To bless her. Awed, though glad, upon her knees
The maiden sank. His eye, as if through air,
Saw through that stainless soul, and, crystal-shrined
Therein, its inmate, Truth. That other Truth
Instant to her he preached—the Truth Divine—
(For whence is caution needful, save from sin?)
And those two Truths, each gazing upon each,
Embraced like sisters, thenceforth one. For her
No arduous thing was Faith, ere yet she heard
In heart believing: and, as when a babe

Marks some bright shape, if near or far it knows not,
And stretches forth a witless hand to clasp
Phantom or form, even so with wild surmise
And guesses erring first, and questions apt,
She chased the flying light, and round it closed
At last, and found it substance. ‘This is He,’
Then cried she, ‘This, whom every maid should love,
Conqueror self-sacrificed of sin and death:
How shall we find, how please Him, how be nigh?’
Patrick made answer: ‘They that do His will
Are nigh Him.’ And the virgin: ‘Of the nigh,
Say, who is nighest?’ Thus, that wingèd heart
Rushed to its rest. He answered: ‘Nighest they
Who offer most to Him in sacrifice,
As when the wedded leaves her father's house
And cleaveth to her husband. Nighest they
Who neither father's house nor husband's house
Desire, but live with Him in endless prayer,
And tend Him in His poor.’ Aloud she cried,
‘The nearest to the Highest, that is love;—
I choose that bridal lot!’ He answered, ‘Child,
The choice is God's. For each, that lot is best
To which He calls us.’ Lifting then pure hands,
Thus wept the maiden: ‘Call me, Virgin-born!
Will not the Mother-Maid permit a maid
To sit beside those nail-pierced feet, and wipe,
With hair untouched by wreaths of mortal love,
The dolorous blood-stains from them? Stranger guest,
Come to my father's tower! Against my will,
Against his own, in bridal bonds he binds me:
My suit he might resist: he cannot thine!’

She spake; and by her Patrick paced with feet
To hers accordant. Soon they reached that fort:

Central within a circling rath earth-built
It stood; the western tower of stone; the rest,
Not high, but spreading wide, of wood compact;
For thither many a forest hill had sent
His wind-swept daughter brood, relinquishing
Converse with cloud and beam and rain forever
To echo back the revels of a Prince.
Mosaic was the work, beam laced with beam
In quaint device: high up, o'er many a door
Shone blazon rich of vermeil, or of green,
Or shield of bronze, glittering with veinéd boss,
Chalcedony or agate, or whate'er
The wave-lipped marge of Neagh's broad lake might boast,
Or ocean's shore, northward from Brandon's Head
To where the myriad-pillared cliffs hang forth
Their stony organs o'er the lonely main,
And trembles yet the pilgrim, noting at eve
The pride Fomorian, and that Giant Way
Trending toward eastern Alba. From his throne
Above the semicirque of grassy seats
Whereon by Brehons and by Ollambs girt
Daily he judged his people, rose the king
And bade the stranger welcome.

Day to day
And night to night succeeded. In fit time,
For Patrick, sometimes sudden, oft was slow,
He spake his Master's message. At the close,
As though in trance, the warriors circling stood
With hands outstretched; the Druids downward frowned,
Silent; and like a strong man awed for once,
Eochaid round him stared. A little while,

And from him passed the amazement. Buoyant once more,
And bright like trees fresher for thunder-shower,
With all his wonted aspect, bold and keen,
He answered: ‘O my prophet, words, words, words!
We too have Prophets. Better thrice our Bards;
Yet, being no better these than trumpet's blast,
The trumpet more I prize. Had words been work,
Myself in youth had led the loud-voiced clan!
Deeds I preferred. What profit e'er had I
From windy marvels? Once with me in war
A seer there camped that, bending back his head,
Fit rites performed, and upward gazing, blew
With rounded lips into the heaven of heavens
Druidic breath. That heaven was changed to cloud,
Cloud that on borne to Clairè's hated bound
Down fell, a rain of blood! To me what gain?
Within three weeks my son was trapped and snared
By Aodh of Hy Brinin, king whose hosts
Number my warriors fourfold. Three long years
Beyond those purple mountains in the west
Hostage he lies.’ Lightly Eochaid spake,
And turned: but shaken chin betrayed that grief
Which lived beneath his lightness.

Sudden thronged
High on the neighbouring hills a jubilant troop,
Their banners waving, while the midway vale
With harp and horn resounded. Patrick spake:
‘Rejoice! thy son returns! not sole he comes,
But in his hand a princess, fair and good,
A kingdom for her dowry. Aodh's realm,
By me late left, welcomed my King with joy:
All fire the mountains shone. “The God I serve,”
Thus spake I, Aodh pointing to those fires,

“In mountains of rejoicing hath no joy
While sad beyond them sits a childless man,
His only son thy captive. Captive groaned
Creation; Bethlehem's Babe set free the slave.
For His sake loose thy thrall!” A sweeter voice
Pleaded with mine, his daughter's 'mid her tears.
“Aodh,” I said, “these two each other love!
What think'st thou? He who shaped the linnet's nest,
Indifferent unto Him are human loves?
Arise! thy work make perfect! Righteous deeds
Are easier whole than half.” In thought awhile
Old Aodh sat; then to his daughter turned,
And thus, imperious even in kindness, spake:
“Well fought the youth ere captured, like the son
Of kings, and worthy to be sire of kings:
Wed him this hour: and in three days, at eve,
Restore him to his father!” King, this hour
Thou know'st if Christ's strong Faith be empty words,
Or truth, and armed with power.’

That night was passed
In feasting and in revel, high and low
Rich with a common gladness. Many a torch
Flared in the hand of servitors hill-sent,
That standing, each behind a guest, retained
Beneath that roof clouded by banquet steam
Their mountain wildness. Here, the splendour glanced
On goblet jewel-chased and dark with wine,
Swift circling; there, on walls with antlers spread,
And rich with yew-wood carvings, flower or bud,
Or clustered grape pendent in russet gleam
As though from nature's hand. A hall hard by

Echoed the harp that now nor kindled rage,
Nor grief condoled, nor sealed with slumber's balm
Tempestuous spirits, triumphs three of song,
But raised to rapture, mirth. Far shone that hall
Glowing with hangings steeped in every tinct
The boast of Erin's dyeing-vats, now plain,
Now pranked with bird or beast or fish, whate'er
Fast-flying shuttle from the craftsman's thought
Catching, on bore through glimmering warp and woof.
A marvellous work; now traced by broiderer's hand
With legends of Ferdìadh and of Meave,
Even to the golden fringe. The warriors paced
Exulting. Oft they showed their merit's prize,
Poniard or cup, tribute ordained of tribes
From age to age, Eochaid's right, on them
With equal right devolving. Slow they moved
In mantle now of crimson, now of blue,
Clasped with huge torque of silver or of gold
Just where across the snowy shirt there strayed
Tendril of purple thread. With jewelled fronts
Beauteous in pride 'mid light of winsome smiles,
Over the rushes green with slender foot
In silver slipper hid, the ladies passed,
Answering with eyes not lips the whispered praise,
Or loud the bride extolling—‘When was seen
Such sweetness and such grace?’

Meantime the king
Conversed with Patrick. Vexed he heard announced
His daughter's high resolve: but still his looks
Went wandering to his son. ‘My boy! Behold him!
His valour and his gifts are all from me:
My first-born!’ From the dancing throng apart
His daughter stood the while, serene and pale,
Down-gazing on that lily in her hand

With face of one who notes not shapes around,
But dreams some happy dream. The king drew nigh,
And on her golden head the sceptre staff
Leaning, but not to hurt her, thus began:
‘Your prophets of the day, I trust them not!
If sent from God, why came they not long since?
Our Druids came before them, and, belike,
Shall after them abide! With these new seers
I count not Patrick. Things that Patrick says
I ofttimes thought. His lineage too is old—
Wide-browed, grey-eyed, with downward lessening face,
Not like your baser breeds, with questing eyes
And jaw of dog. But for thy Heavenly Spouse,
I like not Him! At least, wed Cormac first!
If rude his ways, yet noble is his name,
And being but poor the man will bide with me:
He's brave, and likeliest soon in fight may fall!
When Cormac dies, wed next—’ a music clash
Forth bursting drowned his words.

Three days passed by:
To Patrick, then preparing to depart,
Thus spake Eochaid in the ears of all:
‘Herald Heaven-missioned of the Tidings Good!
Those tidings I have pondered. They are true:
I for that truth's sake, and in honour bound
By reason of my son set free, resolve
The same, upon conditions, to believe,
And suffer all my people to believe,
Just terms exacted. Briefly these they are:
First, after death, I claim admittance frank
Into thy Heavenly Kingdom: next, till death
For me exemption from that Baptism Rite,
Imposed on kerne and hind. Experience-taught,

I love not rigid bond and written pledge:
'Tis well to brand your mark on sheep or lamb:
Kings are of lion breed; and of my house
'Tis known there never yet was king baptized.
This pact concluded, preach within my realm
Thy Faith; and wed my daughter to thy God.
Not scholarly am I to know what joy
A maid can find in psalm, and cell, and spouse
Unseen: yet ever thus my sentence stood,
“Choose each his way.” My son restored, her loss
To me is loss the less.’ Thus spake the king.

Then Patrick, on whose face the princess bent
The supplication softly strong of eyes
Like planets seen through mist, Eochaid's heart
Knowing, which miracle had hardened more,
Made answer, ‘King, a man of jests art thou,
Claiming free range in heaven, and yet its gate
Thyself close barring! In thy daughter's prayers
Belike thou trustest, that where others creep
Thou shalt its golden bastions over-fly.
Far otherwise than in that way thou weet'st,
That daughter's prayers shall speed thee. With thy word
I close, that word to frustrate. God be with thee!
Thou living, I return not. Fare thee well.’

Thus speaking, by the hand he took the maid,
And led her through the concourse. At her feet
The poor fell low, kissing her garment's hem,
And many brought their gifts, and all their prayers,
And old men wept. A maiden train snow-garbed,
Her steps attending, whitened plain and field,
As when at times dark glebe, new-turned, is changed
To white by flock of ocean birds alit,

Or inland blown by storm, or hunger-urged
To filch the late-sown grain. Her convent home
Ere long received her. There Ethembria ruled,
Green Erin's earliest nun. Of princely race,
She in past years before the font of Christ
Had knelt at Patrick's feet. Once more she sought him:
Over the lovely, lovelier change had passed,
As when on childish girlhood, 'mid a shower
Of lilies earthward wafted, maidenhood
In peacefuller state assumes her spotless throne;
So, from that maiden, vestal now had risen:—
Lowlier she seemed, more tender, soft, and grave,
Yet loftier; hushed in quiet more divine,
Yet wonder-awed. Again she knelt, and o'er
The bending queenly head, till then unbent,
He flung that veil which woman bars from man
To make her more than woman. Nigh to death
The Saint forgat not her. With her remained
Keinè; but Patrick dwelt far off at Saul.

Years came and went: yet neither chance nor change,
Nor war, nor peace, nor warnings from the priests,
Nor whispers 'mid the omen-mongering crowd,
Might from Eochaid charm his wayward will,
Nor reasonings of the wise that still preferred
Safe port to victory's pride. He reasoned too,
For confident in his reasonings was the king,
Reckoning on pointed fingers every link
That clenched his mail of proof. ‘On Patrick's word
Ye tell me Baptism is the gate of Heaven:
Attend, Sirs! I have Patrick's word no less
That I shall enter Heaven. What need I more?

If Death, truth-speaker, shows that Patrick lied,
Plain is my right against him! Heaven not won,
Patrick bare hence my daughter through a fraud:
He must restore her fourfold—daughters four,
As fair and good. If not, the prophet's pledge
For honour's sake his Master must redeem,
And unbaptized receive me. Dupes are ye!
Doomed 'mid the common flock, with branded fleece
Bleating to enter Heaven!’

The years went by;
And weakness came. No more his small light form
To reverent eyes seemed taller than it was:
No more the shepherd watched him from the hill
Heading his hounds, and hoped to catch his smile,
Yet feared his questions keen. The end drew near.
Some wept, some railed; restless the warriors tramped;
The Druids conned their late discountenanced spells:
The bard his lying harpstrings spurned, so long
Healing, unhelpful now. But far away,
Within that lonely convent tower from her
Who prayed for ever, mightier rose the prayer.

Within the palace, now by usage old
To all flung open, all were sore amazed,
All save the king. The leech beside the bed
Sobbed where he stood, yet sware, ‘The fit will pass:
Ten years the King may live.’ Eochaid frowned:
‘Shall I, to patch thy fame, live ten years more,
My death-time come? My seventy years are sped:
My sire and grandsire died at sixty-nine.
Like Aodh, shall I lengthen out my days
Toothless, nor fit to vindicate my clan,
Some losel's song? The kingdom is my son's

Strike from my little milk-white horse the shoes,
And loose him where the freshets make the mead
Greenest in springtide. He must die ere long;
And not to him did Patrick open Heaven.
Praise be to Patrick's God! May He my sins,
Known and unknown, forgive!’

Backward he sank
Upon his bed, and lay with eyes half closed,
Murmuring at times one prayer, five words or six;
And twice or thrice he spake of trivial things;
Then like an infant slumbered till the sun
Sinking beneath a great cloud's fiery skirt
Smote his old eyelids. Waking, in his ears
The ripening cornfields whispered 'neath the breeze,
For wide were all the casements that the soul
By death delivered hindrance none might find
(Careful of this the king); and thus he spake:
‘Nought ever raised my heart to God like fields
Of harvest, waving wide from hill to hill,
All bread-full for my people. Hale me forth:
When I have looked once more upon that sight
My blessing I will give them, and depart.’

Then in the fields they laid him, and he spake:
‘May He that to my people sends the bread,
Send grace to all who eat it!’ With that word
His hands down-falling, back once more he sank,
And lay as dead; yet, sudden, rising not,
Nor moving, nor his eyes unclosing, said,
‘My body in the tomb of ancient kings
Inter not till beside it Patrick stands
And looks upon my brow.’ He spake, then sighed
A little sigh, and died.

Three days, as when

Black thunder cloud clings fast to mountain brows,
So to the nation clung the grief: three days
The lamentation sounded on the hills
And rang around the pale blue meres, and rose
Shrill from the bleeding heart of vale and glen,
And rocky isle, and ocean's moaning shore;
While by the bier the yellow tapers stood,
And on the right side knelt Eochaid's son,
Behind him all the chieftains cloaked in black;
And on his left his daughter knelt, the nun,
Behind her all her sisterhood, white-veiled,
Like tombstones after snowstorm. Far away,
At ‘Saul of Patrick,’ dwelt the Saint when first
The king had sickened. Message sent he none
Though knowing all; and when the end was nigh,
And heralds now besought him day by day,
He made no answer till o'er eastern seas
Advanced the third fair morning. Then he rose,
And took the Staff of Jesus, and at eve
Beside the dead king standing, on his brow
Fixed a sad eye. Aloud the people wept;
The kneeling warriors eyed their lord askance;
The nuns intoned their hymn. Above that hymn
A cry rang out: it was the daughter's prayer;
And after that was silence. By the dead
Still stood the Saint, nor e'er removed his gaze.
Then—seen of all—behold, the dead king's hands
Rose slowly, as the weed on wave upheaved
Without its will; and all the strengthless shape
In cerements wrapped, as though by mastering voice
From the white void evoked and realm of death,
Without its will, a gradual bulk half rose,
The hoar head gazing forth. Upon the face
Had passed a change, the greatest earth may know;

For what the majesty of death began
The majesties of worlds unseen, and life
Resurgent ere its time, had perfected,
All accidents of flesh and sorrowful years
Cancelled and quelled. Yet horror from his eyes
Looked out as though some vision once endured
Must cling to them for ever. Patrick spake:
‘Soul from the dead sent back once more to earth,
What seek'st thou from God's Church?’ He answer made,
‘Baptism.’ Then Patrick o'er him poured the might
Of healing waters in the Name Triune,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit;
And from his eyes the horror passed, and light
Went from them, as the light of eyes that rest
On the everlasting glory, while he spake:
‘Tempest of darkness drave me past the gates
Celestial, and, a moment's space, within
I heard the hymning of the hosts of God
That feed for ever on the Bread of Life
As feed the nations on the harvest wheat.
Tempest of darkness drave me to the gates
Of Anguish: then a cry came up from earth,
Cry like my daughter's when her mother died,
That stayed the on-rushing whirlwind; yet mine eyes
Perforce looked in, and, many a thousand years,
Branded upon them lay that woful sight
Now washed from them for ever.’ Patrick spake:
‘This day a twofold choice I give thee, son;
For fifteen years the rule o'er Erin's land,
Rule absolute, Ard-Righ o'er lesser kings;
Or instant else to die, and hear once more
That hymn celestial, and that Vision see
They see who sing that anthem.’ Light from God

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Over that late dead countenance streamed amain,
Like to his daughter's now—more beauteous thrice—
Yet awful, more than beauteous. ‘Rule o'er earth,
Rule without end, were nought to that great hymn
Heard but a single moment. I would die.’

Then Patrick, on him gazing, answered, ‘Die!’
And died the king once more, and no man wept;
But on her childless breast the nun sustained
Softly her father's head.

That night discourse
Through hall and court circled in whispers low.
First one, ‘Was that indeed our king? But where
The sword-scar and the wrinkles?’ ‘Where,’ rejoined,
Wide-eyed, the next, ‘his little cranks and girds,
The wisdom, and the whim?’ Then Patrick spake:
‘Sirs, till this day ye never saw your king;
The man ye doted on was but his mask,
His picture—yea, his phantom. Ye have seen
At last the man himself.’ That night nigh sped,
While slowly o'er the darkling woods went down,
Warned by the cold breath of the up-creeping morn
Invisible yet nigh, the August moon,
Two vestals, gliding past like moonlight gleams,
Conversed: one said, ‘His daughter's prayer prevailed!’
The second, ‘Who may know the ways of God?
For this, may many a heart one day rejoice
In hope! For this, the gift to many a man
Exceed the promise; Faith's invisible germ
Quickened with parting breath; and Baptism given,
It may be, by an angel's hand unseen!’

The Giant's Causeway.

101

SAINT PATRICK AND THE FOUNDING OF ARMAGH CATHEDRAL.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick repairs to Ardmacha, there to found the chief church of Erin. For that purpose he demands of Dairè, the king, a certain woody hill. The king refuses it, and afterwards treats him with alternate scorn and reverence; while the Saint, in each event alike, makes the same answer, ‘Deo Gratias.’ At last the king concedes to him the hill; and on the summit of it Saint Patrick finds a little white fawn asleep. The men of Erin would have slain that fawn; but the Saint carries it on his shoulder, and restores it to its dam. Where the fawn lay, he places the altar of his cathedral.

At Cluain Cain, in Ross,

Carrickmacross in the south of the county Monaghan.

unbent yet old,
Dwelt Patrick long. Its sweet and flowery sward
He to the rock had delved, with fixed resolve
To build thereon Christ's chiefest church in Eire.
Then by him stood God's angel, speaking thus:
‘Not here, but northward.’ He replied, ‘O, would
This spot might favour find with God! Behold!
Fair is it, and as meet to clasp a church
As is a true heart in a virgin breast
To clasp the Faith of Christ. The hinds around
Name it “the beauteous meadow.”’ ‘Fair it is,’
The angel answered, ‘nor shall lack its crown.
Another's is its beauty. Here, one day
A pilgrim from the Britons sent shall build,
And, later, what he builds shall pass to thine;
But thou to Macha get thee.’

Patrick then,

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Obedient as that Patriarch Sire who faced
At God's command the desert, northward went
In holy silence. Soon to him was lost
That green and purple meadow-sea, embayed
'Twixt two descending woody promontories,
Its outlet girt with isles of rock, its shores
Cream-white with meadow-sweet. Not once he turned,
Climbing the uplands rough, or crossing streams
Swoll'n by the melted snows. The Brethren paced
Behind; Benignus first, his psalmist; next
Secknall, his bishop; next his brehon Erc;
Mochta, his priest; and Sinell of the Bells;
Rodan, his shepherd; Essa, Bite, and Tassach,
Workers of might in iron and in stone,
God-taught to build the churches of the Faith
With wisdom and with heart-delighting craft;
Mac Cairthen last, the giant meek that oft
On shoulders broad bare Patrick through the floods:
His rest was nigh. That hour they crossed a stream;
'Twas deep, and 'neath his load, the giant sighed.
Saint Patrick said, ‘Thou wert not wont to sigh!’
He answered, ‘Old I grow. Of them my mates
How many hast thou left in churches housed
Wherein they rule and rest!’ The Saint replied,
‘Thee also will I leave within a church
For rule and rest; not to mine own too near,
For rarely then should we be seen apart,
Nor yet remote, lest we should meet no more.’
At Clochar soon he placed him. There, long years
Mac Cairthen sat, its bishop.

As they went,
Oft through the woodlands rang the battle-shout;
And twice there rose above the distant hill
The smoke of hamlet fired. Yet, none the less,

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Spring-touched, the blackbird sang; the cowslip changed
Green lawn to green and golden; and grey rock
And river's marge with primroses were starred;
Here shook the windflower; there the blue-bells gleamed,
As though a patch of sky had fallen on earth.

Then to Benignus spake the Saint: ‘My son,
If grief were lawful in a world redeemed
The blood-stains on a land so strong in faith,
So slack in love, might cloud the holiest brow,
Yea, his whose head lay on the breast of Christ.
Clan wars with clan: no injury is forgiven;
Like to the joy in stag-hunts is the war:
Alas! for such what hope!’ Benignus answered,
‘O Father, cease not for this race to hope,
Lest they should hope no longer! Hope they have;
Still say they, “God will snare us in the end
Though wild.”’ And Patrick, ‘Spirits twain are theirs:
The stranger, and the poor, at every door
They meet, and bid him in. The youngest child
Officious is in service; maids prepare
The bath; men brim the wine-cup. Then, forth borne,
Cities they fire and rich in spoil depart,
Greed mixed with rage—an industry of blood!’
He spake, and thus the younger made reply:
‘Father, the stranger is the brother-man
To them; the poor is neighbour. Septs remote
To them are alien worlds. They know not yet
That rival clans are men.’

‘That know they shall,’

104

Patrick made answer, ‘when a race far off
Tramples their race to clay! God sends abroad
His plague of war that men on earth may know
Brother from foe, and anguish work remorse.’
He spake, and after musings added thus:
‘Base of God's kingdom is Humility—
I have not spared to thunder o'er their pride;
Great kings have I rebuked and signs sent forth,
And banned for their sake fruitful plain, and bay;
Yet still the widow's cry is on the air,
The orphan's wail!’ Benignus answered mild,
‘O Father, not alone with sign and ban
Hast thou rebuked their madness. Oftener far
Thy sweetness hath reproved them. Once in woods
Northward of Tara as we tracked our way
Round us there gathered slaves who felled the pines
For ship-masts. Scarred their hands, and red with blood,
Because their master, Trian, thus had sworn,
“Let no man sharpen axe!” Upon those hands
Gazing, they wept soon as thy voice they heard,
Because that voice was soft. Thou heard'st their tale;
Straight to that chieftain's castle went'st thou up,
And bound'st him with thy fast, beside his gate
Sitting in silence till his heart should melt;
And since he willed it not to melt, he died.
Then, in her arms two babes, came forth the queen
Black-robed, and freed her slaves, and gave them hire;
And, we returning after many years,
Filled was that wood with homesteads; plots of corn
Rustled around them; here were orchards; there
In trench or tank they steeped the bright blue flax;
The saw-mill turned to use the wanton brook;
Murmured the bee-hive; murmured household wheel;

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Soft eyes looked o'er it through the dusk; at work
The labourers carolled; matrons glad and maids
Bare us the pail head-steadied, children flowers:
Last, from her castle paced the queen, and led
In either hand her sons whom thou hadst blest,
Thenceforth to stand thy priests. The land believed;
And not through ban, or word, sharp-edged or soft,
But silence and thy fast the ill custom died.’

He answered, ‘Christ, in Christian life expressed,
This, this, not words, subdues a land to Christ;
And in this best Apostolate all have part.
Ah me! that flower thou hold'st is strong to preach
Creative Love, because itself is lovely;
But we, the heralds of Redeeming Love,
Because we are unlovely in our lives,
Preach to deaf ears! Yet theirs, theirs too, the sin.’
Benignus made reply: ‘The race is old;
Not less their hearts are young. Have patience with them!
For see, in spring the grave old oaks push forth
Impatient sprays, wine-red: their strength matured,
These sober down to verdure.’ Patrick paused,
Then, brooding, spake, as one who thinks, not speaks:
‘A priest there walked with me ten years and more;
Warrior in youth was he. One day we heard
The shock of warring clans—I hear it still:
Within him, as in darkening vase you note
The ascending wine, I watched the passion mount:—
Sudden he dashed him down into the fight,
Nor e'er to Christ returned.’ Benignus answered:
‘I saw above a dusty forest roof
The glad spring run, leaving a track sea-green:

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Not straight she ran; and yet she reached her goal:
Later I saw above green copse of thorn
The glad spring run, leaving a track foam-white:
Not straight she ran; yet soon she conquered all!
O Father, is it sinful to be glad
Here amid sin and sorrow? Joy is strong,
Strongest in spring-tide! Mourners I have known
That, homeward wending from the new-dug grave,
Against their will, where sang the happy birds
Have felt the aggressive gladness stir their hearts,
And smiled amid their tears.’ So babbled he,
Shamed at his spring-tide raptures.

As they went,
Far on their left there stretched a mighty land
Of forest-girdled hills, mother of streams:
Beyond it sank the day; while round the west
Like giants thronged the great cloud-phantoms towered.
Advancing, din they heard, and found in woods
A hamlet and a field by war unscathed,
And boys on all sides running. Placid sat
The village Elders; neither lacked that hour
The harp that gently tranquillises age,
Yet wakes young hearts with musical unrest,
Forerunner oft of love's unrest. Ere long
The measure changed to livelier: maid with maid
Danced 'mid the dancing shadows of the trees,
And youth with youth; till now, the strangers near,
Those Elders welcomed them with act benign;
And soon was slain the fatted kid, and soon
The lamb; nor any asked till hunger's rage
Was quelled, ‘Who art thou?’ Patrick made reply,
‘A Priest of God.’ Then prayed they, ‘Offer thou
To Him our sacrifice! Belike 'tis He

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Who saves from war this hamlet hid in woods:
Unblest be he who finds it!’ Thus they spake,
The matrons, not the youths. In friendly talk
The hours went by with laughter winged and tale;
But when the moon, on rolling through the heavens,
Showered through the leaves a dew of sprinkled light
O'er the dark ground, the maidens garments brought
Woven in their quiet homes when nights were long,
Red cloak and kirtle green, and laid them soft,
Still with the wearers' blameless beauty warm,
For coverlet upon the warm dry grass,
Honouring the stranger guests. For these they deemed
Their low-roofed cots too mean. Glad-hearted rose
The Christian hymn, not timid: far it rang
Above the woods. Ere long, their blissful rites
Fulfilled, the wanderers laid them down and slept.

At midnight by the side of Patrick stood
Victor, God's Angel, saying, ‘Lo! thy work
Hath favour found and thou ere long shalt die:
Thus therefore saith the Lord, “So long as sea
Girdeth this isle, so long thy name shall hang
In splendour o'er it, like the stars of God.”’
Then Patrick said, ‘A boon! I crave a boon!’
The angel answered, ‘Speak;’ and Patrick said,
‘Let them that with me toiled, or in the years
To come shall toil, building o'er all this land
The Fortress-Temple and great House of Christ,
Equalled with me my name in Erin share.’
And Victor answered, ‘Half thy prayer is thine;
With thee shall they partake. Not less, thy name
Higher than theirs shall rise, and wider spread,
Since thus more plainly shall His glory shine
Whose glory is His justice.’

108

With the morn
Those pilgrims rose, and, prime entoned and lauds,
Poured out their blessing on that woodland clan
Which, round them pressing, kissed them, robe and knee;
Then on they journeyed till at set of sun
Shone out the roofs of Macha, and that tower
Where Dairè dwelt, its lord.

Saint Patrick sent
To Dairè embassage, vouchsafing prayer
As sire might pray of son; ‘Give thou yon hill
To Christ, that we may build His church thereon.’
And Dairè answered with a brow of storms
Bent forward darkly, and long, sneering lips,
‘Your master is a mighty man, we know.
Garban, that lied to God, he slew through prayer,
And banned full many a lake, and many a plain,
For trespass there committed! Let it be!
A Chief of souls he is! No signs we work,
Rulers earth-born: yet somewhat are we here—
Depart! By others answer we will send.’

So Dairè sent to Patrick men of might,
Fierce men, the battle's nurslings. Thus they spake:
‘High region for high heads! If build ye must,
Build on the plain: the hill is Dairè's. Hence!
Church site he grants you, and the field around.’
And Patrick, glancing from his Office Book,
Made answer, ‘Deo Gratias,’ and no more.

Upon that plain he built a little church
Ere long, a convent likewise, girt with mound
Banked from the meadow loam, and deftly set
With stone, and fence, and woody palisade,

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That neither warring clans, far heard by day,
Might hurt his cloistered charge, nor wolves by night,
Howling in woods; and there he served the Lord.

But Dairè scorned the Saint, and grudged his gift,
Though small; and half in spleen, and half in greed,
Sent down two stately coursers all night long
To graze the deep sweet pasture round the church:
Ill deed:—and so, for guerdon of that sin,
Dead lay the coursers twain at the break of dawn.

Then fled the servants back, and told their lord,
Fearing for negligence rebuke and scath,
‘Thy Christian slew the coursers!’ and the king
Gave word to slay or bind him. But from God
A sickness fell on Dairè nigh to death
That day and night. When morning brake, the queen,
A woman leal with kind barbaric heart,
Her bosom from the sick man's head withdrew
A moment while he slept; and, round her gazing,
Closed with both hands upon a liegeman's arm,
And sped him to the Saint for pardon and peace.
Then Patrick, dipping in the inviolate fount
A chalice, blessed the water, with command
‘Sprinkle the stately coursers and the king;’
And straightway as from death the king arose,
And rose from death the coursers.

Dairè then,
His tall frame boastful with that life renewed,
Took with him men, and down the stone-paved hill
Rode from his tower, and through the woodlands green,
And bare with him an offering of those days,
A brazen cauldron vast. Embossed it shone
With sculptured shapes. On one side hunters rode:

110

Low stretched their steeds: the dogs pulled down the stag
Unseen, except the branching horns that rose
Like hands in protest. Feasters, on the other,
Raised high the cup pledging the safe return.
This offering Dairè brought, and, entering, spake:
‘A gift for guerdon and for grace, O Priest!’
And Patrick, upward glancing from his book,
Made answer, ‘Deo Gratias!’ and no more.

King Dairè, homeward riding with knit brow
Muttered, ‘Churl's welcome for a kingly boon!’
And, drinking late that night the stormy breath
Of others' anger blent with his, commanded,
‘Ride forth at morn and bring me back my gift!
Spurn it he shall not, though he prize it not.’
They heard him, and obeyed. At noon the king
Demanded thus, ‘What answer made the Saint?’
They said, ‘His eyes he raised not from his book,
But answered, “Deo Gratias!” and no more.’

Then Dairè stamped his foot, like war-horse stung
By gadfly: musing next, and mute he sat
A space, and lastly roared great laughter peals
Till roared in mockery back the raftered roof,
And clashed his hands together shouting thus:
‘A gift, and “Deo Gratias!”—gift withdrawn,
And “Deo Gratias!” Sooth, the word is good!
Madman is this, or man of God? We'll know!’
So from his frowning fortress once again
Adown the resonant road o'er street and bridge
Rode Dairè, at his right the queen in fear,
With dumbly pleading countenance; close behind,
With tangled locks and loose-hung battle-axe

111

Ran the wild kerne; and loud the bull-horn blew.
The convent reached, King Dairè from his horse
Flung his great limbs, and at the doorway towered
In gazing stern: the queen beside him stood,
Her lustrous violet eyes all lost in tears:
One hand on Dairè's garment lay like light
Wandering on dusky ripple; one, upraised,
Held in the high-necked horse that champed the bit,
His head near hers. Within, the man of God,
Sole-sitting, read his office book unmoved,
And ending fixed his keen eye on the king,
Not rising from his seat.

Then fell from God
Insight on Dairè, and aloud he cried,
‘A kingly man, of mind unmovable
Art thou; and as the rock beneath my tower
Shakes not in storm so shakes not heart of thine:
Such men are of the height and not the plain:
Therefore that hill to thee I grant unsought
Which whilome I refused. Possession take
This day, lest hostile demon warp my mood;
And build thereon thy church. The same shall stand
Strong mother-church of all thy great clan Christ!’

Thus Dairè spake ; and Patrick, at his word
Rising, gave thanks to God, and to the king
High blessing heard in heaven; and making sign
Went forth, attended by his priestly train,
Benignus first, his dearest, then the rest.
In circuit thrice they girt that hill, and sang
Anthem first heard when unto God was vowed
That House which David offered in his heart,
His son in act, and hymn of holy Church
Hailing that City like a bride attired,

112

From heaven to earth descending. With them sang
An angel choir above them borne. The birds
Forbore their songs, listening that angel strain,
Ethereal music and by men unheard
Except the Elect. The king in reverence paced
Behind, his liegemen next, a mass confused
With saffron standard gay and spears upheld
Flashing through thickets green. These kept not line,
For Alp was still recounting battles old,
Aodh of wizards sang, and Ir of love;
While bald-pate Conan, sharpening from his eye
The sneering light, shot from his plastic mouth
Shrill taunt and biting gibe. The younger sort
Eyed the dense copse and launched full many a shaft
Through it at flying beast. From ledge to ledge
Clomb Angus, keen of sight, with hand o'er brow,
Forth gazing on some far blue ridge of war
With nostril wide outblown, and snorting cried,
‘Would I were there!’

Meantime, the man of God
Had reached the fair crown of that sacred hill,
A circle girt with woodland branching low,
And roofed with heaven. Beyond its tonsure fringe,
Birch trees and oaks, there pushed a thorn milkwhite,
And close beside it slept in shade a fawn
Whiter. The startled dam had left its side,
And through the dark stems fled like flying gleam.
Minded they were, the kernes, to kill that fawn,
And all the priests stood silent; but the Saint
Put forth his hand, and o'er her signed the Cross,
And, stooping, on his shoulder placed her firm,
And bade the brethren mark with stones her lair
Dewless and dusk: then, singing as he went

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‘Like as the hart desires the water brooks,’
He walked, that hill descending. Light from God
O'ershone his face. Meantime the awakened fawn
Now rolled her dark eye on the silver head
Close by, now turning licked the wrinkled hand,
Unfearing. Soon, with little whimpering sob,
The doe drew near and paced at Patrick's side.
At last they reached a little field low down
Beneath that hill: there Patrick laid the fawn.

King Dairè questioned Patrick of that deed,
Incensed; and scornful asked, ‘Shall mitred man
Play thus the shepherd and the forester?’
And Patrick answered, ‘Aged men, O king,
Forget their reasons oft. Benignus seek,
If haply God has shown him for what cause
I wrought this thing.’ Then Dairè turned him back
And faced Benignus; and with lifted hand,
Pure as a maid's, and dimpled like a child's,
Picturing his thoughts on air, the little monk
Thus glossed that deed. ‘Great mystery, king, is Love:
Poets its worthiness have sung in lays
Unread by ruder ones like me; and yet
Thus much the simplest and the rudest know,
Dear is the fawn to her that gave it birth,
And to the sceptred monarch dear the child
That mounts his knee. Nor here the marvel ends;
For, like yon star, the great Paternal Heart
Through all the unmeted, unimagined years,
While yet Creation uncreated hung,
A thought, a dawn-streak on the verge extreme
Of lonely Godhead's inner Universe,
Panted and pants with splendour of its love,

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The Eternal Sire rejoicing in the Son
And Both in Him Who still from Both proceeds,
Bond of their love. Moreover, king, that Son
Who, Virgin-born, raised from the ruinous gulf
Our world, and made it footstool to God's throne,
The same is Love, and died for Love, and reigns:
Loveless, His Church were but a corse stone-cold;
Loveless, her creed were but a winter leaf
Network of barren thoughts, the cerement wan
Of Faith extinct. Therefore our Saint revered
The love and anguish of that mother doe,
And inly vowed that where her offspring couched
Christ's chiefest church should stand, from age to age
Confession plain 'mid raging of the clans
That God is Love;—His worship void and vain
Disjoined from Love that, rising to the heights
Even to the depths descends.’

Conversing thus,
Macha they reached. Ere long where lay the fawn
Stood God's new altar; and, ere many years,
Far o'er the woodlands rose the church high-towered,
Preaching God's peace to still a troubled world.
The Saint who built it found not there his grave
Though wished for; him God buried otherwhere,
Fulfilling thus the counsels of His Will:
But old, and grey, when many a winter's frost
To spring had yielded, bent by wounds and woes
Upon that church's altar looked once more
King Dairè; at its font was joined to Christ;
And, midway 'twixt that altar and that font,
Rejoined his beauteous mate a later day.

115

THE ARRAIGNMENT OF SAINT PATRICK.

ARGUMENT.

Secknall, the poet, brings, in sport, three heavy charges against Saint Patrick, who, supposing them to be serious, defends himself against them. Lastly Secknall sings a hymn written in praise of a Saint. Saint Patrick commends it, affirming that for once Fame has dispensed her honours honestly. Upon this, Secknall recites the first stave, till then craftily reserved, which offers the whole homage of that hymn to Patrick, who, though the humblest of men, has thus arrogated to himself the saintly Crown. There is laughter among the brethren.

When Patrick now was old and nigh to death
Undimmed was still his eye; his tread was strong;
And there was ever laughter in his heart,
And music in his laughter. In a wood
Nigh to Ardmacha dwelt he with his monks;
And there, like birds that cannot stay their songs
Love-touched in Spring, or grateful for their nests,
They to the woodsmen preached of Christ, their King,
To swineherds, and to hinds that tended sheep,
Yea, and to pilgrim guests from distant clans;
His shepherd-worshipped birth when breath of kine
Went o'er the Infant; all His wondrous works
Or words from mount, or field, or anchored boat,
And Christendom upreared for weal of men
And Angel-wonder. Daily preached the monks
And daily built their convent. Wildly sweet

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The season, prime of unripe spring, when March
Distils from cup half gelid yet some drops
Of finer relish than the hand of May
Pours from her full-brimmed beaker. Frost, though gone,
Had left its glad vibration on the air;
Laughed the blue heavens as though they ne'er had frowned,
Through leafless oak-boughs; limes of kindlier grace
And swifter to believe Spring's ‘tidings good’
Took the sweet lights upon a breast bud-swoll'n,
And crimson as the redbreast's; while, as when
Clear rings a flute-note through sea-murmurs harsh,
At intervals ran out a streak of green
Across the dim-hued forest.

From their wood
The strong arms of the monks had hewn them space
For all their convent needed; farmyard stored
With stacks that all the winter long had clutched
Their hoarded harvest sunshine; pasture green
Whitened with sheep; fair garden fenceless still
With household herbs new-sprouting; but, as oft
Some conquered race, forth sallying in its spleen
When serves the occasion, wins a province back,
Or flouts at least the foe, so here once more
Wild flowers, a clan unvanquished, raised their heads
'Mid sprouting wheat; and where from craggy height
Pushed the grey ledge, the woodland host recoiled
As though in Parthian flight; while many a bird,
Barbaric from the inviolate forest launched
Wild-warbled scorn on all that life reclaimed,
Mute garth—still orchard. Child of distant hills,
A proud stream, swollen by midnight rains, down leaped

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From rock to rock. It spurned the precinct new
With airy dews silvering the bramble green
And redd'ning more the beech-stock.

'Twas the hour
Of rest, and every monk was glad at heart,
For each had wrought with might. With hands upheld,
Mochta, the priest, had thundered against sin,
Wrath-roused, as when some prince too late returned
Stares at his sea-side village all in flames,
The slave-thronged ship escaped. The bishop, Erc,
Had reconciled old feuds by Brehon Law
Where Brehon Law was lawful. Boys wild-eyed
Had from Benignus learned the church's song,
Boys brightened now, yet tempered, by that age
Gracious to stripling as to maid, that brings
Valour to one and modesty to both
Where youth is loyal to the Virgin-born.
The giant meek, Mac Cairthen, on bent neck
Had carried beam on beam, while Criemther felled
The oaks, and from the anvil Laeban dashed
The sparks in showers. A little way removed,
Beneath a pine three vestals sat close-veiled:
A song these childless sang of Bethlehem's Child,
Low-toned, and worked their Altar-cloth, a Lamb
All white on golden blazon; near it bled
The bird that with her own blood feeds her young:
Red drops affused her holy breast. These three
Were daughters of three kings. The best and fairest,
King Dairè's daughter, Erenait by name,
Had loved Benignus in her Pagan years.
He knew it not: full sweet to her his voice
Chaunting in choir. One day through grief of love
The maiden lay as dead: Benignus shook

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Dews from the font above her, and she woke
With heart emancipate that outsoared the lark
Lost in blue heavens. She loved the Spouse of Souls.
It was as though some child that, dreaming, wept
Its childish playthings lost, awaked by bells,
Bride-bells, had found herself a queen new wed
Unto her country's lord.

While monk with monk
Conversed, the son of Patrick's sister sat,
Secknall by name, beside the window sole
And marked where Patrick from his hill of prayer
Approached, descending slowly. At the sight
He, maker blithe of songs, and wild as hawk
Albeit a Saint, whose wont it was at times
Or shy, or strange, or shunning flattery's taint,
To attempt with mockery those whom most he loved,
Whispered a brother, ‘Speak to Patrick thus:
“When all men praised thee, Secknall made reply,
‘A blessed man were Patrick save for this,
Alms deeds he preaches not.’”’ The brother went:
Ere long among them entered Patrick, wroth,
Or, likelier, feigning wrath:—‘What man is he
Who saith I preach not alms deeds?’ Secknall rose:
‘I said it, Father, and the charge is true.’
Then Patrick answered, ‘Out of Charity
I preach not Charity. This people, won
To Christ, ere long will prove a race of Saints;
To give will be its passion, not to gain:
Its heart is generous; but its hand is slack
In all save war: herein there lurks a snare:
The priest will fatten, and the beggar feast:
But the lean land will yield nor chief nor prince
Hire of two horses yoked to chariot beam.’
Then Secknall spake, ‘O Father, dead it lies

119

Mine earlier charge against thee. Hear my next,
Since in our Order's equal Brotherhood
Censure uncensured is the right of all.
You press to the earth your converts! gold you spurn;
Yet bind upon them heavier load than when
Conqueror his captive tasks. Have shepherds three
Bowed them to Christ? “Build up a church,” you cry;
So one must draw the sand, and one the stone
And one the lime. Honouring the seven great Gifts
You raise in one small valley churches seven.
Who serveth you fares hard!’ The Saint replied,
‘Second as first! I came not to this land
To crave scant service, nor with shallow plough
Cleave I this glebe. The priest that soweth much,
For here the land is fruitful, much shall reap:
Who soweth little nought but weeds shall bind
And poppies of oblivion.’ Secknall next:
‘Yet man to man will whisper, and the face
Of all this people darken like a sea
When pipes the coming storm.’ He answered, ‘Son,
I know this people better. Fierce they are
In anger; neither flies their thought direct;
For some, though true to Nature, lie to men,
And others, true to men, are false to God:
Yet as the prince's is the poor man's heart;
Burthen for God sustained no burden is
To him; and those who most have given to Christ
Largeliest His fulness share.’

Secknall replied,
‘Low lies my second charge; a third remains,
Which, as a shaft from seasoned bow, not green,
Shall pierce the mark. With convents still you sow

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The land: in other countries sparse and small
They swell to cities here. A hundred monks
On one late barren mountain dig and pray:
A hundred nuns gladden one woodland lawn,
Or sing in one small island. Well—'tis well!
Yet, balance lost and measure, nought is well.
The Angelic Life more common will become
Than life of mortal men.’ The Saint replied,
‘No shaft from homicidal yew-tree bow
Is thine, but winged of thistle-down! Now hear!
Measure is good; but measure's law with scale
Changeth; nor doth the part reflect the whole.
Each nation hath its gift, and each to all
Not equal ministers. If all were eye,
Where then were ear? If all were ear or hand,
Where then were eye? The nation is the part;
The Church the whole’—But Criemther where he stood,
Old warrior, shouted like a chief war-waked,
‘This land is Eire! No nation lives like her!
A part! Who portions Eire?’ The Saint, with smile
Resumed: ‘The whole that from the part receives,
Repaying still that part, till man's whole race
Grow to the fulness of Mankind redeemed.
What gift hath God in eminence given to Eire?
Singly, her race is feeble; strong when knit:
Nought knits them truly save a heavenly aim.
I knit them as an army unto God,
Give them God's War! Yon star is militant!
Its splendour 'gainst the dark must fight or die:
So wars that Faith I preach against the world;
And nations fitted least for this world's gain
Can speed Faith's triumph best. Three hundred years,

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Well used, should make of Eire a northern Rome.
Criemther! her destiny is this, or nought;
Secknall! the highest only can she reach;
Alone the Apostle's crown is hers: for this,
A Rule I give her, strong, yet strong in Love;
Monastic households build I far and wide;
Monastic clans I plant among her clans,
With abbots for their chiefs. The same shall live,
Long as God's love o'errules them.’

Secknall then
Knelt, reverent; yet his eye had in it mirth,
And round the full bloom of the red rich mouth,
No whit ascetic, ran a dim half smile.
‘Father, my charges three have futile fallen,
And thrice, like some great warrior of the bards,
Your conquering wheels above me you have driven.
Brought low, I make confession. Once, in woods
Wandering, we heard a sound, now loud, now low,
As he that treads the sand-hills hears the sea
High murmuring while he climbs the seaward slope,
Low, as he drops to landward. 'Twas a throng
Awed, yet tumultuous, wild-eyed, wondering, fierce,
That, standing round a harper, stave on stave
Acclaimed as each had ending. “War, still war!”
Thou saidst; “the bards but sing of War and Death!
Ah! if they sang that Death which conquered Death,
Then, like a tide, this people, music-drawn,
Would mount the shores of Christ! Bards love not us,
Prescient that power, that power wielded elsewhere
By priest, but here by them, shall pass to us:
Yet we love them for good one day their gift.”
Then didst thou turn on me an eye of might
Such as on Malach, when thou bad'st him raise

122

By miracle of prayer that babe boar-slain,
And said'st, “Go, fell thy pine, and frame thy harp,
And in the hearing of this people sing
Some Saint, the friend of Christ.” Too long the attempt
Shame-faced, I shunned; at last, like him of old,
That better brother who refused, yet went,
I made my hymn. 'Tis called “A Child of Life.”’
Then Patrick, ‘Welcome is the praise of Saints:
Sing thou thy hymn.’

From kneeling Secknall rose
And stood, and singing, raised his hand as when
Her cymbal by the Red Sea Miriam raised
While silent stood God's hosts, and silent lay
Those host-entombing waters. Shook, like hers,
His slight form wavering 'mid the gusts of song.
He sang the Saint of God, create from nought
To work God's Will. As others gaze on earth,
Her vales, her plains, her green meads ocean-girt,
So gazed the Saint for ever upon God
Who girds all worlds—saw intermediate nought—
And on Him watched the sunshine and the storm,
And learned His Countenance, and from It alone
Drew in upon his heart its day and night.
That contemplation was for him no dream:
It hurled him on his mission. As a sword
He lodged his soul within the Hand Divine
And wrought, keen-edged, God's counsel. Next to God,
Next, and how near, he loved the souls of men:
Yea, men to him were Souls; the unspiritual herd
He saw as magic-bound, or chained to beast,
And groaned to free them. For their sakes, unfearing
He faced the ravening waves, and iron rocks,

123

Hunger, and poniard's edge, and poisoned cup,
And faced the face of kings, and faced the host
Of demons raging for their realm o'erthrown.
This was the Man of Love. Self-love cast out,
The love made spiritual of a thousand hearts
Met in his single heart, and kindled there
A sun-like image of Love Divine. Within
That Spirit-shadowed heart was Christ conceived
Hourly through Faith, hourly through Love was born;
Sole secret this of fruitfulness to Christ.
Who heard him heard with his a lordlier Voice,
Strong as that Voice which said, ‘Let there be light,’
And light o'erflowed their beings. He from each
His secret won; to each God's secret told:
He touched them, and they lived. In each, the flesh
Subdued to soul, the affections, vassals proud
By conscience ruled, and conscience lit by Christ,
The whole man stood, planet full-orbed of powers
In equipoise, Image restored of God.
A nation of such men his portion was;
That nation's Patriarch he. No wrangler loud;
No sophist; lesser victories knew he none:
No triumph his of sect, or camp, or court;
The Saint his great soul flung upon the world,
And took the people with him like a wind
Missioned from God that with it wafts in spring
Some wingèd race, a multitudinous night,
Into new sun-bright climes.

As Secknall sang,
Nearer the Brethren drew. On Patrick's right
Benignus stood; old Mochta on his left,
Slow-eyed, with solemn smile and sweet; next Erc,
Whose ever-listening countenance that hour
Beyond its wont was listening; Criemther near,

124

The workman Saint, his many-wounded hands
Together clasped: forward each mighty arm
On shoulders propped of Essa and of Bite,
Leaned the meek giant Cairthen: twelve in all
Clustering they stood and in them was one soul.
When Secknall ceased, in silence still they hung
Each upon each, glad-hearted since the meed
Of all their toils shone out before them plain,
Gold gates of heaven—a nation entering in.
A light was on their faces, and without
Spread a great light, for sunset now had fallen
A Pentecostal fire upon the woods,
Or else a rain of angels streamed o'er earth.
In marvel gazed the twelve: yea, clans far off
Stared from their hills, deeming the site aflame.
That glory passed away, discourse arose
On Secknall's hymn. Its radiance from his face
Had, like the sunset's, vanished as he spake:
‘Father, what sayst thou?’ Patrick made reply,
‘My son, the hymn is good; for Truth is good;
And Fame, obsequious often to base heads,
For once is loyal, and its crown hath laid
Where honour's debt was due.’ Then Secknall raised
In triumph both his hands, and chaunted loud
That hymn's first stave, earlier through craft withheld,
Stave that to Patrick's name, and his alone,
Offered that hymn's whole incense! Ceasing, he stood
Low-bowed, with hands upon his bosom crossed.
Great laughter from the Brethren came, their Chief
Thus trapped, though late—he meekest man of men—
To claim the saintly crown. First young, then old,

125

Later the old, and sore against their will,
That laughter raised. Last from the giant chest
Of Cairthen forth it rolled its solemn bass,
Like sea-sound swallowing lighter sounds hard by.
But Patrick laughed not: o'er his face there passed
Shade lost in light; and thus he spake, ‘O friends,
That which I have to do I know in part:
God grant I work my work. That which I am
He knows Who made me. Saints He hath, good store:
Their names are written in His Book of Life;
Kneel down, my sons, and pray that if thus long
I seem to stand, I fall not at the end.’

Then in a circle kneeling prayed the twelve.
But when they rose, Secknall with serious brow
Advanced, and knelt, and kissed Saint Patrick's foot,
And said, ‘O Father, at thy hest that hymn
I made, long labouring, and thy crown it stands:
Thou, therefore, grant me gifts, for strong thy prayer.’

And Patrick said, ‘The house wherein thy hymn
Is sung at morn or eve shall lack not bread:
And if men sing it in a house new-built,
Where none hath dwelt, nor bridegroom yet, nor bride,
Nor hath the cry of babe been heard therein,
Upon that house the watching of the Saints
Of Eire, and Patrick's watching, shall be fixed
Even as the stars.’ And Secknall said, ‘What more?’

Then Patrick added, ‘They that night and morn
Down-lying and up-rising, sing that hymn,

126

They too that softly whisper it, nigh death,
If pure of heart, and liegeful unto Christ,
Shall see God's face; and, since the hymn is long,
Its grace shall rest for children and the poor
Full measure on the last three lines; and thou
Of this dear company shalt die the first,
And first of Eire's Apostles.’ Then his cheek
Secknall laid down once more on Patrick's foot,
And answered, ‘Deo Gratias.’

Thus in mirth,
And solemn talk, and prayer, that brother band
In the golden age of Faith with great free heart
Gave thanks to God that blissful eventide,
A thousand and four hundred years and more
Gone by. But now clear rang the compline bell,
And two by two they wended towards their church
Across a space for cloister set apart,
Yet still with wood-flowers sweet, and scent beside
Of sod that evening turned. The night came on;
A dim ethereal twilight o'er the hills
Deepened to dewy gloom. Against the sky
Stood ridge and rock unmarked amid the day:
A few stars o'er them shone. As bower on bower
Let go the waning light, so bird on bird
Let go its song. Two songsters still remained,
Each feebler than a fountain soon to cease,
And claimed somewhile across the dusking dell
Rivals unseen in sleepy argument,
Each, the last word:—a pause; and then, once more,
An unexpected note:—a longer pause;
And then, past hope, one other note, the last.
A moment more the Brethren stood in prayer:
The rising moon upon the church-roof new
Glimmered; and o'er it sang an angel choir,

127

‘Venite Sancti.’ Entering, soon were said
The psalm, ‘He giveth sleep,’ and hymn, ‘Lætare’;
And in his solitary cell each monk
Lay down, rejoicing in the love of God.

The happy years went by. When Patrick now
And all his company were housed with God
That hymn, at morning sung, and noon, and eve,
Even as it lulled the waves of warring clans
So lulled with music lives of toil-worn men
And charmed their ebbing breath. One time it chanced
When in his convent Kevin with his monks
Had sung it thrice, the board prepared, a guest,
Foot-sore and hungered, murmured, ‘Wherefore thrice?’
And Kevin answered, ‘Speak not thus, my son,
For while we sang it, visible to all,
Saint Patrick was among us. At his right
Benignus stood, and, all around, the Twelve,
God's light upon their brows; while Secknall knelt
Demanding meed of song. Moreover, son,
This self-same day and hour, twelve months gone by,
Patrick, our Patriarch, died; and happy Feast
Is that he holds, by two short days alone
Severed from his of Hebrew Patriarchs last,
And Chief. The Holy House at Nazareth
He ruled benign, God's Warder with white hairs;
And still his feast, that silver star of March,
When snows afflict the hill and frost the moor,
With temperate beam gladdens the vernal Church—
All praise to God Who draws that Twain so near.’

128

THE STRIVING OF SAINT PATRICK ON MOUNT CRUACHAN

Now called Croagh Patrick, a mountain on the coast near Westport.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Patrick, seeing that now Erin believes, desires that the whole land should stand fast in belief till Christ returns to judge the world. For this end he resolves to offer prayer on Mount Cruachan; but Victor, the Angel who has attended him in all his labours, restrains him from that prayer as being too great. Notwithstanding, the Saint prays three times on the mountain, and three times all the demons of Erin contend against him, and twice Victor, the Angel, rebukes his prayers. In the end Saint Patrick scatters the demons with ignominy, and God's Angel bids him know that his prayer hath conquered through constancy.

From realm to realm had Patrick trod the Isle;
And evermore God's work beneath his hand,
Since God had blessed that hand, ran out fullsphered,
And brighter than a new-created star.
The Island race, in feud of clan with clan
Barbaric, gracious else and high of heart,
Nor worshippers of self, nor dulled through sense,
Beholding, not alone his wondrous works,
But, wondrous more, the sweetness of his strength
And how he neither shrank from flood nor fire,
And how he couched him on the wintry rocks,
And how he sang great hymns to One who heard,
And how he cared for poor men and the sick,
And for the souls invisible of men,
To him made way—not simple hinds alone,
But chiefly wisest heads, for wisdom then
Prime wisdom saw in Faith; and, mixt with these,

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Chieftains and sceptred kings. Nigh Tara, first,
Scorning the king's command, had Patrick lit
His Paschal fire, and heavenward as it soared,
The royal fire and all the Beltaine fires
Shamed by its beam had withered round the Isle
Like fires on little hearths whereon the sun
Looks in his greatness. Later, to that plain
Central 'mid Eire, ‘of Adoration’ named,
Down-trampled for two thousand years and more
By erring feet of men, the Saint had sped
In Apostolic might, and kenned far off
Ill-pleased, the nation's idol lifting high
His head, and those twelve vassal gods around
All mailed in gold and shining as the sun,
A pomp impure. Ill-pleased the Saint had seen them,
And raised the Staff of Jesus with a ban;
Then he, that demon named of men Crom-dubh,
With all his vassal gods, into the earth
That knew her Maker, to their necks had sunk
While round the island rang three times the cry
Of fiends tormented.

Not for this as yet
Had Patrick perfected his strength: as yet
The depths he had not trodden; nor had God
Drawn forth His total forces in the man
Hidden long since and sealed. For this cause he,
Who still his own heart in triumphant hour
Suspected most, remembering Milcho's fate,
With fear lest aught of human mar God's work,
And likewise from his handling of the Gael
Knowing not less their weakness than their strength,
Paused on his conquering way, and lonely sat
In cloud of thought. The great Lent Fast had come:
Its first three days went by; the fourth, he rose,

130

And meeting his disciples that drew nigh
Vouchsafed this greeting only: ‘Bide ye here
Till I return,’ and straightway set his face
Alone to that great hill ‘of Eagles’ named
Huge Cruachan, that o'er the western deep
Hung through sea-mist, with shadowing crag on crag,
High-ridged, and dateless forest long since dead.

That forest reached, the angel of the Lord
Beside him, as he entered, stood and spake:
‘The gifts thy soul demands, demand them not;
For they are mighty and immeasurable,
And over great for granting.’ And the Saint:
‘This mountain Cruachan I will not leave
Alive till all be granted, to the last.’

Then knelt he on the shrouded mountain's base,
And was in prayer; and, wrestling with the Lord,
Demanded wondrous things immeasurable,
Not easy to be granted, for the land;
Nor brooked repulse; and when repulse there came,
Repulse that quells the weak and crowns the strong,
Forth from its gloom like lightning on him flashed
Intelligential gleam and insight winged
That plainlier showed him all his people's heart,
And all the wound thereof: and as in depth
Knowledge descended, so in height his prayer
Rose, and far spread; nor roused alone those Powers
Regioned with God; for as the strength of fire
When flames some palace pile, or city vast,
Wakens a tempest round it dragging in
Wild blast, and from the aggression mightier grows,
So wakened Patrick's prayer the demon race,
And drew their legions in upon his soul

131

From near and far. First came the Accursed encamped
On Connact's cloudy hills and watery moors;
Old Umbhall's Heads, Iorras, and Arran Isle,
And where Tyrawley clasps that sea-girt wood
Fochlut, whence earliest rang the Children's Cry,
To demons trump of doom. In stormy rack
They came, and hung above the invested Mount
Expectant. But, their mutterings heeding not,
When Patrick still in puissance rose of prayer
O'er all their armies round the realm dispersed
There ran prescience of fate; and, north and south,
From all the mountain-girdled coasts—for still
Best site attracts worst Spirit—on they came,
From Aileach's shore and Uladh's hoary cliffs,
Which held the aeries of that eagle race
More late in Alba

Scotland.

throned, ‘Lords of the Isles’—
High chiefs whose bards, in strong transmitted line,
Filled with the name of Fionn, and thine, Oiseen,
The blue glens of that never-vanquished land—
From those purpureal mountains that o'ergaze
Rock-bowered Loch Lene

Killarney.

broidered with sanguine bead,
They came, and many a ridge o'er sea-lake stretched
That, autumn-robed in purple and in gold,
Pontific vestment, guard the memories still
Of monks who reared thereon their mystic cells,
Finian and Kieran, Fiacre, and Enda's self
Of hermits sire, and that sea-facing Saint
Brendan, who, in his wicker boat of skins
Before that Genoese a thousand years
Found a new world; and many more that now
Under wind-wasted Cross of Clonmacnoise
Await the day of Christ.

So rushed they on

132

From all sides, and, close met, in circling storm
Besieged the enclouded steep of Cruachan,
That scarce the difference knew 'twixt night and day
More than the sunless pole. Him sought they, him
Whom infinitely near they might approach,
Not touch, while firm his faith—their Foe that dragged,
Sole-kneeling on that wood-girt mountain's base,
With both hands forth their realm's foundation stone.
Thus ruin filled the mountain: day by day
The forest torment deepened; louder roared
The great aisles of the devastated woods;
Black cave replied to cave; and oaks, whole ranks,
Colossal growth of immemorial years,
Sown ere Milesius landed, or that race
He vanquished, or that earliest Scythian tribe,
Fell in long line, like deep-mined castle wall,
At either side God's warrior. Slowly died
At last, far echoed in remote ravines,
The thunder: then crept forth a little voice
That shrilly whispered to him thus in scorn:
‘Two thousand years yon race hath walked in blood
Neck-deep; and shall it serve thy Lord of Peace?’
That whisper ceased. Again from all sides burst
Tenfold the storm; and as it waxed, the Saint
Waxed in strong heart; and, kneeling with stretched hands,
Made for himself a panoply of prayer,
And wound it round his bosom twice and thrice,
And made a sword of comminating psalm,
And smote at them that mocked him. Day by day,
Till now the second Sunday's vesper bell
Gladdened the little churches round the isle,
That conflict raged: then, maddening in their ire,

133

Sudden the Princedoms of the Dark, that rode
This way and that way through the tempest, brake
Their sceptres, and with one great cry it fell:
At once o'er all was silence: sunset lit
The world, that shone as though with face upturned
It gazed on heavens by angel faces thronged
And answered light with light. A single bird
Carolled: and from the forest skirt down fell,
Gem-like, the last drops of the exhausted storm.

Then bowed the Saint his forehead to the ground
Thanking his God; and there in sacred trance,
Which was not sleep, abode not hours alone
But silent nights and days; and, 'mid that trance,
God fed his heart with unseen Sacraments,
Immortal food. Awaking, Patrick felt
Yearnings for nearer commune with his God,
Though great its cost; and gat him on his feet,
And, mile by mile, ascended through the woods
Till stunted were its growths; and still he clomb
Printing with sandalled foot the dewy steep:
But when above the mountain rose the moon
Brightening each mist, while sank the prone morass
In double night, he came upon a stone
Tomb-shaped, that flecked that steep: a little stream
Dropped by it from the summits to the woods:
Thereon he knelt; and was once more in prayer.

Nor prayed unnoticed by that race abhorred.
No sooner had his knees the mountain touched
Than through their realm vibration went; and straight
His prayer detecting back they trooped in clouds
And o'er him closed, blotting with bat-like wing
And inky pall, the moon. Then thunder pealed

134

Once more, nor ceased from pealing. Over all
Night ruled, except when blue and forkèd flash
Revealed the on-circling waterspout or plunge
Of rain beneath the blown cloud's ravelled hem,
Or, huge on high, that lion-coloured steep
Which, like a lion, roared into the night
Answering the roaring from sea-caves far down.
Dire was the strife. That hour the Mountain old,
An anarch throned 'mid ruins, flung himself
In madness forth on all his winds and floods,
An omnipresent wrath! For God reserved,
Too long the prey of demons he had been;
Possession foul and fell. Now nigh expelled
Those demons rent their victim freed. Aloft,
They burst the rocky barrier of the tarn
That downward dashed its countless cataracts,
Drowning far vales. On either side the Saint
A torrent rushed—mightiest of all these twain—
Peeling the softer substance from the hills
Their flesh, till glared, deep-trenched, the mountain's bones;
And as those torrents widened, rocks down rolled
Showering upon that unsubverted head
Sharp spray ice-cold. Before him closed the flood,
And closed behind, till all was raging flood,
All but that tomb-like stone whereon he knelt.

Unshaken there he knelt with hands outstretched,
God's Athlete! For a mighty prize he strove,
Nor slacked, nor any whit his forehead bowed:
Fixed was his eye and keen; the whole white face
Keen as that eye itself, though—shapeless yet—
The infernal horde to ear not eye addressed
Their battle. Back he drave them, rank on rank,

135

Routed, with psalm, and malison, and ban,
As from a sling flung forth. Revolt's blind spawn
He named them; one time Spirits, now linked with brute,
Yea, bestial more and baser: and as a ship
Mounts with the mounting of the wave, so he
O'er all the insurgent tempest of their wrath
Rising rode on triumphant. Days went by,
Then came a lull; and lo! a whisper shrill,
Once heard before, again its poison cold
Distilled: ‘Albeit to Christ this land should bow,
Some conqueror's foot one day would quell her Faith.’
It ceased. Tenfold once more the storm burst forth:
Once more the ecstatic passion of his prayer
Met it, and, breasting, overbore, until
Sudden the Princedoms of the dark that rode
This way and that way through the whirlwind, dashed
Their vanquished crowns of darkness to the ground
With one long cry. Then silence came; and lo!
The white dawn of the fourth fair Day of God
O'erflowed the world. Slowly the Saint upraised
His wearied eyes. Upon the mountain lawns
Lay happy lights; and birds sang; and a stream
That any five-years' child might overleap,
Beside him lapsed crystalline between banks
With violets all empurpled, and smooth marge
Green as that spray which earliest sucks the spring.

Then Patrick raised to God his orison
On that fair mount, and planted in the grass
His crosier staff, and slept; and in his sleep
God fed his heart with unseen Sacraments,
Manna of might divine. Three days he slept;

136

The fourth he woke. Upon his heart there rushed
Yearning for closer converse with his God
Though great its cost; and on his feet he gat,
And high, and higher yet, that mountain scaled,
And reached at noon the summit. Far below
Basking the island lay, through rainbow shower
Gleaming in part, with shadowy moor, and ridge
Blue in the distance looming. Westward stretched
A galaxy of isles, and, these beyond,
Infinite sea with sacred light ablaze,
And high o'erhead there hung a cloudless heaven.

Upon that summit kneeling, face to sea
The Saint, with hands held forth and thanks returned,
Claimed as his stately heritage that realm
From north to south: but instant as his lip
Printed with earliest pulse of Christian prayer
That clear aërial clime Pagan till then,
The Host Accursed, sagacious of his act,
Rushed back from all the isle and round him met
With anger seven times heated, since their hour,
And this they knew, was come. Nor thunder din
And challenge through the ear alone, sufficed
That hour their rage malign that, craving sore
Material bulk to rend his bulk—their foe's—
Through fleshly strength of that their murder-lust
Flamed forth in fleshly form phantoms night-black
Though bodiless, yet to bodied mass as nigh
As Spirits can reach. More thick than vultures winged
To fields with carnage piled, the Accursèd thronged
Making thick night which neither earth nor sky
Could pierce, from sense expunged. In phalanx now,

137

Anon in breaking legion, or in globe,
With clang of iron pinion on they rushed
And spectral dart high-held. Nor quailed the Saint,
Contending for his people on that Mount,
Nor spared God's foes; for as old minster towers
Besieged by midnight storm send forth reply
In storm outrolled of bells, so sent he forth
Defiance from fierce lip, vindictive chaunt,
And blight and ban, and maledictive rite
Potent on face of Spirits impure to raise
These plague-spots three, Defeat, Madness, Despair;
Nor stinted flail of taunt—‘When first my bark
Threatened your coasts, as now upon the hills
Hung ye in cloud; as now, I raised this Cross;
Ye fled before it and again shall fly!’
So hurled he back their squadrons. Day by day
The hurricanes of war shook earth and heaven:
Till now, on Holy Saturday, that hour
Returned which maketh glad the Church of God
When over Christendom in widowed fanes
Two days by penance stripped, and dumb as though
Some Antichrist had trodd'n them down, once more
Swells forth amid the new-lit paschal lights
The ‘Gloria in Excelsis’: sudden then
That mighty conflict ceased, save one low voice
Twice heard before, now edged with bitterer scoff,
‘That race thou lov'st, though fierce in wrath, is soft:
Plenty and peace will melt their Faith one day:’
Then with that whisper dying, died the night:
Then forth from darkness issued earth and sky:
Then fled the phantoms far o'er ocean's wave,
Thence to return not till the day of doom.

But he, their conqueror wept, upon that height

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Standing; nor of his victory had he joy,
Nor of that jubilant isle restored to light,
Nor of that heaven relit; so worked that scoff
Winged from the abyss; and ever thus the man
With darkness communed and that poison cold:
‘If Faith indeed should flood the land with peace,
And peace with gold, and gold eat out her heart
Once true, till Faith one day through Faith's reward
Or die, or live diseased, the shame of Faith,
Then blacker were this land and more accursed
Than lands that knew no Christ.’ And musing thus
The whole heart of the man was turned to tears,
A fount of bale and chalice brimmed with death—
For oft a thought chance-born more racks than truth
Proven and sure—and, weeping, still he wept
Till drenched was all his sad monastic cowl
As sea-weed on the dripping shelf storm-cast
Latest, and tremulous still.

As thus he wept
Sudden beside him on that summit broad,
Ran out a golden beam like sunset path
Gilding the sea; and, turning, by his side
Victor, God's angel, stood with lustrous brow
Fresh from that Face no man can see and live.
He, putting forth his hand, with living coal
Snatched from God's altar, made that dripping cowl
Dry as an Autumn sheaf. The angel spake:
‘Rejoice, for they are fled that hate thy land,
And those are nigh that love it.’ Then the Saint
Upraised his head; and lo! in snowy sheen
Cresting high rock, and ridge, and airy peak,
Innumerable the Sons of God all round
Vested the invisible mountain with white light,
As when the foam-white birds of ocean throng

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Sea-rock so close that none that rock may see.
In trance the Living Creatures stood, with wings
That pointing crossed upon their breasts; nor seemed
As new arrived but native to that site
Though veiled till now from mortal vision. Song
They sang to soothe the vexed heart of the Saint—
Love-song of Heaven: and slowly as it died
Their splendours waned: and through that vanishing light
Earth, sea, and heaven returned.

To Patrick then,
Thus Victor spake: ‘Depart from Cruachan,
Since God hath given thee wondrous gifts, immense,
And through thy prayer routed that rebel host.’
And Patrick, ‘Till the last of all my prayers
Be granted, I depart not though I die:—
One said, “Too fierce that race to bend to faith.”’
Then spake God's angel, mild of voice, and kind:
‘Not all are fierce that fiercest seem, for oft
Fierceness is blindfold love, or love ajar.
Souls thou wouldst have: for every hair late wet
In this thy tearful cowl and habit drenched
God gives these myriads seven of Souls redeemed
From sin and doom; and Souls, beside, as many
As o'er yon sea in legioned flight might hang
Far as thine eye can range. But get thee down
From Cruachan, for mighty is thy prayer.’
And Patrick made reply: ‘Not great thy boon!
Watch have I kept, and wearied are mine eyes
And dim; nor see they far o'er yonder deep.’
And Victor: ‘Have thou Souls from coast to coast
In cloud full-stretched; but get thee down: this Mount
God's Altar is, and puissance adds to prayer.’

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And Patrick: ‘On this Mountain wept have I;
And therefore giftless will I not depart:
One said, “Although that People should believe
Yet conqueror's heel one day would quell their Faith.”’
To whom the angel, mild of voice, and kind:
‘Conquerors are they that subjugate the soul:
This also God concedes thee; conquering foe
Trampling this land, shall tread not out her Faith
Nor sap by fraud, so long as thou in heaven
Look'st on God's Face; nay, by that Faith subdued,
That foe shall serve and live. But get thee down
And worship in the vale.’ Then Patrick said,
‘Live they that list! Full sorely wept have I,
Nor will I hence depart unsatisfied:
One said, “Grown soft, that race their Faith will shame;”
Say therefore what the Lord thy God will grant,
Nor stint His hand; since never scanter grace
Fell yet on head of nation-taming man
Than thou to me hast portioned till this hour.’

Then answer made the angel, soft of voice:
‘Not all men stumble when a Nation falls;
There are that stand upright. God gives thee this:
They that are faithful to thy Faith, that walk
Thy way, and keep thy covenant with God,
And daily sing thy hymn, when comes the Judge
With Sign blood-red facing Jehosaphat,
And fear lays prone the many-mountained world,
The same shall 'scape the doom.’ And Patrick said,
‘That hymn is long, and hard for simple folk,
And hard for children.’ And the angel thus:
‘At least from “Christum Illum” let them sing,

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And keep thy Faith: when comes the Judge, the pains
Shall take not hold of such. Is that enough?’
And Patrick answered, ‘That is not enough.’
Then Victor: ‘Likewise this thy God accords:
The Dreadful Coming and the Day of Doom
Thy land shall see not; for before that day
Seven years, a great wave arched from out the deep,
Ablution pure, shall sweep the isle and take
Her children to its peace. Is that enough?’
And Patrick answered, ‘That is not enough.’

Then spake once more that courteous angel kind:
‘What boon demand'st thou?’ And the Saint, ‘No less
Than this. Though every nation, ere that day
Recreant from creed and Christ, old troth forsworn,
Should flee the sacred scandal of the Cross
Through pride, as once the Apostles fled through fear,
This Nation of my love, a priestly house,
Beside that Cross shall stand, fate-firm, like him
That stood beside Christ's Motion.’ Straightway, as one
Who ends debate, the angel answered stern:
‘That boon thou claimest is too great to grant:
Depart thou from this mountain, Cruachan,
In peace: and find that Nation which thou lov'st,
That like thy body is, and thou her head,
For foes are round her set in valley and plain,
And instant is the battle.’ Then the Saint:
‘The battle for my People is not there,
With them, low down, but here upon this height
From them apart, with God. This Mount of God
Dowerless and bare I quit not till I die;

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And dying, I will leave a Man Elect
To keep its keys, and pray my prayer, and name
Dying in turn, his heir, successive line,
Even till the Day of Doom.’

Then heavenward sped
Victor, God's angel, and the Man of God
Turned to his offering; and all day he stood
Offering in heart that Offering Undefiled
Which Abel offered, and Melchisedek,
And Abraham, Patriarch of the faithful race,
In type, and which in fulness of the times
The Victim-Priest offered on Calvary,
And, bloodless, offers still in Heaven and Earth,
Whose impetration makes the whole Church one.
Thus offering stood the man till eve, and still
Offered; and as he offered, far in front
Along the aërial summit once again
Ran out that beam like fiery pillar prone
Or sea-path sunset-paved; and by his side
That angel stood. Then Patrick, turning not
His eyes in prayer upon the West close held
Demanded, ‘From the Maker of all worlds
What answer bring'st thou?’ Victor made rep
‘Down knelt in Heaven the Angelic Orders Nin
And all the Prophets and the Apostles knelt,
And all the Creatures of the hand of God
Visible, and invisible, down knelt,
While thou thy mighty Mass, though altarless,
Offeredst in spirit, and thine Offering joined;
And all God's Saints on earth, or roused from sleep
Or on the wayside pausing, knelt, the cause
Not knowing; likewise yearned the Souls to God
In that fire-clime benign that clears from sin;
And lo! the Lord thy God hath heard thy prayer,

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Since fortitude in prayer—and this thou know'st,’—
Smiling the Bright One spake, ‘is that which lays
Man's hand upon God's sceptre. That thou sought'st
Shall lack not consummation. Many a race
Shrivelling in sunshine of its prosperous years,
Shall cease from faith, and, shamed though shameless, sink
Back to its native clay; but over thine
God shall extend the shadow of His Hand,
And through the night of centuries teach to her
In woe that song which, when the nations wake,
Shall sound their glad deliverance: nor alone
This nation, from the blind dividual dust
Of instincts brute, thoughts driftless, warring wills
By thee evoked and shapen by thy hands
To God's fair image which confers alone
Manhood on nations, shall to God stand true;
But nations far in undiscovered seas,
Her stately progeny, while ages fleet
Shall wear the kingly ermine of her Faith,
Fleece uncorrupted of the Immaculate Lamb,
For ever: lands remote shall raise to God
Her fanes; and eagle-nurturing isles hold fast
Her hermit cells: thy nation shall not walk
Accordant with the Gentiles of this world,
But as a race elect sustain the Crown
Or bear the Cross: and when the end is come,
When in God's Mount the Twelve great Thrones are set,
And round it roll the Rivers Four of fire,
And in their circuit meet the Peoples Three
Of Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, fulfilled that day
Shall be the Saviour's word, what time He stretched
Thy crosier-staff forth from His glory-cloud

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And sware to thee, “When they that with Me walked
Sit with Me on their everlasting thrones
Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel,
Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.”

Thou therefore kneel, and bless thy Land of Eire.’

Then Patrick knelt, and blessed the land, and said,
‘Praise be to God who hears the sinner's prayer.’

EPILOGUE.

THE CONFESSION OF SAINT PATRICK.

ARGUMENT

Before his death, Saint Patrick makes confession to his brethren concerning his life; of his love for that land which had been his House of Bondage; of his ceaseless prayer in youth: of his sojourn at Tours, where St. Martin had made abode, at Auxerres with St. Germanus, and at Lerins with the Contemplatives: of that mystic mountain where the Redeemer Himself lodged the Crosier Staff in his hand; of Pope Celestine who gave him his Mission; of his Visions; of his Labours. His last charge to the sons of Erin is that they should walk in Truth; that they should put from them the spirit of Revenge; and that they should hold fast to the Faith of Christ.

At Saul then, by the inland-spreading sea,
There where began my labour, comes the end:
I, blind and witless, willed it otherwise:
God willed it thus. When prescience came of death
I said, ‘My Resurrection place I choose’—
O fool, for ne'er since boyhood choice was mine

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Save choice to subject will of mine to God—
‘At great Ardmacha.’ Thitherward I turned;
But in my pathway, with forbidding hand,
Victor, God's angel stood. ‘Not so,’ he said,
‘For in Ardmacha stands thy princedom fixed,
Age after age, thy teaching, and thy law,
But not thy grave. Return thou to that shore
Thy place of small beginnings, and thereon
Lessen in body and mind, and grow in spirit:
Then sing to God thy little hymn and die.’

Yea, Lord, my mouth would praise Thee ere I die,
The Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit
Who knittest in His Church the just to Christ:
Help me, my sons—mine orphans soon to be—
Help me to praise Him; ye that round me sit
On those grey rocks; ye that have faithful been,
Honouring, despite dishonour of my sins,
His servant: I would praise Him yet once more,
Though mine the stammerer's voice, or as a child's;
For it is written, ‘Stammerers shall speak plain
Sounding Thy Gospel.’ ‘They whom Christ hath sent
Are Christ's Epistle, borne to ends of earth,
Writ by His Spirit, and plain to souls elect:’
Lord, am not I of Thine Apostolate?

Yea, by abjection Thine, by suffering Thine!
Till I was humbled I was as a stone
In deep mire sunk. Then, stretched from heaven, Thy hand
Slid under me in might, and lifted me,
And fixed me in Thy Temple where Thou wouldst.
Wonder, ye great ones, wonder, ye the wise!
On me, the last and least, this charge was laid

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This crown, that I in humbleness and truth
Should walk this nation's Servant till I die.

Therefore, a youth of sixteen years, or less,
With others of my land by pirates seized
I stood on Erin's shore. Our bonds were just;
Our God we had forsaken, and His Law,
And mocked His priests. Tending a stern man's swine
I trod those Dalaraida hills that face
Eastward to Alba. Six long years went by;
But—sent from God—Memory, and Faith, and Fear
Moved on my spirit as winds upon the sea,
And the Spirit of Prayer came down. Full many a day
Climbing the mountain tops, one hundred times
I flung upon the storm my cry to God.
Nor frost, nor rain might harm me, for His love
Burned in my heart. Through love I made my fast;
And in my fasts one night I heard this voice,
‘Thou fastest well: soon shalt thou see thy Land.’
Later, once more thus spake it: ‘Southward fly,
Thy ship awaits thee.’ Many a day I fled,
And found the black ship dropping down the tide,
And entered with those Gentiles by Thy grace
Vanquished, though first they spurned me, and was free.

It was Thy leading, Lord; the Hand was Thine!
For now when, perils past, I walked secure,
Kind greetings round me, and the Christian Rite,
There rose a clamorous yearning in my heart,
And memories of that land so far, so fair,
And lost in such a gloom. And through that gloom

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The eyes of little children shone on me,
So ready to believe! Such children oft
Ran by me naked in and out the waves,
Or danced in circles upon Erin's shores,
Like creatures never fallen! Thought of such
Passed into thought of others. From my youth
Both men and women, maidens most, to me
As children seemed; and O the pity then
To mark how oft they wept, how seldom knew
Whence came the wound that galled them! As I walked,
Each wind that passed me whispered, ‘Lo, that race
Which trod thee down! Requite with good their ill!
Thou know'st their tongue; old man to thee, and youth,
For counsel came, and lambs would lick thy foot;
And now the whole land is a sheep astray
That bleats to God.’

Alone one night I mused,
Burthened with thought of that vocation vast.
O'er-spent I sank asleep. In visions then,
Satan my soul plagued with temptation dire.
Methought, beneath a cliff I lay, and lo!
Thick-legioned demons o'er me dragged a rock,
That falling, seemed a mountain. Near, more near,
O'er me it blackened. Sudden from my heart
This thought leaped forth: ‘Elias! Him invoke!’
That name invoked, vanished the rock; and I,
On mountains stood watching the rising sun,
As stood Elias once on Carmel's crest,
Gazing on heaven unbarred, and that white cloud,
A thirsting land's salvation.

Might Divine!
Thou taught'st me thus my weakness; and I vowed

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To seek Thy strength. I turned my face to Tours,
There where in years gone by Thy soldier-priest
Martin had ruled, my kinsman in the flesh.
Dead was the lion; but his lair was warm:
In it I laid me, and a conquering glow
Rushed up into my heart. I heard discourse
Of Martin still, his valour in the Lord,
His rugged warrior zeal, his passionate love
For Hilary, his vigils, and his fasts,
And all his pitiless warfare on the Powers
Of darkness; and one day, in secrecy,
With Ninian, missioned then to Alba's shore,
I peered into his branch-enwoven cell,
Half-way between the river and the rocks,
From Tours a mile and more.

So passed eight years
Till strengthened was my heart by discipline:
Then spake a priest, ‘Brother, thy will is good,
Yet rude thou art of learning as a beast;
Fare thee to great Germanus of Auxerres,
Who lightens half the West!’ I heard, and went,
And to that Saint was subject fourteen years.
He from my mind removed the veil; ‘Lift up,’
He said, ‘thine eyes!’ and like a mountain land
The Queenly Science stood before me plain,
From rocky buttress up to peak of snow:
The great Commandments first, Edicts, and Laws
That bastion up man's life:—then high o'er these
The forest huge of Doctrine, one, yet many,
Forth stretching in innumerable aisles,
At the end of each, the self-same glittering star:—
Lastly, the Life God-hidden. Day by day,
With him for guide, that first and second realm
I tracked, and learned to shun the abyss flower-veiled,

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And scale heaven-threatening heights. This, too, he taught,
Himself long time a ruler and a prince,
The regimen of States from chaos won
To order, and to Christ. Prudence I learned,
And sageness in the government of men,
By me sore needed soon. O stately man,
In all things great, in action and in thought,
And plain as great! To Britain called, the Saint
Trod down that great Pelagian Blasphemy,
Chief portent of the age. But better far
He loved his cell. There sat he vigil-worn,
In cowl and dusky tunic hued like earth
Whence issued man and unto which returns;
I marvelled at his wrinkled brows, and hands
Still tracing, enter or depart who would,
From morn to night his parchments.

There, once more,
O God, Thine eye was on me, or my hand
Once more had missed the prize. Temptation now
Whispered in softness, ‘Wisdom's home is here:
Here bide untroubled.’ Almost I had fallen;
But, by my side, in visions of the night,
God's angel, Victor, stood as one that hastes,
On travel sped. Unnumbered missives lay
Clasped in his hands. One stretched he forth, inscribed
‘The wail of Erin's Children.’ As I read
The cry of babes, from Erin's western coast
And Fochlut's forest, and the wintry sea,
Shrilled o'er me, clamouring, ‘Holy youth, return!
Walk thou among us!’ I could read no more.

Thenceforth rose up renewed mine old desire:

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My kinsfolk mocked me. ‘What! past woes too scant!
Slave of four masters, and the best a churl!
Thy Gospel they will trample under foot,
And rend thee! Late to them Palladius preached:
They drave him as a leper from their shores.’
I stood in agony of staggering mind
And warring wills. Then, lo! at dead of night
I heard a mystic voice, till then unheard,
I knew not if within me or close by,
That swelled in passionate pleading; nor the words
Grasped I, so great they seemed and wonderful,
Till sank that tempest to a whisper:—‘He
Who died for thee is He that in thee groans.’
Then fell, methought, scales from mine inner eyes:
Then saw I—terrible that sight, yet sweet—
Within me saw a Man that in me prayed
With groans unutterable. That Man was girt
For mission far. My heart recalled that word,
‘The Spirit helpeth our infirmities;
That which we lack we know not, but the Spirit
Himself for us doth intercession make
With groanings which may never be revealed.’
That hour my vow was vowed; and he approved,
My master and my guide. ‘But go,’ he said,
‘First to that island in the Tyrrhene Sea,
Where live the high Contemplatives to God:
There learn perfection; there that Inner Life
Win thou, God's strength amid the world's loud storm:
Nor fear lest God should frown on such delay,
For Heavenly Wisdom is compassionate:
Slowly before man's weakness moves it on;
Softly: so moved of old the Wise Men's Star,
Which curbed its lightning ardours and forbore

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Honouring the pensive tread of hoary Eld,
Honouring the burthened slave, the camel line
Long-linked, with level head and foot that fell
As though in sleep, printing the silent sands.’
Thus, smiling, spake Germanus, large in lore.

So in that island-Eden I sojourned,
Lerins, and saw where Vincent lived, and his,
Life fountained from on high. That life was Love;
For all their mighty knowledge food became
Of Love Divine, and took, by Love absorbed,
Shape from his flame-like body. Hard their beds;
Ceaseless their prayers. They tilled a sterile soil;
Beneath their hands it blossomed like the rose:
O'er thymy hollows blew the nectared airs;
Blue ocean flashed through olives. They had fled
From praise of men; yet cities far away
Rapt those meek saints to fill the bishop's throne.
I saw the light of God on faces calm
That blended with man's meditative might
Simplicity of childhood, and, with both
The sweetness of that flower-like sex which wears
Through love's Obedience twofold crowns of Love.
O blissful time! In that bright island bloomed
The third high region on the Hills of God,
Above the rock, above the wood, the cloud:—
There laughs the luminous air, there bursts anew
Spring bud in summer on suspended lawns;
There the bell tinkles while once more the lamb
Trips by the sun-fed runnel: there green vales
Lie lost in purple heavens.

Transfigured Life!
This was thy glory, that, without a sigh,
Who loved thee yet could leave thee! Thus it fell:

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One morning I was on the sea, and lo!
An isle to Lerins near, but fairer yet,
Till then unseen! A grassy vale sea-lulled
Wound inward, breathing balm, with fruited trees,
And stream through lilies gliding. By a door
There stood a man in prime, and others sat
Not far, some grey; and one, a weed of years,
Lay like a withered wreath. An old man spake:
‘See what thou seest, and scan the mystery well!
The man who stands so stately in his prime
Is of this company the eldest born.
The Saviour in His earthly sojourn, Risen,
Perchance, or ere His Passion, who can tell,
Stood up at this man's door; and this man rose,
And let Him in, and made for Him a feast;
And Jesus said, “Tarry, till I return.”
Moreover, others are there on this isle,
Both men and maids, who saw the Son of Man,
And took Him in, and shine in endless youth;
But we, the rest, in course of nature fade,
For we believe, yet saw not God, nor touched.’
Then spake I, ‘Here till death my home I make,
Where Jesus trod.’ And answered he in prime,
‘Not so; the Master hath for thee thy task.
Parting, thus spake He: “Here for Mine Elect
Abide thou. Bid him bear this crosier staff;
My blessing rests thereon: the same shall drive
The foes of God before him.”’ Answer thus
I made, ‘That crosier staff I will not touch
Until I take it from that nailed-pierced Hand.’
From these I turned, and clomb a mountain high,
Hermon by name; and there—was this, my God,
In visions of the Lord, or in the flesh?—
I spake with Him, the Lord of Life, Who died;

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He from the glory stretched the Hand nail-pierced,
And placed in mine that crosier staff, and said:
‘Upon that day when they that with Me walked
Sit with Me on their everlasting Thrones,
Judging the Twelve Tribes of Mine Israel,
Thy People thou shalt judge in righteousness.’

Forthwith to Rome I fled; there knelt I down
Above the bones of Peter and of Paul,
And saw the mitred embassies from far,
And saw Celestine with his head high held
As though it bore the Blessed Sacrament;
Chief Shepherd of the Saviour's flock on earth.
Tall was the man, and swift; white-haired; with eye
Starlike and voice a trumpet clear that pealed
God's Benediction o'er the city and globe;
Yea, and whene'er his palm he lifted, still
Blessing before it ran. Upon my head
He laid both hands, and ‘Win,’ he said, ‘to Christ
One realm the more!’ Moreover, to my charge
Relics he gave, unnumbered, without price;
And when those relics lost had been, and found,
And at his feet I wept, he chided not;
But, smiling, said, ‘Thy glorious task fulfilled,
House them in thy new country's stateliest church
By cresset girt of ever-burning lamps,
And never-ceasing anthems.’

Northward then
Returned I, missioned. Yet once more, but once,
That old temptation proved me. When they sat,
The Elders, making inquest of my life,
Sudden a certain brother rose, and spake,
‘Shall this man be a Bishop, who hath sinned?’
My dearest friend was he. To him alone

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One time had I divulged a sin by me
Through ignorance wrought when fifteen years of age;
And after thirty years, behold, once more,
That sin had found me out! He knew my mission:
When in mine absence slander sought my name,
Mine honour he had cleared. Yet now—yet now—
That hour the iron passed into my soul:
Yea, well nigh all was lost. I wept, ‘Not one,
No heart of man there is that knows my heart,
Or in its anguish shares.’

Yet, O my God!
I blame him not: from Thee that penance came:
Not for man's love should Thine Apostle strive,
Thyself alone his great and sole reward.
Thou laid'st that hour a fiery hand of love
Upon a faithless heart; and it survived.

At dead of night a Vision gave me peace.
Slowly from out the breast of darkness shone
Strange characters, a writing unrevealed:
And slowly thence and infinitely sad,
A Voice: ‘Ill-pleased, this day have we beheld
The face of the Elect without a name.’
It said not, ‘Thou hast grieved,’ but ‘We have grieved;’
With import plain, ‘O thou of little faith!
Am I not nearer to thee than thy friends?
Am I not inlier with thee than thyself?’
Then I remembered, ‘He that touches you
Doth touch the very apple of mine eye.’
Serene I slept. At morn I rose and ran
Down to the shore, and found a boat, and sailed.

That hour true life's beginning was, O Lord,

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Because the work Thou gav'st into my hands
Prospered between them. Yea, and from the work
The Power forth issued. Strength in me was none,
Nor insight, till the occasion: then Thy sword
Flamed in my grasp, and beams were in mine eyes
That showed the way before me, and nought else.
Thou mad'st me know Thy Will. As taper's light
Veers with a wind man feels not, o'er my heart
Hovered thenceforth some Pentecostal flame
That bent before that Will. Thy Truth, not mine,
Lightened this People's mind; Thy Love inflamed
Their hearts; Thy Hope upbore them as on wings.
Valiant that race, and simple, and to them
Not hard the godlike venture of belief:
Conscience was theirs: tortuous too oft in life
Their thoughts, when passionate most, then most were true,
Heart-true. With naked hand firmly they clasped
The naked Truth: in them Belief was Act.
A tribe from Thy far East they called themselves:
Their clans were Patriarch households, rude through war:
Old Pagan Rome had known them not; their Isle
Virgin to Christ had come. Oh how unlike
Her sons to those old Roman Senators,
Scorn of Germanus oft, who breathed the air
Fouled by dead Faiths successively blown out,
Or Grecian sophist with his world of words,
That, knowing all, knew nothing! Praise to Thee,
Lord of the night-time as the day, Who keep'st
Reserved in blind barbaric innocence,
Pure breed, when boastful lights corrupt the wise,
With healthier fruit to bless a later age.

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I to that people all things made myself
For Christ's sake, building still that good they lacked
On good already theirs. In courts of kings
I stood: before mine eye their eye went down,
For Thou wert with me. Gentle with the meek,
I suffered not the proud to mock my face:
Thus by the anchors twain of Love and Fear,
Since Love, not perfected, gains strength from Fear,
I bound to Thee this nation. Parables
I spake in; parables in act I wrought
Because the people's mind was in the sense.
At Imbher Dea they scoffed Thy word: I raised
Thy staff, and smote with barrenness that flood:
Then learned they that the world was Thine, not ruled
By Sun or Moon, their famed ‘God-Elements’:
Yea, like Thy Fig-tree cursed, that river banned
Witnessed Thy Love's stern pureness. From the grass
The little three-leaved herb, I stooped and plucked,
And preached the Trinity. Thy Staff I raised,
And bade—not ravening beast—but reptiles foul
Flee to the abyss like that blind herd of old;
Then spake I: ‘Be not babes, but understand:
Thus in your spirit lift the Cross of Christ:
Banish base lusts; so God shall with you walk
As once with man in Eden.’ With like aim
Convents I reared for holy maids, then sought
The marriage feast, and cried, ‘If God thus draws
Close to Himself those virgin hearts, and yet
Blesses the bridal troth, and infant's font,
How white a thing should be the Christian home!’
Marvelling, they learned what heritage their God
Possessed in them! how wide a realm, how fair.

157

Lord, save in one thing only, I was weak—
I loved this people with a mother's love,
For their sake sanctified my spirit to Thee
In vigil, fast, and meditation long,
On mountain and on moor. Thus, Lord, I wrought,
Trusting that so Thy lineaments divine,
Deeplier upon my spirit graved, might pass
Thence on that hidden burthen which my heart
Still from its substance feeding, with great pangs
Strove to bring forth to Thee. O loyal race!
Me too they loved. They waited me all night
On lonely roads; and, as I preached, the day
To those high listeners seemed a little hour.
Have I not seen ten thousand brows at once
Flash in the broad light of some Truth new risen,
And felt like him, that Saint who cried, flame-girt,
‘At last do I begin to be a Christian’?
Have I not seen old foes embrace? Seen him,
That white-haired man who dashed him on the ground,
Crying aloud, ‘My buried son, forgive!
Thy sire hath touched the hand that shed thy blood’?
Fierce chiefs knelt down in penance! Lord! how oft
Shook I their tear-drop sparkles from my gown!
'Twas the forgiveness taught them all the debt,
Great-hearted penitents! How many a youth
Contemned the praise of men! How many a maid—
O not in narrowness, but Love's sweet pride
And love-born shyness—jealous for a mate
Himself not jealous—spurned terrestrial love,
Glorying in heavenly Love's fair oneness! Race
High-dowered! God's Truth seemed some remembered thing
To them; God's Kingdom smiled, their native haunt
Prophesied then their daughters and their sons:

158

Each man before the face of each upraised
His hand on high, and said, ‘The Lord hath risen!’
Then, like a stream from ice released, forth fled
And wafted far the tidings, flung them wide,
Shouted them loud from rocky ridge o'er bands
Marching far down to war! The sower sowed
With happier hope; the reaper bending sang,
‘Thus shall God's Angels reap the field of God
When we are ripe for heaven.’ Lovers new-wed
Drank of that water changed to wine, thenceforth
Breathing on earth heaven's sweetness. Unto such
More late, whate'er of brightness time or will
Infirm had dimmed, shone back from infant brows
By baptism lit. Each age its garland found:
Fair shone on trustful childhood faith divine:
Eld, once a weight of wrinkles now upsoared
In venerable lordship of white hairs,
Seer-like and sage. Healed was a nation's wound:
All men believed who willed not disbelief;
And sat in that oppugnancy steel-mailed:
They cried, ‘Before thy priests our bards shall bow,
And all our clans put on thy great Clan Christ!’

For your sake, O my brethren, and my sons,
These things have I recorded. Something I wrought:
Strive ye in loftier labours: strive, and win:
Your victory shall be mine: my crown are ye.
My part is ended now. I lived for Truth:
I to this people gave that truth I knew;
My witnesses ye are I grudged it not:
Freely did I receive, freely I gave;
Baptizing, or confirming, or ordaining,
I sold not things divine. Of mine own store
Ofttimes the hire of fifteen men I paid

159

For guard where bandits lurked. When prince or chief
Laid on God's altar ring, or torque, or gold,
I sent them back. Too fortunate, too beloved,
I said, ‘Can he Apostle be who bears
Such scanty marks of Christ's Apostolate,
Hunger, and thirst, and scorn of men?’ For this,
Those pains they spared I spared not to myself,
The body's daily death. I make not boast:
What boast have I? If God His servant raised,
He knoweth—not ye—how oft I fell: how low;
How oft in faithless longings yearned my heart
For faces of His Saints in mine own land,
Remembered fields far off. This, too, He knoweth,
How perilous is the path of great attempts,
How oft pride meets us on the storm-vexed height,
Pride, or some sting its scourge. My hope is He:
His hand, my help so long, will loose me never:
And, thanks to God, the sheltering grave is near.

How still this eve! The morn was racked with storm:
'Tis past; the skylark sings; the tide at flood
Sighs a soft joy: alone those lines of weed
Report the wrath foregone. Yon watery plain
Far shines, a mingled sea of glass and fire,
Even as that Beatific Sea outspread
Before the Throne of God. 'Tis Paschal Tide;—
O sorrowful, O blissful Paschal Tide!
Fain would I die on Holy Saturday;
For then, as now, the storm is past—the woe;
And, somewhere 'mid the shades of Olivet
Lies sealed the sacred cave of that Repose
Watched by the Holy Women. Earth, that sing'st,
Since first He made thee, thy Creator's praise,

160

Sing, sing thy Saviour's! Myriad-minded sea,
How that bright secret thrills thy rippling lips
Which shake, yet speak not! Thou that mad'st the worlds,
Man, too, Thou mad'st; within Thy Hands the life
Of each was shapen, and new-wov'n ran out,
New-willed each moment. What makes up that life?
Love infinite, and nothing else save love!
Help ere need came, deliverance ere defeat;
At every step an angel to sustain us,
An angel to retrieve! My years are gone:
Sweet were they with a sweetness felt but half
Till now;—not half discerned. Those blessèd years
I would re-live, deferring thus so long
The Vision of Thy Face, if thus with gaze
Cast backward I might see that guiding hand
Step after step, and kiss it.

Happy isle!
Be true; for God hath graved on thee His Name;
God, with a wondrous ring, hath wedded thee;
God on a throne divine hath 'stablished thee:—
Light of a darkling world! Lamp of the North!
My race, my realm, my great inheritance,
To lesser nations leave inferior crowns;
Speak ye the thing that is; be just, be kind;
Live ye God's Truth, and in its strength be free!

This day to Him, the Faithful and the True,
For Whom I toiled, my spirit I commend.
That which I am, He knoweth: I know not now:
But I shall know ere long. If I have loved Him
I seek but this for guerdon of my love,
With holier love to love Him to the end:
If I have vanquished others to His love

161

Would God that this might be their meed and mine
In witness for His love to pour our blood
A glad stream forth, though vultures or wild beasts
Rent our unburied bones! Thou setting sun,
That sink'st to rise, that time shall come at last
When in thy splendours thou shalt rise no more;
And, darkening with the darkening of thy face,
Who worshipped thee with thee shall cease; but those
Who worshipped Christ shall shine with Christ abroad,
Eternal beam, and Sun of Righteousness,
In endless glory. For His sake alone
I, bondsman in this land, re-sought this land.
All ye who name my name in later times,
Say to this People, since vindictive rage
Tempts them too often, that their Patriarch gave
Pattern of pardon ere in words he preached
That God who pardons. Wrongs if they endure
In after years, with fire of pardoning love
Sin-slaying, bid them crown the head that erred:
For bread denied let them give Sacraments,
For darkness light, and for the House of Bondage
The glorious freedom of the sons of God:
This is my last Confession ere I die.

163

OISEEN THE BARD AND SAINT PATRICK.

168

I. THE GREAT CONTENTION.

Not seldom crossed by bodings sad,
In words though kind yet hard
Spake Patrick to his guest, Oiseen;
For Patrick loved the bard

In whose broad bosom, swathed with beard
Like cliffs with ivy trailed,
A Christian strove with a Pagan soul,
And neither quite prevailed.

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!

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‘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.

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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.

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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.

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‘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.

195

LEGENDS OF IRELAND'S HEROIC AGE.

203

THE FORAY OF QUEEN MEAVE;

OR, ‘THE TAIN BO CUALGNÉ.’

[_]

A FRAGMENT OF AN ANCIENT IRISH EPIC.

204

TO MY FRIEND SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON THIS POEM IS DEDICATED, IN TOKEN OF GRATITUDE FOR ‘CONGAL,’ ‘CONARY,’ AND MANY POEMS BESIDE, THAT ILLUSTRATE ARIGHT THE LEGENDS OF ANCIENT IRELAND.

205

PROLOGUE.

Senchan, the king of bards, when centuries six
Had flowered and faded since the Birth Divine,
Summoned in synod all the island bards,
Demanding: ‘Is there who can yet recite
That first of Erin's songs, “The Tain”?’ Not one
Could sing it, save in fragments. Then arose
Marbhan, and spake: ‘Send prayer to Erin's Saints
That, bowed o'er Fergus’ grave, they lift their hands
For Erin at her need.’ Five Saints obeyed
And o'er that venerable spot three days
Fasting made prayer while knelt the bards around.
Then on the third day as the sun uprose
Behold! a purple mist engirt that grave;
And from it, fair as rainbow backed by cloud,
Shone out a kingly Phantom robed in green,
With red-brown locks, close clustered, drenched in dew,
And golden crown, and golden-hilted sword;—
His hand was on it. They who saw that Shape
Well knew him, Fergus Roy, the Exile-King.
Gracious as in the old days, that king rehearsed

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The Tale so long desired, though many an age,
And that grey empire of departed Souls,
Had quelled at last the strong ones of that strain,
Record half jest, half earnest. Marbhan spoke
Once more: ‘Lest Erin lose again this Tale
Through fraud of demons or all-wasting time,
Amid you Saints elect some scribe, their best,
And pray that scribe to write it.’ Straight, with help
It may be, of the bards, Saint Kiaran wrote
The Heroic Song on parchment fine, the skin
Of one he loved, his ‘little heifer grey’
That gave the book its name. Six centuries passed;
Then in Saint Kiaran's House at Clonmacnoise
That book was found, and on it: ‘Reader, here
Are histories old with later fables blent,
Fancies full fair with idle Pagan vaunts:
Now therefore, since old things have in them worth
And teach by what they hold and what they lack,
Whoso shall read this book, and know to choose
'Twixt Good and Ill, my blessing on him rest!’

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BOOK I. THE CAUSE OF THE GREAT WAR.

ARGUMENT.

Meave, Queen of Connacht, and Ailill her husband, waking one morning fall into a disputation, each claiming to be the worthier of the two, and the wealthier. Their lords decide that the king and queen are great and happy alike in all things save one only, namely, that Ailill possesses the far-famed white Bull, Fionbannah. Meave hearing that Conor Conchobar, King of Uladh, boasts a black Bull mightier yet, is fain to purchase it, but cannot prevail so far. She therefore declares war against Uladh. There meets her Faythleen the Witch, who prophesies calamity, but promises that in aid of Meave she will breathe over the realm of Uladh a spirit of Imbecility. This she does; yet Cuchullain, unaided, afflicts the whole army of Meave by exploits which to him are but sports. Fergus, the exiled King of Uladh, narrates to Meave the high deeds of Cuchullain wrought in his childhood.

In Cruachan, old Connacht's palace pile,
Dwelt Meave the queen, haughtiest of woman's kind,
A warrioress untamed that made her will
The measure of the world. The all-conquering years
Conquered not her: the strength of endless prime
Lived in her royal tread and breast and eye
A life immortal. Queenly was her brow;

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Fulgent her eye; her countenance beauteous, save
When wrath o'erflamed its beauty. With her dwelt
Ailill her husband, trivial man and quaint,
And early old. He had not chosen her:
She chose a consort who should rule her not,
And tossed him to her throne. In youth her lord
Was Conor Conchobar, great Uladh's king:
She had not found him docile to her will,
And to her sire returned. The August morn
Had trailed already on the stony floor
Its fiery beam when, laughing, Ailill woke:
He woke, awakened by a sound that shook
The forest dews to earth, Fionbannah's roar,
That snow-white Bull, the wonder of the age,
Who, born amid the lowlands of the queen,
Yet, grown to strength, o'er-leaped her bound and roamed
Thenceforth the leaner pastures of the king,
For this cause, that his spirit scorned to live
In female vassalage.

That tale recalling
King Ailill laughed: his laughter roused the queen:
She woke in wrath: to assuage her Ailill spake:
‘Happy and blest that dame whose lord is sage!
Thy fortunes, wife of mine, began that day
I called thee spouse!’ To him the queen, ‘My sire
Was Erin's Ard-Righ! He had daughters six:
I, Meave, of these was fairest and most famed!
This Cruachan was mine before we met;
And all the Island's princes sued my hand.
I spurned their offers! I required three things—
A warrior proved, since great at arms am I;
A liberal hand, since lavish I of gifts;

209

A man not jealous, since, in love as war,
There where I willed I ever cast mine eyes.
These merits three were yours: I beckoned to you:
Dowered you with ingots thicker than your wrist;
Made you a king, or kingling. What of that?
I might have chosen a better! Yea, I count
My greatness more than yours!’

With treble shrill
Ailill replied, ‘What words are these, my queen?
My father was a king; my brothers kings!
My hoards are higher heaped than yours; my meads
More deep, more rich!’

Then loudly stormed the queen:—
In rushed her lords, and stood, a senate grave,
Circling the couch: and while, each answering each,
Ailill and Meave set forth in order due
The treasures either boasted, kine, or sheep,
Rich cornfield, jewelled robe, or gem-wrought car,
Careful they weighed the lists in equal scale
And 'twixt them found in value difference none.
Doubtful they stood. Anon rolled forth once more
Fionbannah's roar; and, clapping loud his hands,
King Ailill shouted, ‘Mine, not thine, that Bull!
Through him my treasure passes thine, my queen!
My worth exceeds thy worth!’ At once forth stepped
Mac Roth, old Connacht's herald, with this word:
‘Great queen, the King of Uladh boasts a Bull
Lordlier than ours, a broader bulk, and black,
Black as the raven's wing! In Daré's charge
That marvel bides, the Donn Cualgné named
Because his lowings shake Cualgné's shore,
The southern bound of Uladh. Privilege
He hath that neither witch nor demon tempt

210

That precinct where he harbours.’ Meave exclaimed:
‘Fly hence, Mac Roth! Take with thee golden store,
Rich garments, chariots gemmed: bid Daré choose;
But bring me back that Bull!’

Three days had passed:
Then by the tower of Daré stood Mac Roth
And blew his horn; and Daré's sons with speed
Flung the gate wide. The herald entered in
And spake his message. Proudly Daré mused,
‘Great Meave my friendship sues;’ and made a feast,
And, when the wine had warmed him, spake: ‘Mac Roth!
Cualgné's Donn is Conor's Bull, not mine:
Yet, though the king should hurl me outcast forth,
To Meave that Bull shall go and bide a year.
Tell her the Donn is manlike in his mind,
And not like Bulls. Long summer eves he stands,
Or paces stately up the mead and down,
Eyeing the racing youths, or glad at heart
Listening the music.’ Thus he pledged his faith.
But Daré's sons at midnight, each to each,
Whispered, ‘The king will chase us from the realm!
He hates Queen Meave, and well he loves the Donn;’
And stood next morn beside their sire, and spake:
‘Mac Roth is gone a hunting: ere he went
He sware that you had yielded him the Donn
Fearing his sword. ’Then Daré's heart was changed,
And loud he sware by all his swearing gods:
‘Cualgné's Donn shall ne'er consort with Meave,
Nor with her kine:’ and on his gate he set
The castle's Fool waiting Mac Roth's return,
And charged him with this greeting: ‘Back to Meave!
Thy queen she is, not Uladh's! Bid her know

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Our Donn and we revere Fionbannah's choice,
Her Bull, that leaped her gate and swam her flood,
Spurning the female rule!’

Then turned Mac Roth
His car; and sideway shook one hand irate;
And lashed the steeds, and reached great Cruachan,
And told his tale; and straight on them that heard
Like lightning fell the battle rage. The queen
Sent forth her heralds, east, and west, and south,
Summoning her great allies. Erin, that day
Save Uladh only, stood conjoined with Meave,
Great kings, and warriors named from chiefs of old
Sons of Milesius; for King Conor's craft
And that proud onset of the Red-Branch Knights
Year after year had galled their hearts. 'Twas come!
The day of vengeance! In their might they rose
From Eyrus' vales to utmost Cahirnane,
From Oileen Arda on to Borda Lu,
And where the loud wave breaks on Beara's isle;
And by the hallowed banks of Darvra's lake
Where, changed to swans, the Children Four of Lir,
Dowerless on earth, their home the homeless waves,
Darkling yet gladdening gloomier hearts with light,
And sad yet solaced through one conquering hope,
By song had vanquished sorrow. From the West
Came Inachall, and Adarc. Eiderkool
Marched, ever shrilling songs and shaking spears:
And, mightier far, with never slumbering hearts
And eyes that stared through long desire of home,
Uladh's three thousand exiles, driven far forth
When Conor Conchobar, trampling his pledge,
Slaughtered the sons of Usnach. At their head
Rode Fergus, Uladh's King ere traitor yet
Had filched its royal crown; and by his side,

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Faithful in exile, Cormac Conlinglas,
King Conor's bravest son. That host the queen
To Ai led, where Ai's four great plains
Shine in the rising and the setting sun,
Gold-green, with all their flag-flowers, meres, and streams:
There planted she her camp; thence ever rang
Neighing of horse, and tempest song of bard,
And graver voice of prophet and of seer
Who ceased not, day or night, for fifteen days
From warnings to the people, ‘Be ye one;’—
Yet one the people were not.

Meave the while,
Resting upon those great and growing hosts
Her widening eyes, rejoiced within, and clutched
The sceptre-staff with closer grasp, and heaved
Higher her solid, broad, imperial breast,
Amorous of battle nigh at hand. Yet oft,
Listening those bickerings in her camp she frowned:
For still the chieftains strove; and one, a king
Briarind, had tongue so sharp, where'er he moved
A guard was round him ranged lest spleen of his
Should set the monarchs ravening each on each.
‘The hand of Fergus,’ mused she, ‘that alone
Might solder yonder mass. Men note in him
His front, his voice, his stature, and his step,
The one time King of Uladh. Held he rule—
He shall not for my will endures it not!
He props my war because, long years our guest,
His honour needs not less; he marches with us
Athirst for vengeance and his native land,
Yet scoffs our cause, and sent, spurning surprise,
To Uladh challenge loud.’ Again she mused,
‘A man love-worthy if he loved again!—

213

At best 'twould be to him a moment's sport!
The battle and the stag-hunt, these alone,
He counts a prince's pastimes!’ Sudden from heaven
Eclipse there fell on Ai's spacious plains,
And shadow black; these noting, Meave revolved
That dread ‘Red Branch’ in act and counsel one,
Order world-famed of Uladh's chivalry,
And, brooding thus, with inner eye she saw
No longer men but skeletons of men
Innumerable in intertangled mass
Burthening the fields. Then panic-struck, she cried:
‘On to Moytura where the prophet dwells;’
And straight her charioteer the horses smote
And northward turned their heads: and lo, what time
The noontide sun with keenest splendour blazed,
Right opposite upon the chariot's beam
There sat a wondrous woman phantom-faced,
Singing and weaving. Shapely was that head
Bent o'er her web, while back the sun-like hair
Streamed on the wind. One hand upreared a sword:
Seven chains fell from it. Sea-blue were her eyes,
And berry-red her scornful lip; her cheek
White as the snow-drift of a single night;
Her voice like harp-strings when the harper's hand
Half drowns their pathos. Close as bark to tree
The azure robe clung to that virgin form
Sinewy and long, and reached the shining feet.

Then spake the queen: ‘What see'st thou in that web?’
And she, ‘I see a kingdom's destinies;
And they are like a countenance dashed with blood;
Faythleen am I, the Witch.’ To her the queen:
‘I bid thee say what see'st thou in my host,

214

Faythleen, the Witch!’ And Faythleen answered slow:
‘The hue of blood: sunset on sunset charged.’
Then fixed that Wild One on the North her eyes,
And Meave made answer, ‘In those eyes I see
The fates they see; great Uladh's realm full-armed,
And all that Red Branch Order as one man.’
Faythleen replied, ‘One man alone I see;
One man, yet mightier than a realm in arms!
That Watch-Hound watching still by Uladh's gate
Is mightier thrice than Uladh: on his brow
Spring-tide sits throned; yet ruin loads his hand.
If e'er Cuchullain rides in Uladh's van
Flee to thy hills and isles!’ Meave bit her lip;
But wildly sang the Witch: ‘Faythleen am I,
Thy People's patron 'mid the Powers unseen:
Beware that youth invisible for speed,
Who hears that whisper none beside can hear,
Sees what none other sees; before whose eye
The wild beast cowers, subdued! Beware that youth
Slender as maid, whose stature in the fight
Rises gigantic. Gamesome he and mild;
To women reverent and the hoary hair;
Nor alms he stints nor incense to the Gods;
But when from heaven the anger on him breaks
Pity he knows for none. No pact with him!
Return with speed and march to-morrow morn:
The clan of Cailitin shall yield thee aid,
That magic clan which fights with poisoned darts.
To Uladh I, above her realm to spread
Mantle of darkness, and a mind that errs,
And powerlessness, and shame.’

Due north she sped,
Far fleeting, wind up-borne, 'twixt hill and cloud,

215

To Uladh's cliffs, and thence with prone descent
Sank to the myriad-murmuring sea wine-dark,
And whispered to the Genii of the deep,
Her sisters:—then from ocean's breast there rose
A mist, no larger than a dead man's shroud,
That, slowly widening, spread o'er Uladh's realm
Mantle of darkness, and an erring mind,
And powerlessness, and shame.

The queen returned,
And reached her host what time the sunset glare
With omnipresent splendour girt it round,
Concourse immortalised. Thereon she gazed
High standing in her chariot, spear in hand:
Her, too, that army saw, and raised the shout.
But Fergus, as she passed him, spake: ‘Not yet
Know'st thou my Uladh, nor the Red Branch Knights;
And one man is there mightier thrice than they.’

Meantime within Murthemné's land its lord
Cuchullain, musing like a listening hound,
For many a rumour filled that time the air,
Sat in remote Dûn Dalgan all alone,
Chief city of his realm. On Uladh's verge
Southward that lesser realm dependent lay
Girt by a racing river. Silent long
He watched: at last he heard a sound like wind
In woods remote; and earthward bowed his head;
And said, ‘That sound is distant thirty leagues,
And huge that host;’ then bade prepare his car,
And southward sped, counsel to hold as wont
With Faythleen nigh to Tara.

216

Eve grew dim
When lo! a chariot from the woods emerged
In swift pursuit: an old man urged the steeds,
A grey old man that chattered evermore
With blinking eyes that ceased not from amaze
Now to himself, now to his charioteer.
That sight displeased Cuchullain: ne'ertheless
He stayed his course; and Saltain soon drew nigh,
Clamouring, ‘O son—and when was son like thee—
Forsake not thou thy father! In old time,
Then when some God had laid on me his hand,
Dectara, my wife, immured me in my house,
Year after year, and weighed the lessening dole:
But thou, to manhood grown, though even to her
Reverent, didst pluck her from that place usurped,
Lifting thy poor old father.’ At that word
Cuchullain left his car, and kissed his sire,
And soothed his wandering wits with meat and wine;
And spake dissembling, ‘Lo, these mantles warm!
For thee it was I stored them! Night is near;
Lie down and rest.’ Thus speaking, with both hands
He spread them deftly forth, and Saltain slept:
Then, tethering first the horses of his sire,
Lastly his own, upon the chill, wet grass
He likewise lay, and slept not.

On, at dawn
They drave; but Faythleen, witch perverse of will
That oft through spleenful change her purpose slew,
Had broken tryst; and northward they returned.
That day Cuchullain clomb a tree-girt rock
And kenned beyond the forest's roof a host
Innumerable, the standards of Queen Meave,
And Fergus, and the great confederate kings.
The warrior eyed them long with bitter smile;

217

He spake few words: ‘At fifty thousand men
I count them.’ To his father then he turned:
‘Haste to Emania! Bid the Red Branch Knights
Attend me in Murthemné. I till then
Hang on the invaders' flank, a fiery scourge.’

Saltain made answer: ‘Be it! northward I:
But Dectara, thy mother and my wife,
I will not see till thou art by my side;
For dreadful are her eyes as death or fate;
And many deem her mad.’

He spake, and drave
Northward; nor ceased from chatterings all day long,
Since, like a Poplar, vocal was the man
Not less than visible. Meantime his son
Took counsel in his heart, and made resolve
To skirt in homeward course that eastern sea,
The wood primeval 'twixt him and the foe,
Still sallying night and day through alley and glade
And taming thus their pride.

Three days went by:
Then stood Cuchullain where great wood-ways met;
And lo! betwixt four yews a warrior's grave,
The pillar-stone above it! O'er that stone
In mirthful mood he twined an osier wreath,
Cyphering thereon his name in Ogham signs:
For thus he said: ‘On no man unawares
Fall I, but warned.’ The hostile host approached,
And, halting stood in wonder at that wreath;
Yet none could spell the Ogham. Last drew nigh
Fergus, and read it: on him fell that hour
Memories full dear, and loud he sang and long;
He sang a warrior's praise: yet named him not;
He sang: ‘From name of man to name of beast

218

A warrior changed: then mightiest grew of men!’
And, as he sang, the cheek of Meave grew red.

Next morn Neara's sons outsped the rest
Car-borne with brandished spears, and, ere the dew
Was lifted, came to where Cuchullain sat
Beneath an oak, sporting with black-birds twain
That followed him for aye. Toward the youths
He waved his hand: ‘Away, for ye are young!’
In answer forth they flung their spears: he caught them,
And snapt them on his knee; next, swift as fire,
Sprang on the twain, and slew them with his sword,
One blow:—anon he loosed their horses' bits,
And they, with madness winged, rejoined the host,
Bearing those headless bulks. Forth looked the queen;
Beheld; and, trembling, cried, ‘It might have been
Orloff, my son!’

That eve, at banquet ranged
The warriors questioned Fergus: ‘Who is best
Among the Uladh chiefs?’ Ere answer came
King Conor's son self-exiled, Conlinglas,
Upleaping cried, ‘Cuchullain is his name!
Cuchullain! From his childhood man was he!
On Eman Macha ever was his thought,
Its walls, its bulwarks, and its Red Branch Knights,
The wonder of the world.’ Then told the prince
How, when his mother mocked his zeal, that child
Fared forth alone, with wooden sword and shield,
And fife, and silver ball; and how he hurled
His little spears before him as he ran,
And caught them ere they fell: and how, arrived,
He spurned great Eman's gates, and scaled its wall,

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And lighted in the pleasaunce of the king,
His mother's brother, Conor Conchobar;
And how the noble youths of all that land
There trained in warlike arts, had on him dashed
With insult and with blows: and how the child
This way and that had hurled them, while the king
Who sat that hour with Fergus, playing chess,
Gazed from his turret wondering.

Next he told
How to that child, Setanta first, there fell
Cuchullain's nobler name. ‘To Eman near
There dwelt an armourer, Cullain was his name,
That earliest rose, and latest with his forge
Reddened the night: mail-clad in might of his
The Red Branch Knights forth rode: the bard, the chief
Claimed him for friend. One day, when Conor's self
Partook his feast, the armourer held discourse:
“The Gods have made my house a house of fame;
The craftsmen grin and grudge because I prosper;
The forest bandits hunger for my goods,
Yea, and would eat mine anvil if they might—
Trow ye what saves me, Sirs? A Hound is mine,
Each eve I loose him; lion-like is he;
The blood of many a rogue is on his mouth;
The bravest, if they hear him bay far off,
Flee like a deer!” Setanta's shout rang loud
That moment at the gate, and, with it blent,
The baying of that hound! “The boy is dead,”
King Conor cried in horror. Forth they rushed—
There stood he, bright and calm, his rigid hands
Clasping the dead hound's throat! They wept for joy:
The armourer wept for grief. “My friend is dead!

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My friend that kept my house and me at peace:
My friend that loved his lord!” Setanta heard
Then first that cry forth issuing from the heart
Of him whose labour wins his children's bread,
That cry he honours yet. Red-cheeked he spake:
“Cullain! unwittingly I did thee wrong!
I make amends. I, child of kings, henceforth
Abide, thy watch-hound, warder of thy house.”
Thenceforth the “Hound of Cullain” was his name,
And Cullain's house well warded.’

Stern of brow
The queen arose: ‘Enough of fables, lords!
Drink to the victory! Ere yon moon is dead
We knock at gates of Eman.’ High she held
The crimson goblet. Instant, felt ere heard,
Vibration strange troubled the moonlit air;
A long-drawn hiss o'er-ran it: then a cry,
Death-cry of warrior wounded to the death.
They rose: they gazed around: Cuchullain stood
High on a rock. The swift one said in heart,
‘I will not slay her; yet her pride shall die!’
Again that hiss: instant the golden crown
Fell from her head! In wrath she glared around;—
Once more that hiss long-drawn, and in her hand
The goblet, shivered, stood! She cast it down;
She cried, ‘Since first I sat, a queen new-crowned,
Never such ignominy, or spleen of scorn
Hath mocked my greatness!’ Fiercely rushed the chiefs
Against the aggressor. Through the high-roofed woods
They saw him distant like a falling star
Kindling the air with speed. Ere long, close by

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He stood with sling high holden. At its sound
Ever some great one died!

The morrow morn
Cuchullain reached a lawn: tall autumn grass
Whitened within it; but the Beech trees round
Were russet brown, the thorn-brakes berry-flushed:
Passing, he raised his spear and launched it forth
Earthward: there stood it buried in the soil
Half-way, and quivering. Loud Cuchullain laughed,
And cried, ‘It quivers like the tail of swine
Gladdened by acorn feast!’ then drew he rein
And with one sword-stroke felled a youngling Birch
And bound it to that spear, and on its bark
Silvery and smooth, graved with his lance's point
In Ogham characters the words, ‘Beware!
Unless thou know'st what hand this Ogham traced
Twine yonder berries 'mid thy young bride's locks,
But spare to tempt that hand!’ An hour passed by
And Meave had reached the spot. Chief following chief
Drew near in turn; yet none could drag from earth
That spear deep-buried. Fergus laughed: ‘Let be,
Connacians! Task is here for Uladh's hand!’
Then, standing in his car, he clutched the spear
And tugged it thrice. The third time 'neath his feet
Down crashed the strong-built chariot to the ground.
He laughed! The queen in anger cried, ‘March on!’
The host advanced, disordered. Foremost drave
Orloff, Meave's son. That morning he had wed
A maid, the loveliest in his mother's court,
And yearned to prove his valour in her eyes.
Sudden he came to where Cuchullain stood
Pasturing his steeds with grass and flower forth held
In wooing, dallying hand. Cuchullain said,

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‘The queen's son this! I will not harm the youth,’
And waved him to depart. That stripling turned,
Yet, turning, hurled his javelin. As it flew
Cuchullain caught it; poised it; hurled it home:
It pierced that youth from back to breast; he fell
Dead on the chariot's floor. The steeds rushed on
Wind-swift; and reached the camp. There sat the queen
Throned in her car, listening the host's applause:
In swoon she fell, and lay as lie the dead.

Next morn again the invaders marched, nor knew
What foe was he who, mocking, thinned their ranks,
Trampled their pride; who, lacking spear and car,
Viewless by day, by night a fleeting fire,
Dragged down their mightiest, in the death cry shrill
Drowning the revel. Fergus knew the man,
Fergus alone; nor yet divulged his name,
Oft muttering, ‘These be men who fight for Bulls—
I war to shake a Perjurer from his throne,
And count no brave man foe.’ Again at feast
Ailill made question of the Red Branch Knights;
Fergus replied, ‘Cuchullain is their best:
I taught him arms! Hear of his Knighting Day!

‘Northward of Eman lies a pleasaunce green:
The Arch-Druid, Cathbad, gazer on the stars,
While there the youths contended, beckoned one
And whispered, “Happy shall that stripling prove
Knighted this day! Glorious his life, though brief!”
That hour Cuchullain stood beyond the wall
South of the city, yet he heard that whisper!
He heard, and cried, “Enough one day of life
If great my deeds, and helpful!” Swift of foot
He sped to Conor. “I demand, great king,
Knighthood this day, and knighthood at thy hand.”

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But Conor laughed: “Not fifteen years are thine!
Withhold thyself yet three.” That self-same hour
Old Cathbad entered, and his Druid clan,
And spake: “King Conor! by my bed last night
Great Macha stood, the worship of our race,
Our strength in realms unseen. ‘Arise,’ she said;
‘To Conor speed: to him report my will:
That youth knighted this day is mine Elect!
I, Macha, send him forth!’

‘“She spake and passed:
Trembled the place like cliffs o'er ocean caves:
Like thunder underground I heard her wheels
In echoes slowly dying.”

‘Fixed and firm
King Conor stood. Sternly he made reply:
“Queen Macha had her day and ruled: far down
Doubtless this hour she rules, or rules aloft:
I rule in Eman and this Uladh realm:
I will not knight a stripling!” Prophet-like
Up-towered old Cathbad, and his sons black-stoled.
This way and that they rolled prophetic bolts
Three hours, and brake with warnings from the stars
And mandates from the synod of the Gods,
The king's resolve. At last he cried, “So be it!
Since Gods, like men, grow witless, be it so!
The worse for Eman, and great Macha's land—
Stand forth, my sister's son!” He spake and bound
The Geisa, and the edicts, and the vows
Of that dread Red Branch Order on the boy,
And gave him sword and lance.

‘An eye star-keen
That boy upon them fixed, and, each on each,
Smote them. They snapt in twain. Laughing, he cried,

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“Good art thou, Uncle mine; but these are base:
I need a warrior's weapons!” Conor signed;
Then brought his knaves ten swords, and lances ten:
Cuchullain eyed them each and snapt them all,
The concourse marvelling. “Varlets,” cried the king,
“Bring forth my arms of battle!” These in turn
Cuchullain proved: they brake not. Up they dragged
A battle-car. Cuchullain leaped therein:
With feet far set he spurned its brazen floor
That roared and sank in fragments. Chariots twelve
Successive thus he vanquished. “Uncle mine,
Good art thou,” cried the youth; “but these are base!”
King Conor signed, “My car of battle!” Leagh
The charioteer forth brought it with the steeds:
Cuchullain proved that war-car and it stood.
Careless he spake: “So, well! The car will serve!
Abide ye my return.”

‘He shook the reins:
He called the horses by their names well-known:
He dashed through Eman's gateway as a storm:
Far off a darksome wood and darksome tower
Frowned over Mallok's wave: therein abode
Three bandit chieftains, foes to man: well pleased
Those bandits eyed the on-rushing car, and youth,
Exulting in their prey. That youth, arrived,
Summoned those three to judgment: forth they thronged,
They and their clan: he slew them with his sling,
The three: and severed with his sword their heads,
And fixed them on the chariot's front. His mood
Changed then to mirthful: fleeter than the wind
Six stags went by him, stateliest of the herd;
Afoot he chased them, caught them, bound them fast

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Behind the chariot rail. Birds saw he next,
White as a foam-wreath of their native sea,
Spotting the glebe new turned. A net lay near:
He caged them; next he tied them to his car
Wide-winged, and wailing loud. To Eman's towers
Returned he last with laughter: at its gate
The king, the chiefs, grey Druids, maids red-cloaked,
Agape to see him; on his chariot's front
The grim heads of those bandits; in its rear
Those stags wide-horned; and, high o'erhead the birds!’

The laughter ceased; then spake King Conor's son;
‘Recount the wonder of those fairy steeds
That drag Cuchullain's war-car!’ Fergus then,
Despite Queen Meave, who plaited still her robe
With angry hectic hand, the tale began.

‘Cuchullain paced the herbage thin that clothes
Slieve Fuad's summit. On that airy height
A wan lake glittered, whitening in the blast;
Pale plains were round it. From beneath that lake
Emerged a horse foam-white! Cuchullain saw,
And straightway round that creature's neck high-held
Locked his lithe arms, and lightly leaped upon him.
That courser baffled clothed his strength with speed:
From cliff to cliff he sped; cleared at a bound
Inlet, and rocky rift: nor stayed his course,
Men say, till he had circled Erin's Isle:
Panting then lay he, on his conqueror's knee
Resting his head; thenceforth that conqueror's friend,
His “Liath Macha.” Gentle-souled is she,
“Sangland,” the wild one's comrade. As the night
Sank on those huge red-berried woods of Yew
Lough Darvra's girdle, from the ebon wave
She issued, darker still. Softly she paced,

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As though with woman's foot, the grassy marge
In violets diapered, and laid her head
Upon Cuchullain's shoulder. In his wars
Emulous those mated marvels drag his car:
In peace he yokes them never.’

Fergus rose:
‘Night wanes,’ he said, ‘and tasks await my hand:’
Passing the throne he whispered thus the queen,
‘The Hound of Uladh is your visitant
Both day and night.’ The cheek of Meave grew pale.

Now Connaught.

Now Ulster.

Chief King.

Now Dundalk.

Armagh.

Cu in Irish means “hound.”

BOOK II. THE DEEDS OF CUCHULLAIN.

ARGUMENT.

Fergus is sent to Cuchullain with gifts, and requires him to forsake King Conor. This he will not do, yet consents to forbear Meave's host till she has reached the border of Uladh, the queen engaging that the warfare shall then be restricted to a combat between himself and a single champion sent against him day by day. Each day Meave's champion is slain. Cailitin, lord of the Magic Clan, counsels Meave to send against Cuchullain his best-loved friend Ferdïa; yet she sends, instead, Lok Mac Favesh. When he, too, falls, Cailitin and his twenty-seven sons, all magicians, fling themselves upon Cuchullain to slay him. Cuchullain slays them. The Mor Reega, the War-Goddess of the Gael, prophesies to him that there yet awaits him the greatest of his trials. After ninety days of combat Cuchullain's father brings him tidings that all Uladh lies bound under a spell of Imbecility.

Thus ever day by day, and night by night,
Through strength of him that 'mid the royal host
Passed, and re-passed like thought, the bravest fell;
For ne'er against the inglorious or the small

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Cuchullain raised his hand. Then Ailill spake:
‘Let Fergus seek that champion in the woods,
Gift-laden, and withdraw him from his king:’
But Fergus answered, ‘Sue and be refused!
That great one loves his country. Heard ye never
How when King Conor's sin, that forfeit pledge
Plighted with Usnach's sons, had left the Accursèd
Crownless, and Eman's bulwarks in the dust,
Her elders on Cuchullain worked, what time
He came my work of vengeance to complete?
They said, “Cuchullain loves his land o'er all!
The man besides, though terrible to foes,
Is tender to the weak. Through Eman's streets
Send ye proclaim, ‘Will any holy Maid
To save the city take her station sole
On yonder bridge, at parting of the ways,
That city's Emblem-Victim, robed in black
Down from her girdle to the naked feet;
Above that girdle this alone—the chains
Of Eman's gate, circling that virgin throat
And down at each side streaming? It may be
That dread one will relent, pitying in her
Great Uladh's self despoiled of robe and crown,
Her raiment bonds and shame.’” Of Eman's maids
But one, the best and purest, gave consent:
Alone she stood at parting of the ways:
While near and nearer yet that war-car drew
Wide-eyed she stood, death-pale: it stopped: she spake:
“Eman, thy Mother, stands a widow now,
Despoiled of crown, her raiment bonds and shame;
And many a famished babe that wrought no ill
Lies 'mid her ruins wailing.” To the left
The warrior turned his steeds. The land was saved.’

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Then spake the kings confederate: ‘Hard albeit
That task, to draw Cuchullain from his charge,
Seek him, and proffer terms!’ Fergus next morn
Made way through those sea-skirting woods, and cried
Three times, ‘Setanta’; and Cuchullain heard
And knew that voice, and, beaming, issued forth,
And clasped his ancient master round the neck,
And led him to his sylvan cell. Therein
Long time they held discourse of ancient days
Heaven-fair through mist of years. The youthful host
Set forth their rural feast, whate'er the woods
And they that in them dwelt, swine-herds, and hinds,
Yielded, their best: nor lacked it minstrel strain,
Bird-song by autumn chilled, that brake through boughs
Lit by unwarming sunshine. Banquet o'er,
Fergus disclosed the terms of Meave, and gifts
By her and Ailill sent. Cuchullain rose
And curtly answered, ‘Never will I break
My vow; nor wrong the land; nor sell my king:’
Fergus too royal was to hear surprised,
Or grieved, his friend's resolve, nor touched again
Upon that pact unworthy. Happier themes
Succeeded, mirthful some. Of these the last
Made sport of Ailill. Fergus spake: ‘One night
I sped to Meave's pavilion swift of foot;
War-tidings wait not. Ailill from afar
Furtively followed, stung by jealous spleen.
The queen had passed into the inner tent;
I sought her there. In the outer Ailill marked
My sword, that morning thither sent, a loan,
For Meave had vowed to out-brave its hilt with gems
Blazoning her zone. His wrath was changed to joy!
He snatched it up; he cried, “Hail, forfeit mine!

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Hail Eric just!

The fine exacted for various offences by the Brehon law.

” and laughed his childish laugh.
Since then he neither frowns on me nor smiles:
He will not let me rule his foolish kings;
Yet, deeming still my sword a charm 'gainst fate,
Wears it. An apter one I keep for him:
One day 'twill raise a laugh!’ In graver mood
At parting Fergus spake: ‘I grant that pact
Proposed by Meave is worthier her than thee.
If meeter terms thou knowest conceal them not.’
To whom Cuchullain: ‘Fergus, terms there be
Other and meeter. I divulge them not:
Divine them he that seeks them!’ On the morn
Fergus declared his tidings to the chiefs
In synod met. A recreant churl arose,
And thus gave counsel: ‘Lure Cuchullain here
On pretext fair; and slay him at the feast.’
Against that recreant Fergus hurled his spear,
And slew him, and continued, ‘Hundreds six,
Our best, have perished, and our march is slow:
Now, warriors, hear my counsel, and my terms:
Cuchullain scorns your gifts—of such no more!
'Twixt southern Erin and my Uladh's realm,
Runs Neeth: across that river lies a ford;
Speak to Cuchullain: “By that ford stand thou,
Guarding thy land. Against thee, day by day,
Be ours to send one champion—one alone:—
While lasts that strife forbear the host beside!”’

Then roared the kings a long and loud applause,
Since wise appeared that counsel: faith they pledged
And sureties in the hearing of the Gods:
Likewise Cuchullain, when his friend returned,
Made answer: ‘Well you guessed! a month or more
My strength will hold: meantime our Uladh arms.’
To seal that pact he sought the hostile camp,

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And shared the banquet. Wondering, all men gazed;
And maidens, lifted on the warriors' shields,
Gladdened, so bright that youthful face. At morn
Meave, when the chief departed, kissed his cheek:
‘Pity,’ she said, ‘that such a one should die!’
The one sole time that Meave compassion felt.

That eve Cuchullain drank the wave of Neeth,
And wading reached Murthemné's soil, his charge,
And knelt, and kissed it. As the sun declined
He clomb a rocky height, and northward gazed,
And cried, ‘Ye Red Branch warriors, haste! I keep
The ford; but who shall guard it when I die?’

Next morning by that stream the fight began,
Two champions face to face: and, every morn,
Rang out, renewed, that combat; every eve
Again went up from that confederate host
The shout of rage. Daily their bravest died,
Thirty in thirty days. Feerbraoth fell,
And Natherandal, though the Druid horde
Above his javelins, carved at set of moon
From the ever-sacred holly stem, had breathed
Vain consecration, and with futile salve
Anointed them: confuted soon they sailed
In ignominy adown that seaward tide
With him that hurled them. Eterconnel next,
Dalot, and Kyre;—yet he who laid them low
Was beardless at the lip. While thus they strove
A second month went by.

Such things beholding
The queen was moved; and in her grew one day
Craving for Cruachan. But on her ear
Rolled forth that hour the lowings of that Bull
Cualgné's Donn: for he from Daré's house
Had heard, though far, the clamours of the host,

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And answered rage with rage. Then Meave resolved,
‘Though all my host should perish to a man
This foot shall tread no more my native plains
Save with that Bull in charge!’

To her by night
Came Cailitin, who ever walked by night
Shunning mankind, and Fergus most of all,
Cailitin, father of the Magic Clan,
And thus addressed her: ‘Place in me thy trust:
I hate Cuchullain, for he scorns my spells
Resting his hope on Virtue. In thy camp
Ferdïa bides, a Firbolg feared of all.
Win him to meet Cuchullain. They in youth
Were friends: to slay that friend will lay a hand
Icy as death upon Cuchullain's heart.
Ferdīa dies—thus much mine art foreshews—
Then I, since magic spells have puissance most
Not on the body sick but spirit depressed,
Fall on him with my seven and twenty sons,
Magicians all. One are we: thence with one
May fight, thy pledge unflawed. A drop of blood
Shed by our swords, though small as beetle's eye,
Costs him his life.’ Fiercely the queen replied,
‘A Firbolg! Never!’ Cailitin resumed,
‘Then send for Lok Mac Favesh!’

With the morn
Mac Favesh sought her tent. Direful his mien;
Massive his stride; his body brawny and huge;
For, though of Gaelic race, the stock of Ir,
With him was mingled giant blood of old,
Wild blood of Nemedh's brood that hurled sea rocks
'Gainst the Fomorian. Oft the advancing tide
Drowned both, in battle knit. Before the queen
Boastful the sea-king laid his club, and spake:

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‘Queen, though to combat with a beardless boy
Affronts my name, my lineage, and my strength,
His petulance shall vex thine eye no more!
Uladh is thine to-morrow!’ At the dawn
By hundreds girt, the great ones of his clan,
Down drave he to the ford, and onward strode
Trampling the last year's branches strewn hard by
That snapped beneath him. Hides of oxen seven
Sustained the brazen bosses of his shield;
And forth he stretched a hand that might have grasped
A tiger's throat and choked him. O'er his helm
Hovered an imaged demon raven-black.
Cuchullain met him; hours endured the strife,
That mountained strength triumphant now, anon
Cuchullain's might divine. Then first that might
Was fully tasked. Upon the bank that day
Stood up a Portent seen by none save him,
A Shape not human. Terribly it fixed
On him alone its never-wandering eye;
The dread Mor Reega, she that from the skies
O'er-rules the battle-fields, and sways at will
This way or that the sable tides of death.
He gazed; and, though incapable of fear,
Awe, such as heroes feel, possessed his heart:
Wild beatings shook his brain; his corporal mould
Throbbed as a branch against some river swift;
And backward turned his hair like berried trails
Of thorn that streak the hedge. Three several times
He saw her, yet fought on. With beckoning hand
At last that Portent summoned from the main
A huge sea-snake: round him it twined its knots:
Then on Cuchullain fell the rage from heaven:
A sword-blow, and that vast sea-worm lay dead!
A sword uplifted, and Mac Favesh fell

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Prone on the shuddering flood. In death he cried,
‘Lay me with forehead turned to Uladh's realm;—
They shall not say that fugitive I died.’
Cuchullain wrought his will: then, bleeding fast,
Stood upright, leaning on his spear aslant;
A warrior battle-wearied.

From the bank
Meantime, the dark magician, Cailitin,
He and his sons, with wide and greedy eyes,
That still, like one man's eyes, together moved,
Had watched that fight, counting each drop that fell
Down from Cuchullain's wounds. When faint he stood
At once their cry rang out like one man's cry;
Like one their seven and twenty javelins flew:
As swift, Cuchullain caught them on his shield:
An instant more, and all that horde accursed
Was dealing with him. From the trampled ford
Went up a mist of spray that veiled that strife,
Though pierced by demon cries, and flash beside
Of demon swords. O'er it at last up-towered
On-borne, such power to blend have Spirits impure,
A single Form—as when o'er seas storm-laid
The watery column reels, and draws from heaven
The cloud, and drowns the ship—a single Form,
And Head, and Hand, clutching Cuchullain's crest:
Even then he sank not. O'er that mist of spray
Glittered his sword. There fell a silence strange:
That spell which made the many one, dissolved;
Slowly that mist dispersed; and on the sands
That false Enchanter lay with all his sons
Black, bleeding bulks of death.

Amid them stood
Cuchullain; near him, seen by him alone,
That dread Mor Reega, now benign. She spake:

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‘I hated thee, because thy trust was less
In me than Virtue's aid. I hate no more.
Be strong! a trial waits thee worse than this—
No man is friend of mine till trial-proved.’

Yet sad at heart that eve Cuchullain clomb
His wonted rock, and faint with loss of blood,
And mused: ‘My strength must lessen day by day;’
And northward gazed, thus murmuring; ‘All too late
To save the land those Red Branch Knights will come
When I am dead—
My war-car, and my war-steeds are far off,
And I am here alone.’ That night through grief
He slept not; for the Magic Clan had power,
Though dead, to lean above him as a cloud
Darkening his spirit, and to grief and shame
Changing bright days gone by.

While thus he sat
He saw, not distant, on the forest floor,
In moonbeams clad, though moon was near him none,
A pure and princely presence. Lithe his form
In youthful prime: chain armour round him clung
Bright as if woven of diamonds. Glad his eye;
Dulcet his voice as strain from Elfin glen
Far heard o'er waters. Thus that warrior spake:
‘My child, an ancestor of thine am I,
Great Ethland's son, in sacred battle slain,
Fencing my people from an alien foe.
Among the Sidils

The Fairy Hills.

now, and fairy haunts
Moon-lit, and under depths of lucent lakes,
Gladness I have who in my day had woe,
And youth perpetual though I died in age.
Thou need'st repose: for sixty days thine eyes
Have closed reluctant. Sleep a three days' sleep
Whilst I thy semblance bearing meet thy foes.’

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Thus spake the youth, then sang Lethean song
Wedded with softer song from waters near,
And, straight, Cuchullain slept. Three days gone by,
Again that vision came. ‘Arise,’ he said:
The warrior rose; and lo! his wounds were healed:
Down sped he to the river.

Waiting there
Stood up Iarion, champion of the queen,
There stood, nor thence returned. Eochar next
Perished, then Tubar, Chylair, Alp, and Ord,
In all full ninety warriors. Ninety days
Had fled successive since that strife began,
When, on the ninetieth eve, at set of sun,
His strength entire, and victory eagle-winged
Fanning his ardent cheek, Cuchullain scaled
Once more that specular rock. Within his heart
Spirit illusive, that with purpose veiled
Oft tries the loftiest most, this presage sang:
‘Southward, not distant, thou shalt see them march
At last, that Red Branch Order, in their van
Thy Conal Carnach!’ Other spectacle
Met him, a chariot small with horses small,
And, o'er the axle bent, a small old man
Urging them feebly on. It was his sire!
T'wards him Cuchullain rushed: the old man wept,
For gladness wept, and afterwards for woe,
Kissing the wounds unnumbered of his son:
Reverent, Cuchullain led him to his cell;
Reverent, he placed before him wine and meat;
Nor questioned yet. The old man satisfied,
Garrulity returned, though less than once,
Now quelled by patriot passion. Thus he spake:—
‘Setanta! son of mine! I bring ill news:
Uladh is mad; the Red Branch House is mad:

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Mad as thy mother; all the world are mad,
And I that was a mad man twenty years
Am now of Uladh's sons most nigh to sane.
Attend my tidings! Through the realm I sped:
A mist hung o'er it heavy, and on her sons
Imbecile spirit, and a heartless mind,
And base soul-sickness. Evermore I cried,
“Arise! the stranger's foot is on your soil:
They come to stall their horses in your halls;
To slay your sons; enslave your spotless maids:
Alone my son withstands them!” Shrewd of eye
Men answered, “Merchant; see thy wares be sound!
No lack-wits we!” Old seers I saw that decked
Time-honoured foreheads with a jester's crown:
I saw an ollamb trample under foot
His sacred Oghams; next I saw him grave
His own blear image on the tide-washed sands,
Boasting, “The unnumbered ages here shall stoop
Honouring true Wisdom's image.” Shepherds set
The wolf to guard their fold. The wittol bade
The losel lead his wife to feast and dance:
Young warriors looked on maids with woman's eyes.
I drave to Daré's Dûn: his loud-voiced sons
Adored the Donn Cualgné as their sire,
And called their sire a calf. To Iliach's tower
I sped: he answered, “What! the foe! they come!
Climb we yon apple trees, and garner store!
Wayfarers need much victual!” Onward next
To Sencha's castle: on the roof he knelt,
Self-styled the kingdom's chief astrologer,
Waiting the unrisen stars. To Olchar's Dûn
I journeyed: wrapped in rags the strong man lay
Thin from long fast; with eyelids well-nigh closed:
Not less beneath them lay a gleaming streak:

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“Awake me not,” he said: “a dormouse I!
Till peace returns I simulate to sleep.”
I sought the brothers Nemeth: one his eyes
Bent on the smoke-wreath from his chimney's top,
One on the foam-streak wavering down the stream;
While each a finger raised, and said, “Tread light!
All earth is grass o'er glass!” I sought the mart:
Men babbled: “Bid the Druids find the king!”
I sought the Druids' College: in a hall
Rush-strewn to smother sound, they held debate
On Firbolg and Dedannan contracts pledged
Ere landed first the Gael. The Red Branch House
Was changed to hospital; and knights full-armed
Nodded o'er lepers' beds. I sought the king:
From hall deserted on to hall I roamed:
I found him in his armoury walled around
With mail of warriors dead. There stood, or lay,
The chiefs by Uladh worshipped. Nearest, crouched
Great Conal Carnach patting of his sword
Like nurse that lulls an infant. On his throne
Sat Conchobar in miniver and gold:
His eyes were on his grandsire's shield that breathed
At times a sigh athwart the steel-lit gloom:
Around his lips an idiot's smile was curled:
“What will be will be,” spake the king at last:
“All things go well.”’

Thus Saltain told his tale:
One thing he told not—how, a moment's space,
The passion of an old man's scorn had wrought
Deliverance strange for that astonished throng,
High miracle of nature. He, the man
Despised since youth, the laughter of the crowd,
Himself restored to youth by change like death,
Had rolled his voice abroad, a mighty voice;

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They heard it: from their trance they burst: they stood
Radiant once more with mind! They stood till died
The noble anger's latest echo. Then
The mist storm-riven put forth once more its hand
And downward dragged its prey.

Upon his feet
When ceased his father's voice, Cuchullain sprang:
That rage divine which gave him strength divine
Had fallen on him from heaven. He raised his hands
And roared against the synod of the Gods
That suffer shames below. Beyond the stream
That host confederate heard and armed in haste,
And slept that night in armour. Far away
Compassion touched the strong hearts of the Gods,
The strongest most—Mor Reega's. Ere that cry
Had left its last vibration on the air
High up the Battle-Goddess, adamant-mailed,
Was drifting over Uladh. Eman's towers
Flashed back her helmet's beam. With lifted spear
She smote the brazen centre of her shield
Three times; and thunder, triple-bolted, rolled
Three times from sea to sea. The spell was snapped:
Humanity returned to man! The first
Who woke was Leagh, Cuchullain's charioteer:
Forth from the opprobrious mist he passed like ship
That cleaves the limit of some low marsh-fog
And sweeps into main ocean. Forth he rushed,
Forth to Cuchullain's chariot-house, and dragged
Abroad that war-car feared of all—men say
The axle burnt beneath his hand—and yoked
White Liath Macha, and his comrade black,
And dashed adown the vacant, echoing streets,

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And passed the gateway towers: the warders slept:
Beyond them, propped against the city wall,
A cripple crunched his mouldering crust. Still on
He rushed, the reins forth shaking and the scourge,
Clamouring and crying, ‘Haste, Cuchullain's steeds!
On Liath Macha! Sable Sangland on!
Your master needs you! Ay! ye know it now!
The blood-red nostril smells the fight far off!
On to Murthemné, and Cualgné's hills,
And Neeth's remembered ford!’ Unseen he drave;
So slowly, clinging still to brake and rock
And oft re-settling, vanished from the land
The insane mist. That hurricane of wheels
Not less was heard by men who nothing saw:
On stony plain, in hamlet and in vale:—
They muttered, as in sleep, ‘Deliverance comes.’

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BOOK III. THE COMBAT AT THE FORD.

ARGUMENT.

Meave sends her herald to Ferdīa the Firbolg, requiring him to engage with Cuchullain in single combat. Ferdīa refuses to fight against his friend; yet, later, he attends a royal banquet given in his honour; and there, being drawn aside through the witcheries of the Princess Finobar, he consents to the fight. The charioteer of Ferdīa sees Cuchullain advancing in his warcar to the Ford, and, rapt by a prophetic spirit, sings his triumph. For two days the ancient friends contend against each other with remorse: but on the third day the battle-rage bursts fully forth: and on the fourth, Cuchullain, himself pierced through with wounds, slays Ferdīa by the Gae-Bulg. He lays his friend upon the bank, and, standing beside him, sings his dirge.

Meantime the queen, ere dawned that ninetieth morn,
Mused, ill at ease: ‘Daily my people die,
And many a stormy brow on me is bent:—
What if they turn on me like starving hounds
That rend their huntsman?’ In her ear once more
Sounded the word of Cailitin: ‘The man
To fight Cuchullain is the man he loves:
His death were death to both.’ Then came the kings
Confederate, saying, ‘Send Ferdīa forth!
Ferdīa is the mightiest of our host:
Ferdīa is Cuchullain's chief of friends:
Westward of Alba in the Isle of Skye
Scatha, that rock-browed northern warrioress,
In amplest lore of battles trained them both:

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Except the Gae-Bulg, every feat of arms
Is known to each alike.’

The queen gave way:
She sent her herald to the man she scorned
With offers huge, tract vaster than his own,
Not barren like his mountains billow-beat,
But laughing in the lap of Ai's plains;
A war-car deftly carved and ribbed with brass;
And, for his clansmen, raiment of all dyes,
Twelve suits. A stalwart man yet fair as strong
The Firbolg towered, dark-eyed, dark-haired, palefaced,
Unlike the Gael. Melodious was his voice
But deeper than a lion's. Ceaseless thought
On immemorial wrongs—he brooded still
O'er glories of Moytura and Tailltenn,
Their great assemblies and their solemn games,
And kingly graves—had stamped upon his brow
Perpetual shade; and ever, on the march
If high on crags there stood some Gaelic tomb
Wind-worn a thousand years, he passed it by
With face averse, muttering, ‘New men! New men!
We note not such!’ The herald's task discharged,
He answered thus, not turning: ‘Tell your queen
That I, a Firbolg, serve, but not for hire,
A cause not mine. Cuchullain is my friend:
Better I died than he!’

O'er-awed though wroth
The queen despatched in statelier embassage
Three warriors, and three ollambs, and three bards:
With reverence they addressed him. ‘Chief and Prince!
True prince, though scion of a house deject,
The queen, who judges all men by their deeds,

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This day hath in thine honour made a feast
And sues to it thy presence. Kings alone
Partake that banquet; Ailill first, and she
Of princesses the fairest, Finobar!’
Scornful the Firbolg answered, ‘Finobar!
She whose bright face hath frosted with death's white
Full four score faces of war-breathing men
Sent to that Ford successive! Let it be!
Tell them I join their feast: tell them beside
Their bribe shall prove base gold!’

In mantle blue
Clasped by a silver torque, and silver belt
Enringed with silver rings innumerable,
That evening from his tent Ferdīa strode
With large attendance. Ailill and the queen
Received him on their threshold. At the board
Princes alone had place. High up, o'er each
Glittered upon the wall his blazoned shield.
King Ailill placed Ferdīa on his right;
Beyond him sat the Princess. In her ear
Her mother whispered as she neared that seat:
She answered with her eyes.

Well-stricken harp
Gladdened that festive throng; and Ailill told,
The rage of hunger lessening by degrees,
Full many a tale of the heroic past,
When, youthful yet, he ranged 'mid friends and foes
Such men as breathed no longer. Servitors
Brimmed oft the goblets: and Ferdīa's brow,
As song to song succeeded, tale to tale,
Remitted its first sternness. Finobar
Unconsciously had dropp'd her jewelled hand
Not far from his: her large and dusky eyes,

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Shyly at first from his withdrawn, at last
Full frankly met them: on her lips the smile
Increased, though waveringly, then waned, not died,
And in it sadness mingled as she spake:
‘But late yon harper told us of a dream—
My earliest of remembered dreams was sad;
I saw some princess of your earlier stock
Whose lover late had perished, slain in fight
By ours, methought then recent. At her feet—
Why there I scarcely know—I made lament:
“All thou hast lost for thy sake I renounce:
For me, like thee, no bridal rites forever!
Dead on thy marriage garland lies mine own;
For lo! the stain accursed is on our sword:
Thy race came first: this Island should be theirs!”’
Ferdīa listened; and the icy pride
Thawed in his bosom. With a sudden change
The jubilant music into martial soared,
Wild battle-chaunt. Upon the warrior's hand
Still nigh to hers, there lay a scar. With eye
Reverently dewed the princess gazed thereon:
‘Yes, of your war-deeds I have heard so long,
It seems as though since childhood—Whence that wound?
What battle left it there? What sister bound it?
I would that sister were my sister too,
Partaker of my heart, my hope, my life:
I have no youthful friend!’ She paused: again
But now with paler cheek, and hurried, spake:
‘Beware my mother! She would send you forth
Her knight to meet Cuchullain! Shun that man!
Cuchullain spares not: four score warriors dead
Avouch it. Chief of Gaels he is! Ah me!
The last great battle 'twixt the old race and new

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Would find the same sad ending as the first.’
The Firbolg frowned: she faltered, ‘Am I false,
False to my race’—and tears were in her voice—
‘False to my race, who cannot wish such ending?’
She paused; again she questioned of his wars:
He told her of his sire's. Like one who thinks
Not speaks, she murmured low, ‘A soothsayer
Thus warned my mother—I was then a child—
“Bring not that maid to war-fields! She shall die
Grieving for some dead warrior.”’

Speaking thus,
Though false the princess lied not.

Changed once more
The martial songs to amorous and of mirth,
And once again the torches' golden flame
Laughed on the cup new-brimmed. Again she spake
That lovesome one, ‘I love not songs of love!
Better the war-song! Best, methinks, of all
That lullaby half war and sorrow half
Breathed by some bride while o'er her wounded lord
Softly descends the sleep:—so softly sank
Cold dews of evening on this flower still wet.’
She took it from her breast, and held it near:
He smelt it; kissed it; kept it. With a smile
She added, ‘For your sister? Have you one?
If so, 'tis likely she resembles me:
They chide me oft: “No Gaelic face is thine,
Dark-eyed, dark-browed, a rebel since its birth!”’
She ceased; again she spake: ‘Even now, methinks,
That lullaby I spake of I can hear!
Is it for thee, my friend, or Cuchullain?’
That hand, of flower amerced, drew nearer yet
To his. That smile had passed. Tearful she turned
On him those luminaries of love and death,

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Her eyes, like stars in midnight waters glassed;
Turned them, but spake no longer. Through his brain
Shivered their shrouded lustre; through his blood:
The sanguine currents from the warrior's heart
Long sad, to female sympathies unused,
Drank up at once that splendour, and the tears
That splendour's strange eclipse.

And yet, that hour,
Seen in some lonelier region of his soul
Another presence, O how different, stood!
Again, that hour, he saw those guileless eyes,
Blue as the seas they gazed on; saw once more
That hair like winter sunshine, brow snow-white,
That unvoluptuous form and virginal,
That love-unwakened breast with love for all,
Those hands that knew not what their touch conferred,
Those blithesome, wave-washed, scarce divided feet:—
The huge cliff smiled upon her; seemed to say,
‘Ah little nursling mine! Ah tender child
Of winds and rocks untender!’

Had he loved?
Sadness is celibate and eremite:
His converse long had been with injuries past,
In Scatha's isle with frowning crags and clouds—
Ay, but with one beside, a friend, his nearest,
Who loved the daughter of that warrioress
And won Ferdīa's help in love. Ferdīa
Had never spoken love; nor thought, ‘I love:’
And yet, that hour, was false.

A hundred harps
Rang out together, and the feast was o'er:

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Murmured the rose-red lips; but what they said
He heard not. Mournfully at last withdrew
That hand so near to his—he had not touched it—
Those eyes, like eyes fated thenceforth to bear
One image on till death. She joined her mother.

The queen, as he departed, took his hand:
Alone they stood: she spake: ‘That noble scorn
Which spurned a bribe, approves a Firbolg's worth:
'Twas Ailill sent that herald: 'twas not I.
I know you now, and proffer royal terms
Confirmed by guarantee of all our kings:
Accept this combat; and the princess wed!
Ferdīa! I have made that offer thrice
To three dead warriors with the king's consent,
Never, till now, with hers!’

He pledged his word:
The battle day was fixed; the morrow morn:
She took that glittering torque whose splendours clasped
Her mantle red; with it his mantle bound:
Then with attendance to his tent he passed.

Meantime, that night within his forest lair
In dreams Cuchullain lay, and saw in dreams,
Not recent fights, but ocean and that isle
Where with Ferdīa he had dwelt in youth,
With Scatha—and another—loved, yet left.
He mused: ‘The dearest of my friends survives:
These wars will pass; Ferdīa then and I
Thenceforth are one for aye!’ That self-same hour
The Firbolg slowly woke from troubled sleep
Murmuring as one in trance, ‘Against my friend!
Against my only friend!’ His clansmen watched
With gloomy brows his arming. One sole man
They feared—that man Cuchullain. Morn the while

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Was dawning, though she raised nor glowing cheek
Nor ardent eyes, with silver wand not gold
Striking the unkindling portals of the East;
And, ere the sun had ris'n, Ferdīa bathed
Three times his forehead in the frosty stream;
And bade his charioteer attend; and drave
Begirt by stateliest equipage of war
Down to the river's brim. In regal pomp
The host confederate followed, keen to watch
With Meave, and Ailill, and with Finobar,
All passions of a fight unmatched till then
On war-fields of the immemorial world;
While clustered here and there, on rock or mound,
Minstrel and food-purveyor, groom and leech
With healing herbs, and charms.

The sun arose
And smote the forest roof dew-saturate
As onward dashed through woodlands to the Ford
Cuchullain's war-car. Nearer soon it rolled
Crushing the rocks. Above those wondrous steeds
That Great One glittered through low mist of morn,
Splendour gloom-veiled. Ferdīa's charioteer
Half heard, half saw him. Spirit-rapt, yet awed,
Perforce thus sang he standing near the marge:

‘I hear the on-rushing of the Car! I see
There throned that warrior not of mortal mould
Swathed in the morning. Dreadful are his wheels;
Dreadful as breaker arched, when on its crest
Stands Fear, and Fate upon the rock-strewn shore:
But not sea-rocks they crush, those brazen wheels,
But realms, and peoples, and the necks of men.

‘I see the War-Car! Terrible it comes,
Four-peaked; and o'er those peaks a shadowy pall
Pavilioning dim crypt and caves of death:

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I see it by the gleam of spears high held,
The glare of circling Spirits. Lo! the same
I saw far northward drifting, months gone by,
Ere yet that madness quelled the northern land.’

Then cried Ferdīa, stationed where huge trees
Shut out unwelcome vision: ‘For a bribe
Thou seest these portents, singing of my death!’

Once more, in agony prophetic, he—
‘The man within that car is Uladh's Hound!
What hound? No stag-hound of the storm-swept hills:
No watch-hound watching by a merchant's store:
The hound he is that tracks the steps of doom;
The hound of realms o'er-run, and hosts that fly;
The hound that laps the blood!’

Again he sang:
‘The Hound of Uladh is a hound with wings;
A hound man-headed! Yea, and o'er that head
Victory and empire, like two eagles paired,
Sail onward, tempest-pinioned. Endless morn
Before him fleeting over seas and lands,
With shaft retorted lights his chariot-beam.
That chariot stays not, turns not: on it comes
Like torrent shooting from a tall cliff's brow,
Level long time; then downward borne!’

‘A bribe!’
Once more Ferdīa cried; ‘A bribe! a lie!
Traitor! for Ailill's gold and gold of Meave,
Thou sing'st thy master's death-song!’

By the stream
Cuchullain stood: nor yet he knew his foe:
That foe who slowly to the Ford advanced
Full panoplied, and in his hand a spear.
Long gazed they each on each. Cuchullain spake:

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‘Welcome howe'er thou com'st, Ferdīa! Once
In Scatha's Isle far otherwise thou camest
Morn after morn with tidings fresh of war,
Plaything and pastime of our brother brands.
This day thou com'st invader of my land
Murthemné, bulwark broad of Uladh's realm;
Thou com'st to burn my cities, spoil my flocks—
A change there is, Ferdīa!’ Stern of brow
The Firbolg answered: ‘Friends we were; not peers:
The younger thou. 'Twas thine to yoke my steeds;
Arm me for fight. A stripling hopes this day
With brandished spear to make a mountain flee!
Son of the Gael! long centuries since, thy race
Trampled my race: their vengeance hour is near:
I bid thee to depart!’ To him his friend:
‘Ferdīa, in the old days on Scatha's Isle
Thou wert my tribe, my house, my stock, my race!
Questioned I then on battle-plain, or when
On frosty nights we crouched beneath one rug,
Ancestral claims, traditions of the clan?—
A change there is, Ferdīa!’

Thus with words
Or mild, or stern, in hope to save not slay,
Those friends contended. Sternest was the man
Whose conscience most aggrieved him.

‘To this Ford
Thou cam'st the first, old comrade! choice of arms
Is therefore thine by right!’ Cuchullain spake:
Ferdīa chose the javelin. Arrow-swift,
While still the charioteers brought back the shaft,
The missiles flew. Keen-eyed as ocean-bird
That, high in sunshine poised, glimpses his prey
Beneath the wave, and downward swooping slays him,
Each watched the other's movements, if an arm

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Lifted too high, or buckler dropped too low
Left bare a rivet. Long that fight endured:
Three times exhausted sank their hands: three times
They sat on rocks for respite, each the other
Eying askance, not silent: ‘Lo the man
Who shields an ox-like or a swine-like race
That strikes no blow itself!’ or thus: ‘Ah pledge
Of amity eterne in old time sworn!
Ferdīa, vow thy vow henceforth to maids!
The man-race nothing heeds thee!’

Evening fell
And stayed perforce that combat. Slowly drew
The warriors near; and as they noted, each,
The other bleeding, friendship unextinct
In all its strength returned: round either's neck
The other wound his arms and kissed him thrice:
That night their coursers in the self-same field
Grazed, side by side: that night their charioteers
With rushes gathered from the self-same stream
Made smooth their masters' beds, then sat themselves
By the same fire. Cuchullain sent the half
Of every healing herb that lulled his wounds
To staunch Ferdīa's; while to him in turn
Ferdīa sent whate'er of meats or drinks
Held strengthening power or cordial, to allay
Distempered nerve or nimble spirit infuse,
In equal portions shared.

The second morn
They met at sunrise:—‘Thine the choice of arms;’
The Firbolg spake; the Gael made answer, ‘Spears!’
Then leaped the champions on their battle-cars
And launched them into battle. Dire their shock
In fiery orbits wheeling now; anon
Wheel locked in wheel. Profounder wounds by far

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That day than on the first the warriors gored,
Since closer was the fight. With laughing lip
Not less that eve Cuchullain sang the stave
That chides in war ‘Fomorian obstinacy’:
Again at eve drew near they, slower now
For pain, and interwove fraternal arms:
Again their coursers in the self-same field
Grazed side by side, and from the self-same stream
Again their charioteers the rushes culled:
Again they shared alike both meats and drinks,
Again those herbs allaying o'er their wounds
With incantations laid.

Forlorn and sad
Peered the third morning o'er the vaporous woods,
The wan grey river with its floating weed,
And bubble unirradiate. From the marge
Cuchullain sadly marked the advancing foe:—
‘Alas, my brother! beamless is thine eye;
The radiance lives no longer on thy hair;
And slow thy step.’ The doomed one answered calm,
‘Cuchullain, slow of foot, but strong of hand
Fate drags his victim to the spot decreed:
The choice to-day is mine: I choose the sword.’

So spake the Firbolg; and they closed in fight:
And straightway from his heart to arm and hand
Rushed up the strength of all that buried race
By him so loved! Once more it swelled his breast:
Re-clothed in majesty each massive limb,
And flashed in darksome light of hair and eye
Resplendent as of old. Surpassing deeds
They wrought, while circled meteor-like their swords,
Or fell like heaven's own bolt on shield or helm.
Long hours they strove till morning's purer gleam
Vanished in noon. Sharper that day their speech;

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For, in the intenser present, years gone by
Hung but like pallid, thin, horizon clouds
O'er memory's loneliest limit. Evening sank
Upon the dripping groves and shuddering flood
With rainy wailings. Not as heretofore
Their parting. Haughtily their mail they tossed
Each to his followers. In the self-same field
That night their coursers grazed not; neither sat
Their charioteers beside the self-same fire:
Nor sent they, each to other, healing herbs.

Ere morn the Firbolg drank the strength of dreams
Picturing his race's wrong; and trumpet blasts
Went o'er him blown from fields of ancient wars:
And thus he mused, half-wakened: ‘Not for Meave;
Not for the popular suffrage; not for her
That maid who fain had held me from the snare,
Fight I that fight whose end shall crown this day:
O race beloved, this day your vengeance dawns
Red in the East! The mightiest of the Gaels
Goes down before me! What if both should die:
So best! Thus too the Firbolg is avenged!’
So mused he. Stately from his couch he rose,
And armed himself, sedate. Upon his breast
He laid, in iron sheathed, a huge, flat stone,
For thus he said, ‘Though many a feat of arms
Is mine, from Scatha learned, or else self-taught,
The Gae-Bulg is Cuchullain's!’ On his head
He fixed his helm, and on his arm his shield
Sable as night, with fifty bosses bound,
All brass; the midmost like a noontide sun.

Cuchullain eyed him as he neared the Ford,
And spake to Leagh: ‘This day, if thou shouldst mark
This hand or slack or sluggish, hurl, as wont,

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Sharp storm of arrowy railing from thy lips
That so the battle-anger from on high
May flame on me.’ The choice of arms was his:
He chose ‘the Ford-Feat.’ On the Firbolg's brow
A shadow fell:—‘All weapons there,’ he mused,
‘Have place alike: if on him falls the rage
He will not spare the Gae-Bulg!’

Well they knew,
Both warriors, that the fortunes of that day
Must end the conflict; that for one, or both,
The sun that hour ascending shone his last:
Therefore all strength of onset till that hour
By either loosed or hoarded, craft of fight
Reined in one moment but to spring the next
Forward in might more terrible, compared
With that last battle was a trivial thing;
Whilst every weapon, javelin, spear, or sword,
Lawful alike that day, scattered abroad
Huge flakes of dinted mail; from every wound
Bounded the life-blood of a heart athirst
For victory or for death. The vernal day
Panted with summer ardours, while aloft
Noon-tide, a fire-tressed Fury, waved her torch
Kindling the lit grove and its youngling green
From the azure-blazing zenith. Waxed the heat:—
So waxed the warriors' frenzy. Hours went by:
That day they sought not rest on rock or mound,
Held no discourse. Slowly the sun declined;
And as wayfarers tired, when twilight falls,
Advance with strength renewed, so they, refreshed,
Surpassed their deeds at morning. With a bound
Cuchullain, from the bank high springing, lit
Full on the broad boss of Ferdīa's shield,
His dagger-point down turned. With spasm of arm

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Instant the Firbolg from its sable rim
Cast him astonished. Upward from the Ford
Again Cuchullain reached that shield: again
With spasm of knee Ferdīa flung him far,
While Leagh in scorn reviled him: ‘As the flood
Shoots on the tempest's blast its puny foam;
The oak-tree casts its dead leaf on the wave;
The mill-wheel showers its spray; the shameless woman
Hurls on the mere that babe which was her shame,
So hurls Ferdīa forth that fairy-child
Whom men misdeemed for warrior!’

Then from heaven
Came down upon Cuchullain like the night
The madness-wrath. The Foes confronted met:
Shivered their spears from point to haft: their swords
Flashed lightnings round them. Fate-compelled, their feet
Drew near, then reached, that stream which backward fled
Leaving its channel dry. While raged that fight
Cuchullain's stature rose, huge bulk, immense,
Ascending still: as high Ferdīa towered
Like Fomor old or Nemed from the sea,
Those shields, their covering late from foot to helm,
Shrinking, so seemed it, till above them beamed
Shoulders and heads. So close that fight, their crests
That waved defiance mingled in 'mid air;
While all along the circles of their shields
And all adown their swords, ran, mad with rage,
Viewless for speed the demons of dark moors
And war-sprites of the valleys, Bocanachs
And Banacahs, whose scream, so keen its edge,
Might shear the centuried forest as the scythe

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Shears meadow grass. To these in dread response
Thundered far off from sea-caves billow-beat
And halls rock-vaulted 'neath the eternal hills,
That race Tuatha, giant once, long since
To pigmy changed, that forge from molten ores
For aye their clanging weapons, shield or spear,
On stony anvils, waiting the day decreed
Of vengeance on the Gael. That tumult scared
The horses of the host of Meave, that brake
From war-car or the tethering rope, and spread
Ruin around. Camp-followers first, then chiefs
Innumerable were dragged along, or lay
'Neath broken axle, dead. The end was nigh:
Cuchullain's shield splintered upon his arm
Served him no more; and through his fenceless side
Ferdīa drave the sword. Then first the Gael
Hurled forth this taunt: ‘The Firbolg, bribed by Meave,
Has sold his ancient friend!’ Ferdīa next,
‘No Firbolg he, that man in Scatha's Isle,
Who won a maid, then left her!’ Backward stepped
Cuchullain paces three: he reached the bank;
He uttered low, ‘The Gae-Bulg!’ Instant Leagh
Within his hand had lodged it. Bending low,
Low as that stream—the war-game's crowning feat—
He launched it on Ferdīa's breast. The shield,
The iron plate beneath, the stone within it,
Like shallow ice-film 'neath a courser's hoof
Burst. All was o'er. To earth the warrior sank:
Dying, he spake: ‘Not thine this deed, O friend:
'Twas Meave who winged that bolt into my heart!’

Then ran Cuchullain to that great one dead
And raised him in his arms and laid him down
Beside the Ford, but on its northern bank,

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Not in that realm by Ailill swayed and Meave:
Long time he looked the dead man in the face;
Then by him fell in swoon. ‘Cuchullain, rise!
The men of Erin be upon thee! Rise!’
Thus Leagh. He answered, waking, ‘Let them come!
To me what profit if I live or die?
The man I loved is dead!’

But by the dead
Cuchullain stood; and thus he made lament:
‘Ferdīa! On their head the curse descend
Who sent thee to thy death! We meet no more;
Never while sun, and moon, and earth endure.

‘Ferdīa! Far away in Scatha's Isle
A great troth bound us and a vow life-long
Never to raise war-weapons, each on each:—
'Twas Finobar that snared thee! She shall die.

‘Ferdīa! dearer to my heart wert thou
Than all beside if all were joined in one:
Dear was thy clouded face and darksome eye;
Thy deep, sad voice; thy words so wise and few;
Dear was thy silence: dear thy slow, grave ways,
Not boastful like the Gael's.’

Silent he stood
While Leagh in reverence from the dead man's breast
Loosened his mail. There shone the torque of Meave:
There where the queen had fixed it yet it lay.
Cuchullain clutched it. ‘Ha! that torque I spurned!
Dark gem ill-lifted from the seas of Death!
Swart planet bickering from the heavens of Fate!
With what a baleful beam thou look'st on me!
'Twas thou, 'twas thou, not I, that slew'st this man’—
He dashed it on the rock, and with his heel
Crushed it to fragments.

Then, as one from trance

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Waking, once more he spake: ‘O me—O me,
That I should see that face so great and pale!
To-day face-whitening death is on that face;
And in my hand my sword;—'tis crimson yet.
That day when he and I triumphed in fight
By Formait's lake o'er Scatha's pirate foes
The woman fetched a beaker forth of wine,
And made us drink it both; and made us vow
Friendship eterne. O friend, my hand this day
Tendered a bloody beaker to thy lip.’

Again he sang: ‘Queen Meave to Uladh's bound
Came down; and dark the deed that grew thereof;
Came down with all the hosting of her kings;
And dark the deed that grew thereof. We two
Abode with Scatha in her northern isle,
Her pupils twinned. The sea-girt warrioress
That honoured few men honoured us alike:
We ate together of the self-same dish:
We couched together 'neath the self-same shield:
Now living man I stand, and he lies dead!’

He raised again his head: once more he sang:
‘Each battle was a game, a jest, a sport
Till came, fore-doomed, Ferdīa to the Ford,
I loved the warrior though I pierced his heart.
Each battle was a game, a jest, a sport
Till stood, self-doomed, Ferdīa by the Ford—
Huge lion of the forestry of war;
Fair, central pillar of the House of Fame;
But yesterday he towered above the world:
This day he lies along the earth, a shade.’

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BOOK IV. THE INVASION OF ULADH.

ARGUMENT.

Cuchullain lies long in the forest nigh to death from his wounds, and yet more through grief for Ferdīa. Meave crosses the Ford into Uladh, and captures the Donn Cualgné. His fate. The confederate kings fall out among themselves; Meave summons a war council: whereupon there bursts forth a contention between them and the Exile-Band. She makes the circuit of all Uladh, yet enacts nothing memorable. Lastly she marches against Eman, but slowly, being encumbered by her spoil. Uladh rouses itself out of its trance of Imbecility. The death of Ketherne. Finobar is fain to draw Rochad to the cause of her mother, but fails. Her fate. Meave, falling into despondency, re-crosses the frontier.

Silence amid the wide, confederate camp:
No clang of sword or shield; no warrior's tread
Striding to Meave with battle-gage down flung
For him who kept the Ford. But when six days
Were past, and none had seen that threatening helm,
There went abroad a rumour, ‘He is dead:’
Then sped to her six champions claiming fight:
Whom from her presence spurning, Meave advanced
With all her host o'er Uladh's frontier line
By Daré's castle and the ill-omened gate
Whereon high-seated Daré's Fool had hurled
Against her, scorn and gibe. As Meave drew near
Forth rolled the bellowing of Cualgné's Donn,
Cause of that war. King Daré's sons had fled;
But in the gate-way stood their old, grey sire,
Alone, and slew the first that passed its bar:

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The rest dashed in upon him, and he died.

That night within her deep heart mused the queen:
‘'Tis done! I tread at last great Uladh's realm;
But, day by day, Faythleen's Imbecile Mist
That slew its manhood, drifts. What if those kings
Confederate fail me, or some ruinous chance
Leaves half my army on the war-field dead?
Connacht would frown against me: Ailill, too,
Would blink yet more his jesting eyes, and boast
Fionbannah, and extol his worth o'er mine!
He shall not! Let us send, ere Fortune change,
My boast, my spoil, Cualgné's matchless Donn,
To Cruachan! That done, befall what may,
My worship there stands whole!’ Next day, ere dawn,
Southward she sent the Donn. Suspecting fraud,
He on his keepers turning slew a score,
Yet peaceful paced at last betwixt their ranks,
At each side fifty spears. Five days past by,
Forth rolled the roar of Ailill's Bull snow-white,
Fionbannah. Bursting through his guard, the Donn
Rushed t'ward the sound. Upon the midway plain
The rivals met. All day that battle raged
While wood to wood thunder on thunder hurled,
And all the bulls of Erin sent reply.
Shepherds, through wood-skirts peering, saw the end,
The Donn at sunset rushing t'ward the north,
And, heaped upon his back—their horns entwined—
Fionbannah dead! All night the conqueror rushed
O'er hill and plain and prone morass. When dawn
Looked coldly forth through mist along the meads
Far off he kenned a rock: that rock he deemed
A second Bull: collecting all his might
Thereon he hurled his giant bulk, and died.

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Yet no man dared to breathe this news to Meave;
Not Ailill's self. Exulting, she marched on.

Six days, and in Cuchullain's cell no change—
The bud grew large; the earlier violet died;
He neither spake nor moved. His wounds were deep;
Deeper his grief; for that cause ampler power
They gained, that clan accursed of Cailitin,
With ghostly spells darkening the warrior's heart:
As lie the dead, he lay.

One eve, what time
The setting sun levelled through holly brakes
Unnumbered dagger-points of jewelled light
And 'neath the oak-stem burned a golden spot,
Leagh, standing near his couch, reproached him thus:
‘In time of old the greatness of thy spirit
Had ever strength to salve thy corporal griefs:
But now through coward heart thou makest no fight,
Dying as old men die!’ Cuchullain heard;
But answered nought.

Next day, while near them buzzed
At noon the gilded insect swarm with sound
That stung the fever in his nerves, he spake:
‘While lived Ferdīa wounds to thee were jest;
Thy grief it is that drags thee to the pit;
Grief; and for what? Of treasons worse is none
Than sorrow when thy country's foe is dead!
Not man is he, the man who dies of grief.’
He spake: Cuchullain fixed a vacant eye
On that sad, wrathful face.

Then hastened Leagh
To where those giant coursers, side by side,
Stood tethered 'mid green grass and meadow-sweet
Within a lawn; and led them to a stream,

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And bade them drink; and later led them home;
And placed their corn before them, and they ate:
Next spake he, ‘Horses ye; and yet ye know
To eat at need, while men self-sentenced starve!’
Thus of that man whom most he loved on earth
He made complaint. Liath, the lake's white son,
Tossed high his head in anger. By his side
Sangland, his dusky comrade, sadly ate,
Moistening with tears her barley.

Late that eve
Cuchullain beckoned Leagh: ‘To Conor speed:
Speak thus: “Put on thine arms and save thy land
Since now the Hound that kept thy gate is dead:—
Make no delay!”’ At midnight Leagh went forth
Though loth to leave his master to the care
Of cowherd rude, or swineherd. Tenderer aid
Ere long consoled him. Beauteous as the dawn
Next morn two shepherd boys seeking a lamb
Came on the sick man in his forest nook;
Long time they gazed on him compassionately:
With voice benign and tendance angel-like
Onward into his confidence they crept;
His lips with milk, the purest, they refreshed;
They placed the dewy wood-flowers in his hand;
They sang him ballads old, not battle-songs,
Too loud such songs they deemed, but Fairy lore,
Or tale of lovers fleeing tyrant's rage:
Among the last unwittingly they sang
‘Cuchullain's Wooing;’ how the youth had found
Eimer, the loveliest lady of the land
Within her bowery pleasaunce, girt with maids
Harping, or broidering fair in scarf deep-dyed
Blossom or bird: how long he sued; and how
She answered, ‘Woo my sister: woo not me!’

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How, glorying in her loveliness, her sire
Had sworn no chief should ever call her wife
Who won her not by valour; how that youth
Had scaled his rock and slain his guards and forth
Through all the blazing ruins of that keep,
Led her by hand, a downward-looking bride,
Majestic, unconsenting, undismayed,
But likewise unreluctant. As they sang
Above that suffering face there passed a smile;
And where that smile had lain there crept a tear;
And in few minutes more asleep he sank
Who had not slept nine days.

Swiftly meanwhile
The host of Meave marched onward: bootless speed;
Since ever one day's progress by the next
Was cancelled; tortuous mind made tortuous course
Now bent awry to capture spoil, anon
To avenge some private wrong. Fergus the while
Inly with fury raged; for still his thought
Was ‘Eman—Vengeance.’ Meave, to calm his wrath,
Albeit she scorned debate, a council called
And made demand, ‘To Eman speed we, Kings,
With central wound striking at Uladh's heart,
Or wind, as now, at random through the realm,
With havoc huge, and plunder?’

Rose a chief
Aulnan, the son of Magach, one whose pride
Was not in war-deeds but in crafty brain,
And spake, keen-voiced, keen-eyed. ‘To Eman! Queen!
Not difficult the emprise; but whose the gain?
Suppose it burnt, what then? We have but sown
The sanguine seed of endless wars to come.
The Uladh chiefs live scattered. Eman's fall

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Touches not them. Their strength ere long revived
Southward in search of vengeance they will rush.
Slay them yet weakling! Slay them ere they wake!
Slay them in mountain hold and forest lair
In vale and glen: slay each apart, half-armed;
Easy the task!’ Arose the Exiled King:
‘“Easy the task!”’ he cried; ‘that Daré learned!
Unarmed—alone—I saw the old man fall!
“Easy the task!”’ Then brake upon him Alp
That ruled in far Iorras, clamouring thus:
‘Fergus, we love our queen; but love not thee!
Hostile to ours thy race. Thou seek'st, we know it,
King Conor's fall, not Uladh's. Hear me, Queen!
The siege of Eman means a three months' siege:
Be wary lest, ere yet that time is past
King Conor with his exiles makes a pact,
And they who now but rate thee drink thy blood:
Be wary likewise lest in half that time
Thy host melt from thee like a wreath of snow!
The Gael is restless; lives on chance and change;
The clan grows home-sick: victory in its grasp,
It pines for babe unkissed, or field unreaped:
My counsel then is Aulnan's. Like a flood
Wind devious through the land and strip it bare:
Till then let Eman be.’

Debate ere long,
For chiefs there were who loved the nobler war,
Passed on to raging storm. Old friendships died;
And from the dust of ages injuries old
Leaped up like warriors armed. In Fergus wrath
Gave way to scorn: with haughty port he spake,
A man majestical yet mirthful too.

‘Great Lords and Kings—since Kings ye claim to be—

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King-vassals, world renowned for mutual hate,
Alone of men I censure not your strifes,
Knowing their cause. The very air you breathe,
The founts whereof you drink, the soil you tread,
Are all impregnate with a sacred rage;
And false alike to usage, country, blood,
Were he among you who, for three hours' space,
Discerned 'twixt friend and foeman. Lords and Kings,
Attend a legend from your annals old,
A laughing picture of man's life this day.
In Erin's earlier age there reigned two kings:
Each had a swineherd who, through magic power,
Could clothe himself with shape of aught that lives
In heaven, or earth, or sea. Friendship forever
They pledged; then strove ten years, with hosts allied
So huge that none remained to till the land.
At last the vanquished swineherd changed to crane:
A crane, the victor chased him. Twenty years
High up they fought; to each side Erin's birds
Flocking in clans, the factions of the heavens.
Those twenty years run out, the vanquished crane
Dropped on a stream and straight to salmon changed;
Instant his foe, to salmon turned at will,
From stream to sea pursued him. Far and wide
All scaly shapes that buffet Erin's waves
From sprat and minnow up to shark and whale
Beat up in finny squadrons. Forty years
With deepening rage they fought, till round the isle
Main ocean boiled, and from her ships black-ribbed
Melted the tar, and fire-mist girt the deep.
Next changed those salmons twain to dragon-flies:
But while they sat in hate on neighbouring pools
A dun cow and a red cow drank them up

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Unwittingly. Two bull-calves these brought forth,
That, grown, with battle thunders dinned the realm
For eighty years! How say ye, Lords? From these
Sprang not the Bulls that shake this day our land,
Fionbannah, and the Donn? For these we fight,
And in their honour hold, on festal days,
As now our roaring synods!’

Fiercely and long
The unwise council strove; and Meave, who feared
Far more the petulance of her lesser kings
Than that great exile's loftier wrath, resumed
Next morn her march erratic. On she passed,
The Dal Araidhé forests on her right,
Northward to Moira's plain and Clannaboy,
And through the Glynns of Ardes eastward glimpsed
Alba's blue hills. Dalríad fastnesses
She burned with fire, and seized full many a herd
On banks of Bann; then westward turned, and kenned
The grass-green sparkle of remote Lough Foyle,
And where the winding river-sea divides
Fanad from Inishowen's cliffs forlorn.
Aileach she passed, more late the seat of kings;
And, southward next, that lake whose lonely isle
Descends, through caves, to Spirit-worlds unknown,
Northern Lough Derg by penitents revered.
Thus Meave in circle marched round Uladh's realm,
And heard the murmur of its three great seas,
Yet nothing wrought of perdurable fame.
Conor, meantime, round Eman ranged his hosts
There flocking night and day. ‘I bide my time,’
He said, ‘till Uladh's wound is wholly healed;—
Fergus I deem the sage of battle-fields,
Though fool in all beside.’

But sloth and fear

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In manly hearts at worst rare visitants,
Leave them betimes, like vermin caught by chance
That quit ere long the clean. O'er Uladh's breadth
Daily some chief, or fragment of a clan
Long chilled by rumour of Cuchullain slain,
Despite King Conor's hest assailed the queen
Marching, though late, on Eman. First of these
Was Ketherne. Hewing oaks on Fuad's crest
He marked her host, and rushed, a naked man
From waist to head, his axe within his hand,
In fury on it. Late that eve his kernes
Forth from the battle tore him bleeding fast
From fifty wounds. That night physicians five
Stood bending o'er his bed: the eldest spake;
‘Ketherne, thou son of Fintan, thou must die!’
Then Ketherne raised himself and with one blow
Smote him upon his forehead that he died.
In turn the second,—‘Ketherne, thou must die:’
And Ketherne slew him. Feebler-toned the third
Whispered, ‘The man must die;’ and died himself;
Likewise the fourth. Old Ithal was the fifth,
A son of Alba. He with stealthy foot
Stepping o'er corpses of his brethren slain,
Made keen-eyed inquest of the wounds; then spake:
‘Of these the least is dangerous: fatal none:
Two cures for such there be, diverse in kind;
Ketherne, thou son of Fintan, make thy choice!
The first is slow but certain: where thou liest
Full three months thou must lie; then rise restored:
The second is immediate: strength divine
It pours like light into a warrior's veins;
Then dies its virtue, and the warrior dies!’
Ketherne laughed loud: ‘My choice is quickly made:
Three months bed-ridden, or one vengeance day

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Joyous and glorious! Leech! I rather choose
With mine own hand to avenge eretime my death
Than trust that task to others!’ At his word
Ithal prepared a wonder-working bath
Strewn with strange herbs, and bathed therein the man,
Then bade him drink of some elixir bright
Drawn from the sun. As one refreshed by sleep
He rose: he clomb his war-car; sought the foe:
He slew threescore, their best. At last the strength
Ceased from his arm; once more the wounds late closed
Opened; and back the warrior sank, and died.

Such hindrances, and every day had such,
Likewise huge herds and cumber of her spoil
Slackened the march of Meave. Full many a chief
Perished in bootless fight; full many an eye
Turned on her, malcontent. But trial worse
Had found her through her daughter, Finobar.
Without an hour's misgiving or remorse,
In beauty's pride not less than patriot zeal—
Wilier she was than Meave, and haughtier far—
Champion on champion she had sent to doom
Beside that fatal Ford. Ferdía most
Had tasked the sorceress, for in him alone
Vanity kept no place. She watched the fight
No pallor on her fruit-like cheek, no cloud
Dimming her eyes. Without a sigh she kenned
From far the Firbolg, last of all his race,
Dead on the soil once theirs. Even then she knew not
The inevitable shaft had pierced whate'er
Of woman heart was hers. The strong man's death
Lifted that veil his victory ne'er had raised:

268

Standing 'mid others she beheld him dead:
Thenceforth that deep-toned voice, that mournful front,
Those stern yet stately ways, so great and plain,
Haunted her memory. Oft with sudden spasm
She strove to shake that viper from her breast
Which sucked its life-blood. ‘I, the Princess, love!
And love a Firbolg!’ She had never loved:
Self-love, sole regent of the unloving heart,
Till then had barred it 'gainst all tenderer loves:
In vain the island chiefs had wooed and sued:
She spurned them each and all.

Of these the last
Was Rochad, and the proudest, in the North
A vassal prince of Conor's, oft his foe:
The passion she had kindled she had scorned:
Rochad had vowed revenge.

In wonder Meave
Noted the weary lids, the vanishing bloom,
The abrupt accost, though haught yet unassured;
The movements to mechanic changed, the mind
Still strong, yet widowed of its flexile strength:
These things she saw; their cause she ne'er divined:
Love for the living Meave could understand:
For her the dead was dead. To Finobar
The one thing yet remaining was her pride:
Questioned, her answer ever was the same,
‘Onward, to Eman!’

Nearer it each day
They drew. One evening through the sunset mist
A camp, high seated on a bosky hill,
Stood out, fire-fringed: it stood aloof as one
That halts 'twixt war and peace. Ere long they learned

269

Rochad had chos'n that site, with Uladh's King
Friendly but half, thence slow to prop his cause.
Then spake the queen; ‘The hand of yonder chief
Sustains our battle's balance. If his host,
Now dubious, joins the bands that vex our flank
No choice remains but this, a homeward course
Or, if a march to Eman, then the loss
Of half our hard-earned spoil and hate henceforth
Of all our vassal kings.’ Finobar's eyes
Flashed as of old—that was their latest flash—
She answered thus: ‘Leave thou the rest to me!
He loved me, Rochad, once: ere sets yon moon
I bring you tamed the lion of yon hills,
Ay, in a silken leash!’

Rochad far off
Beheld her coming; marked it with a smile;
Welcomed her gaily; led her to the feast;
Thence to his tent wherein was none beside.
There put she forth whatever subtlest art
In seeming-simple innocence disguised
Imagines of persuasive, whatsoe'er
Delicatest craft of female witcheries
Potent for man's destruction can concert,
To bend that warrior's will. The winter beam
Thaws not the polar ice: o'er Rochad's soul
So passed the syren's pleadings. Pleased not less
To stand implored, he dallied with her suit
Destined, and this he knew, to end in shame.
She, self-deceived, inly made vow: ‘This tent
I leave not, save victorious.’

Hours went by:
She noted not their flight. Once more with skill
Plastic as wind in woods, a measured strength
Varying as minstrel's hand that grazes now,

270

Now sweeps the tenderer or the deeper strings,
To all the passions of the heart of man
Glory, Ambition, Love, Revenge, she tuned
The poisonous challenge of that passionate strain;
While half the richness theirs aforetime throbbed
Again in those sad accents, half their light—
For oft from out the present shines a past
Long dead—returned to eyes that, seen of none,
Had wept away their splendours. Calm he sat,
Sternly quiescent. On her it stared at last,
The fatal truth. She saw her power was gone;
And all that posthumous life late hers sank back
In embers lost and ashes. On the West
Rested her gaze. A cloud of raven black,
Its veil for half that night, had drifted by;
Her mother's camp shone out, a pallid gleam;
O'er it the moon descended. Finobar
That hour recalled her boast, ‘Ere sets yon moon
I bring you tamed the lion of yon hills,
Ay in a silken leash!’

The Orient soon
Whitened with early dawn. Forlorn it lay
On hill and heath and plain and distant mere,
Forlorner on the haggard face—for oft
A face, still fair, in anguish antedates
Its future—of that woman as she knelt,
She knelt at last, low on that threshold low.
Then came the hour of Rochad's great revenge:
Then first he answered plainly: ‘Finobar!
One day I knew you not: I know you now:
Your spells are null when once their trick is learned:
Likewise your face has lost its earlier charm.
Back to your mother! Tell her, ere sets yon sun
I join the king my master; from his gate

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Repel with scorn the invader.’ Forth he passed
Without farewell. A clarion broke ere long
Her trance: adown the slope she saw his host
Winding t'ward Eman.

From a burning couch
She rose next eve; and, strong with fever's strength,
Paced swiftly by that sunset-crimsoned stream
Which girt the camp of Meave. Anon she marked
In all who met her, change inexplicable,
Strange eyes, strange faces, strange embarrassed ways:
Sadly compassionate that change in some:
In others questioning glance and meaning smile
Hinted at things that through her flaming heart
Passed like a sword of ice. Whisperings not less
There were, but these she heard not: ‘What! all night!
From eve to morn with Rochad in his tent!—
The men she fed on hopes—on hopes alone—
Died at the Ford! Well! pride must have its fall!
Rochad is joined with Conor!’ Slanders worse
Some chiefs whom most her haughtiness had galled
Ventured, vain-glorious:—‘They were not surprised
Too well they knew her.’ Late one eve the truth
Sprang like a tigress on her. In his tent
She heard her father with her mother speak:
‘She yet may wear the crown: her maiden fame
Is lost for ever!’

Three hours ere her death
That sentenced one spake to her mother thus:
‘Noise it among the host that grief for those
Her countrymen—the Gael—who, near the Ford—
Ere yet that Firbolg shared the common fate,
Fell by Cuchullain, snapped her thread of life:

272

Bear on your march my body:—raise the cairn
On the first hill that sees Emania's towers.’

So spake she; and the queen obeyed her hest:
She flung that rumour forth; and all who heard,
Heart-stricken now, believed it. But on Meave
A piercing sadness fell; and by her bed
Orloff her buried son stood up and spake:
‘Home to thy native realm, and Cruachan!
Not less a battle waits thee great and dread
'Twixt Gairig and Ilgairig.’ One day's march
The queen marched eastward; then upon a hill,
The first whose summit looked on Eman's towers,
Interred the all-beauteous one with Pagan dirge,
And o'er her piled the cairn. Southward, next morn
She turned, and crossed the Ford. Fulfilled was thus
Cuchullain's word breathed o'er Ferdīa dead;
‘Finobar snared thee: Finobar shall die.’

But many a century later Uladh's sons
Rose up and said, ‘Great scorn it is and wrong,
Yon stranger's grave should gaze on Eman's towers;’
Then bore they forth those relics once so fair
With funeral rites revered and Pagan dirge,
And laid them by the loud-resounding sea,
And o'er them raised a cairn: and, age on age,
As sighed the sea-wind past it shepherds said,
‘It whispers soft that sad word, Finobar!’

273

BOOK V. QUEEN MEAVE'S RETREAT.

ARGUMENT.

Queen Meave, having reached the sacred plain of Uta, sacrilegiously encamps thereon. A Druid denounces the late war as unrighteous, while Fergus contemns it as ineffectual; and immediately afterwards the War Goddess, Mor Reega, manifests herself to the host. Next evening, while division of the spoil is being made, Meave discerns the advance of King Conor; and Ailill transfers the supreme command to Fergus. The battle is gloriously won by him. That night Meave is warned by signs and omens; and Cuchullain, weak from his wounds, arrives suddenly and beyond hope, in the Ulidian camp. From midnight to near sunset the next day he lies in a trance, during which Fair Spirits minister to him; and there is shown to him a vision of some mystic greatness reserved for Erin, yet of an order which he cannot understand. Just as the second battle is all but lost Cuchullain wakes; and Meave is driven in utter overthrow across the Shannon.

At last the war had whirled its giddy round;
And Meave, well nigh returned, the Shenan near
Beside Ath-Luain

Now Athlone.

streaming in its might,
Decreed to make division of her spoil
Ere yet she crossed it. In the West the sun
Was sinking; in the East the moon uprose;
While camped her host on Uta's sacred plain
Betwixt the double glories. Far away
Glittered immeasurable the pastures green
Illumed with million flowers. Nor spade, nor plough
Till then that virgin precinct had profaned,
Nor sound, save Shenan's murmur, stirred therein.

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There stood the Tomb Heroic. Beams and showers
Alone might pierce that soil sabbatical;
Such reverence held the spot. Now all was changed;
Ill choice; if chance, ill-omened. Neighing steeds
Dinned the still air; while here at times was heard
Whistling of him that fixed his tent, and there
Wood-cleaving axe or feaster's laugh mistimed.
Higher and higher rose the moon full-orbed,
Mirrored in pool and stream. At intervals
Half lost in bard-song near or shout remote,
The slender wailing of some captive maid
Rang out and died.

The royal tent was set
High on a grassy platform. Meave that night
The first time since the death of Finobar
Was cheerful of aspéct; and, banquet o'er,
Rising, her warriors thus addressed with vaunt
Beseeming not a queen. ‘A year,’ she said,
‘Is passed since northward to the war we marched:’
Then forth she loosed the sheets and spread the sails
And bounded on the waves of proud discourse
Recounting all her triumphs; first, her wrong;
Lastly, the cause of war, Cualgné's Donn
Chief captive 'mid her captives! Here her voice
Rang loudest, and her eyes their fiercest beamed.
Rapturous response succeeded; one alone,
A Druid old, dissentient. Thus he spake
Not rising, to that throng of courtiers crowned:
‘Ill doctrine have ye praised this evening, kings,
Unwise, to Erin's sons a pit and snare,
Extolling war not based on righteous cause
Nor righteous ends ensuing. Kings and Queen,
The end of war is retribution just
For deeds unjust; ill cure for greater ill:

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Wars there must be; and woman-mouthed were he
Who railed against them:—ay, but demon-mouthed
The man that boasts of war-dishonouring wars
Opprobrious, spiteful, predatory, base.
Sirs, how began this feud? It rose from jest!
And what its close? A sacred site profaned,
Inviolate till this day!’ The warriors frowned;
Yet all men feared the Druid beard and rod:
They stood in silence.

Fergus rose and spake:
‘Sirs, I have heard a war this day extolled,
A war this day denounced. Men say that I
Was born on battle-field: on battle-fields
Certes I lived my life. What thing war is
I ought to know. Yet, sirs, these wearied eyes
Rolled many a day around from East to West
Still seeking war, and found it not; they saw
Six hundred men successive by the hand
Of one man slain, Cuchullain; saw the torch
Hurl the red smoke-cloud o'er a thousand homes:
They saw a war-dance circle Uladh's coasts;
They saw the ravished flock, and ravished herd,
The captive throng lance-goaded on its way,
Swine-herd and shepherd, hoary head, and maid
Beaming and basking in the healthful glow
Of youthful beauty. Sirs, they saw more late,
But saw from distance, Eman's walls high-towered:
This, this they saw not; warriors, warrior-ruled,
Marching against them! Mountebanks of war
They saw; not warriors!’

Plainly Fergus spake;
Not otherwise than plainly could he speak,
A man to truth predestined; from his birth
By courage sealed to Truth. The legend saith

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That down before him on his natal morn
All Erin's fays and sprites from river or rill
Laid tributes due: but, mightier far than they,
A wingèd goddess ran from sea to sea,
The island's breadth, to hail him! As she sped,
The path before her, prone till then and low,
Rising ran out, a craggy ridge sublime,
The same that for a hundred miles this day
Divides the realm! That highway lofty and straight
Foreshowed that ne'er in tortuous paths or base
That babe should shape his way.

Fierce from their seats
The kings and chieftains sprang. A hundred swords
Leaped from their sheaths, and from a hundred mouths
One sentence, ‘Treason—death!’ By twos and threes
A score of stragglers from the exiles' band
Closed up behind him. Cormac Conlinglas
Beside him stood, sword drawn.

Again he spake;
‘Queen, till that day of shame was battle none,
Nor on that day; nor since! But on that day
Beside your daughter's cairn—more royal far
Though fortunate less was she than you—we spake:
I said, “You think without one blow to pass
Eman that cast me forth;—without one blow
To cross your Shenan, reach your Cruachan,
There make your terms secure, the spoil retained,
The exiles sent to judgment! Note you, Queen,
Those horsement three, a mile on yonder road?
My heralds they! The hour your flight begins
They speed to Eman.”

‘You retreated. They
Rode on to Conor. To that chief of foes

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I wrote: “Advance! The queen retreats: make speed!
She shall not 'scape your battle. Know besides
That battle of earth's battles till this hour
Shall prove the bloodiest. In it, sword to sword
We two shall meet: one die.”

‘To Conor thus
I wrote that hour—Conor, the usurping king.
Three times I might have hurled him from his throne,
But spared, not seeking rule.’

In measureless scorn
Then turned he to the kings, with threatening smile;
‘What mean those clamours and those swords half drawn
Which draw ye dare not? Petty, titular kings!
The shadow of that royalty once mine
Dwarfs you to pigmies by comparison!
I heard a cry of “Treason!” Let them lift
Their hands who raised it! Kinglings mutinous,
Princes seditious, ye the traiters are,
And on the nod of him whom ye traduce,
Your pageant crowns sit trembling! Ere three days
Uladh is on you! I shall stand that hour
Your King Elect; not Ailill's choice, but yours;
The Battle-King; for well ye know that I,
None else, have skill to range the battle-field,
And roll the thunders forth of genuine war.
Till that hour, silence, kings!’

Silence they kept,
Long silence. Then far off, as though from depths
By thought untraversable of cloudless skies,
Such sound was heard as reaches ships at sea
When, launched on airy voyage though still remote,
Nation of ocean-crossing birds begins

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To obscure the serene heaven. That sound drew near:
From every tent the revellers rushed. Then lo!
That portent seen alone in fateful times,
The dread Mor Reega! Terrible as Fate
The Goddess of the battles high o'er head
Sailed on full-panoplied, in hue as when
On Alpine snows, their sunset glories gone,
Night's winding-sheet descends. Upon her casque
And spear beyond it pointing glared the moon,
And on a face like hers that froze of old
The gazers into stone. As slow she sailed
On that huge army coldness fell of death:
Yea, some there died. Next morning, from that spot
Northward to Eman lay a branded track:
Straight as a lance still stretched it, league on league;
A bar of winter black through harvest fields,
A bridge of ice spanning the rippling waves;
A pledge those gazers dreamed not.

In those days
Foreboding soon, like sorrow, passed away:
Ailill next morning counselled: ‘Ere the night
Cross we the Shenan. If the Red Branch comes
Fight we on Ai's plain!’ But Meave replied:
‘Not so; I fly not! One day here we rest:
Our kings await their spoil.’

From morn to eve
That spoil's partition lasted; first, huge herds:
Flocks snowy-white through water-weeds and grass
Followed, hound-driven. War-horses few were there,
But many from the plough: with these, in crowds
Poor hinds, and swine-herds, maidens skilled in works
That knew to spin the flax or mix the dye
Or card the wool. Next followed wild-eyed boys
Bound each to each. No tear they shed, but scowled

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Defiance on their lords and sang fierce songs
Of Uladh and her vengeance. King and chief
Scanned each his prize with careless-seeming eye;
Yet oft their followers strove, while onward paced
The royal arbiters with wands high held,
Ruling the wrangling crew.

The royal throne
Meantime stood high upon a mound, a throng
Of warriors round it. Many a mirthful chance
Provoked their laughter: loudest laughed the queen:
But when she spake she waited not reply.
Without a bound to east and west and south
The prospect spread. Her eye was on the north:—
Nor distant stood two hills: she asked their names:
Her great eyes darkened when the answer came
Of Gairig and Ilgairig. These the names
By Orloff named that night.

Betwixt these twain
Shone out, distincter as the sun declined,
Long northern ranges. Fergus marked her eye
That moved not from them, smiled and made demand:
‘What find'st thou in our mountain ridges, Queen,
That merits gaze so fixed?’ Then she: ‘I note
Girdling their slopes a mist feathery and soft,
As though of snow-flakes wov'n: above it, peaks
Shoot up like isles cloud-hid. Within that mist
I see strange lights that flit like shooting stars,
Cross and re-cross, quick-bickering.’ With a smile
That deepened, Fergus questioned once again:
‘Make large thine eyes and tell me all thou seest!’
Then Meave: ‘Through all that mist is movement strange,
The agitation of some wondrous life,
And t'wards us on it rolleth.’ Fergus next:

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‘Thine eyes see well! If others saw like thee
Their tongues would clang less loudly. Hear'st thou nought?’
The queen made answer, ‘Many a sea I hear
That breaks on many a shore.’

Then Fergus cried:
‘Thou seest my Uladh coming, and the way
And fashion of the advent of her war!
For know, great Queen, even now the Red Branch Knights
Car-borne descend yon slopes! That mist thou saw'st
What was it but the tempest of their march,
The dust flung upwards and the sweat exhaled
And visible breath of warrior and of horse
That breathes the northwind and the sunny glare?
What else the snow-flakes which thou saw'st but foam
Dashed from the horses' bits? Thy bickering stars,
What else but flaming cars and fiery helms
This way and that way passing? What thy peaks
Crowning that mist, but Uladh's hills remote
That send her children to avenge her wrong?
And what that thunder sound of many seas
But anthems of their coming? Well for thee
If o'er them sail not—yea she sought them late—
That dread Mor Reega!’

Reddened as he spake
Meave's cheek late pale; yet careless she replied:
‘I see her not, therefore believe her not,
And breathe securely since that gleam far off
Is human, not demoniac nor divine,
For never feared I yet the arm of man:
Cuchullain dead, I hold the rest at nought.’
Thus Meave: but all the kings and chiefs arose
Clamouring to her and Ailill: ‘Lo, 'tis come!

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All Uladh, and a battle such as ne'er
Shook the foundations of this kingly isle!
Now therefore bid him rule thy host, the man
That knows to rule!’ Meave silent stood long time
'Twixt passions twain. Ailill to Fergus turned
And spake: ‘Be thou henceforth our Battle-King:’
Thus spake he; then, releasing from his belt
The sword usurped of Fergus, added thus:
‘Receive once more thy sword! in mirth erewhile
I made it mine: the virtue in that blade
Hath kept me till this hour.’ Fergus replied:
‘I take mine own: but one month past, this sword
Had cut the cancer forth from Uladh's breast,
And made thy throne a praise on earth for aye!
I take mine own, on thee a sword bestowing
That best becomes thee. Waiting long this hour
For thee I kept it.’ Proudly Ailill clasped
Its glittering hilt: Fergus drew back the sheath;
And lo, a wooden sword, for babes a toy!
The concourse laughed; the loudest Meave: though wroth
Ailill a little whiffling laugh essayed
With sidelong face.

Then Fergus planted deep
His sword within the soil, and knelt before it,
And sware: ‘O thou my Sovereignty, my Sword,
In many a battle, yet in none unjust,
So many a year my glory and my mate!
Mine art thou, mine once more! In all this host
Who shall henceforth reproach me?’

To his task
The strong one sped, and change was over all:
Again the voice of discipline was heard:
None drank in booths; none rushed abroad; with sloth

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Fierceness had vanished. Followers of the camp
Alone were left in charge of flocks and herds:
The clansmen to their duties were restored,
The clans in order ranged. He delved a trench
Barring from Uta's plain the advancing foe,
And flung wide bridges o'er it, that his host
Permission given, and not till then, might strike
Forth pouring torrent-like, at Uladh's heart:
Pits dug he next bristling with stakes sod-hid.
He gave command like one that, born to power,
With courteous might scarce conscious puts it forth:
He spake the word: all heard him: all obeyed,
Magnanimous to feel when majesty
Authentic stood before them. Duty done
Engendered strenuous joy, and strength, and hope:
Thus through the mass the spirit of one man
Triumphed, and ruling, raised it: on each face
His corporal semblance lived—light-hearted might,
Deliberate resolve.

The moonlight hours
Shone brightly on their labours. Six had sped
Ere Fergus sought the royal tent where sat
Revellers right ill at ease. As in he passed,
The concourse, Meave herself and Ailill, rose,
And did him regal honours. Of his toils
Nought spake he; but their hearts who saw him swelled,
And many marvelled why they late were sad:
Again the laugh; again the tale; the song—
Then came a change. A gradual sound was heard,
Yet what and whence they knew not. It increased;
It swelled ere long, voluminous; grating next;
Then dreadful like the splitting of a world

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Whose strong foundations crumble. Forth they passed;
Through hurrying clouds the moon rushed madly on,
Now dim, now fiercely glaring. From the north
The forest beasts, wildered by terror, dashed
Wild through the camp while panic fell on all.
The sole man unastonished, Fergus spake:
‘Sirs, late ye learn our warfare! As the spring,
When the first spray catches the amorous red,
Sends forth her song-bird, herald and harbinger,
So Uladh sends before her onward steps
Her shrill-voiced vanguard: men of might are they,
Hewers of war-ways for her battle cars
That cleave the centuried forests. First ye heard
Their axes only; last, the falling trees:—
Kinglings, ye look like men ill-pleased! What then?
Not all delight in music. Sirs, good-night!
When breaks the dawn be stirring.’

In the camp
Few slept that night. Vanished the moon in cloud:
Then shone the watch-fires on the northern hills
Like stars.

Next morn the Uladh host down swarmed
Betwixt those neighbouring hills and round their base
Far spread as flood that, widening on its way,
Changes the heights to islands. Countless wrongs
And shame at all that long inglorious trance,
Roused wrath to madness; from them far they flung
Encumbering arms, and, bare from scalp to waist,
Worked on with plunging battle-axe. Three hours
That trench withstood them. Kelkar ruled their left,
Their right great Conal Carnach, while the king
Marshalled their centre. There the strongest bridge,
Tower-guarded, longest held their host at bay;

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Longer had held it, save that from his place
Fergus, the hour foreseen arrived, gave word,
‘Fling wide the gates!’ In rushed they; but to meet
A foe unwasted yet. The Red Branch Knights
Surpassed their old renown. In fresher strength
The host confederate met them. Meave herself
With downward mace three champions slew that day,
Him last, that felon son of faithful sire,
Buini, the Ruthless Red, who, breaking pledge,
Betrayed the sons of Usnach for a bribe:
His father's prophecy the Accursed fulfilled
Slain by a woman's hand. Fergus, at last
Forth launched upon his native element,
Raced o'er the battle billows like a bark
When tempests stretch its canvas. Chief on chief
Went down before that sword that still, men sware,
With sweep that widened like a rainbow's arch
Ran from his hand and harvests reaped of death.
O'er-spent, not scared, that Northern host gave way
Sudden from east to west. They broke and fled.

Alone unvanquished Conor Conchobar,
Their king, maintained his place. He rallied thrice
The fugitives; thrice hurled them on the foe;
Thrice stabbed them flying. Last upon the bridge
He stood and sole. There met him face to face
The sole of foes his equal. Dreadful gaze
Long fixed they, each on other; Fergus spake:
‘Is this indeed that king who filched that realm
Not his, then shamed it by a bloodier fraud;
Who brake his pledge; who murdered Usnach's sons;
Who drave from Uladh, Uladh's rightful king;—
And comes he at my hand to meet his doom?
Just Gods, I thank you!’ With a haughtier mien,
Yet kingly less, King Conchobar replied:

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‘Thou know'st me; and 'tis well! That king am I
Who, less than thou by lineage, but in mind
Loftier, attained that crown thou could'st not keep;
That king, who, breaking through a jesting pact
As eagles through a mist, by doom deserved
Requited rebels proved. That king am I
Who, when with traitors thou hadst made true pact,
Forth hurled thee naked to the wild wolf's lair:
That was the worst I wished thee: worse by far
If aught of kingly once was thine, thou found'st—
Beneath a hostile roof the beggar's dole
Gorged on a golden platter, and the hand
Protectress, of a woman!’

Long that fight
Watched by two hosts in speechless stupor held,
Direful and long! Equal in might those twain,
Equal in craft of war. The kinglier soul
Conferred alone the victory. Fergus raised
The unvanquishable sword so late restored:
It fell in thunder: with it fell the king,
Fell to his knees, a bleeding mass, and blind:
Again that sword was raised: a moment more
Had ended all: then leaped to Fergus' feet,
His knees enclasping, Cormac Conlinglas,
King Conor's son. He spake these words alone:
‘My father!—Spare him!’ Fergus ne'er had scorned
A look like his that hour. He turned; he spake:
‘Take hence that reptile:—holy is this plain!
A true king here was buried!’ Conor's kernes
Lifted him to his war-car. Slowly it moved;
For Death was in the wheels thereof; and Death
Stood at its door.

That night in Uladh's camp
Was silence strange and dread. By dying men

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Sat men sore wounded. Scornful of their foe
And burning for revenge, the North had spurned
Science of war, their boast, and left, death-strewn,
Full half their host. Between their tents and Meave's
All that long night the buriers of the dead
Groped their sad way with red, earth-grazing torch,
Turning the white face up in search of friend,
Brother, or son. But in the tent of Meave
Triumph ruled all: a hundred spake at once
Each man his deeds recounting. Far apart
Sat Fergus; on his brow alone was shade:
Righteous that vengeance; but his country's blood
Gladdened not him. Of those that marked him, some
Had reverence for his sadness: lesser souls
That long had hated, loathed the man that hour.
Sudden the din surceased. Far other sound
Quelled it: from Uladh's sorrowing camp it swelled,
A jubilant cry soaring from earth to heaven!
Then flashed the eyes of Fergus, and he cried:
‘Cuchullain lives! That sound is Uladh's shout
What time the host he enters!’ With a brow
Gloomy as night the queen replied: ‘'Tis false!
We know that in that forest, months gone by
Cuchullain perished!’ Silent stood they long,
Listening. At last rang out far different note
As piteous as the first was full of joy,
A funeral keen world-wide. Then cried the queen:
‘Cuchullain lived! Cuchullain lives no more!
Wounded and weak he came to aid his own:
Too great such effort for a wasted frame:
That was Cuchullain's death-dirge!’ Fierce she stood:
Glorying she spake, and with attendance passed

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Forth from the hall of banquet to her tent:
But as she passed she heard at either side,
She and her ladies with her, trembling heard,
Swift as dead leaves by tempest borne o'er rocks,
The rushing of a panic-stricken host
Invisible, though now the dawn was grey,
A host t'ward Shenan flying! High o'er head
A dulcet strain, unutterably sad,
When ceased that phantom rush of fugitive feet,
Drifted far northward. Then the queen was 'ware
These were her country's gods that left her host.
The legend adds that in her tent that hour
Faythleen, the witch, she saw, who sat and wove
A mystic web and sang a mystic song,
Seen but by her:—and, later, o'er her bed
Men say that Orloff bent, her buried son,
And spake: ‘This day the battle shall be fought
Of Gairig and Ilgairig.’

He meanwhile,
The lord of all the battles, where was he,
Cuchullain? Many a weary day and week
Within his loved Murthemné's woods he lay,
Sore-wounded man nigh death. Those shepherd youths
Tended him still, or sang beside his bed;
And ofttimes o'er his face the tears of Leagh
In passionate gust descended. But the might
Unholy of the clan of Cailitin
That nightly hung above him like a cloud
Began to wither when that mist accursed
Which bound with Imbecility the land
Drifted from Uladh's borders. On the breast
Pellucid, likewise, of Murthemné's streams
Benignant spirits scattered flowers and herbs

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With healing virtue dowered. He, morn and eve
In those clear currents laid, renewed his youth;
And, pure as infant's, came again that flesh
Where festered late his wounds. At last, revived,
He passed, car-borne to Eman, north. The fields
Devastated, and wail from foodless glens
Filled him as on he sped with wrathful strength:
Next, tidings came of Conor's southward march:
Exultingly he followed. On that night
Of overthrow he reached the royal camp:
Far off they kenned his car, and raised that shout
Heard never save for him. When near he drew
Way-worn, and wearied, and around him gazed,
And saw that sight, and thought, ‘Too late; too late!’
His cheek down sank upon the breast of Leagh,
And all men deemed him dead. Then rose that wail
To Meave auspicious sound.

There are who deem
Cuchullain's tent that night was near the Well
Where, purer far, more late the royal maids
Fedelm and Ethna met that saint who gave
To God the isle of Fate. Then too that Well
Blessing diffused, they say; for from its brink
A runnel o'er the pebbles ran with sound
So sweetly tuned that on the warrior sank
Deep seal of peace divine. The war-shouts near
To him thus harboured seemed but ocean's sighs
Round islands ever calm. Next came, on winds
Fresher than earth's, divinities more high,
He thought, than those that late from elfin meres
Amid Murthemné's woods had dewed his face:
And loftier songs were sung; and balmier flowers
In holier fountains bathed were softlier pressed

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On bosom and brow; while shone before his eyes
Visions more fair than lordliest battle-field,
Though what they meant he knew not nor divined—
High-towerèd temples cruciform that rose
Far-seen o'er city and wood; and from their gates,
Vestal procession issuing white, that wound
Through precincts low where only dwelt the poor,
The halt, the lame, the blind; and song he heard
With spiritual pathos changing sense to soul,
‘The end of all is peace.’ In silence slid
The constellations down the western sky;
And endless seemed the going of that night,
And measureless that joy.

At break of day
Came Conal Carnach and the Red Branch Knights
To see that sleeper's face. Thereon the dawn
Laughed, with glad beam: and lo! where long had lain
Pallor of death, now burned a healthful red:
Not less they dared not touch him; since with him
Geisa it was if any broke his rest.
They left him, and the battle-storm rang out.
Warned by defeat Uladh had raised ere morn,
Fronting her camp, three bulwarks: at the first
And distant most, three hours the conflict raged.
It fell at last. When rose the conquerors' shout
Leagh to Cuchullain crept, and touched him not,
Yet knelt and whispered, ‘Heard you not that sound?’
And thus Cuchullain answered still in trance;
‘I heard the runnels in Murthemné's woods
Snow-swoll'n in spring.’ Then Leagh stood up and mused,
‘The hue of health is on his face, and yet

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Because he will not wake the land is shamed.’
Next round the second bulwark raged the war
Hour after hour: heroic deeds were done:
Heroic deaths were died: at last it fell:
Again and nearer rose the conquerors' shout:
Again with bolder foot and forehead flushed
Leagh to Cuchullain moved and touched him not,
But, bending, murmured, ‘Heard you not that sound?’
And he, without awaking, answered thus:
‘I heard the birds in Eimer's pleasaunce sing
Honouring our marriage morn.’ Then Leagh went forth
Groaning, and smote his hands, and wept aloud:
‘Because he will not wake the host must die!’
Around the loftiest bulwark and the last
Once more for hours the battle raged: it fell!
And louder thrice that shout went up. The gaze
Of Leagh was on him fixed: he heard it not:
Slowly it died; and as it died the wail
Came feebly forth from Uladh's host. A wail
Since those old days of Cullain and his hound
To him was thrilling more than battle shout:
A change went o'er his face: a moment more
And in his tent he stood, midway! Then lo!
A marvel! for the wounded man that slept
All day with bandages enswathed, up-towered
Full-armed for fight a champion spear in hand,
Work of some god! Swift from his tent he strode:—
Without the hand of man there stood his car
And those immortal steeds pawing the air
Like shapes with pinions clad. A moment more
And forward to Ilgairig's slope they dashed:

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‘Let but the armies see him,’ inly mused
Leagh, ‘and the work is done!’

Onward they sped;
But not unnoted by that demon brood
That hate the works of justice. From below
Writhing in torment of their rage they heaved
The grassy surface upward into waves
Now swelling, now descending. Strong albeit
The immortal steeds staggered. Cuchullain cried:
‘What! children of the tempest-wakened lakes
Saw ye till now no billows? Yours they are!
To others fatal, they but fawn on you!
Exult ye in your native element,
And waft your lord to vengeance!’ They obeyed:
They reached Ilgairig's summit.

On he sped
Mantled with sunset. Terrible he shone!
Both armies saw him—knew him! Onward yet;
While from his golden arms and golden car
Lightnings went forth incessant. In his van
Victory and Fear their pinions spread. He reached
Ilgairig's southern verge: he reined his steeds:
High in his car he stood; with level hand
Screening his eyes he scanned that battle-field
His future course decreeing.

On and on
Adown that slope he flashed and o'er that plain
Like zigzag sunshaft o'er the autumnal world;
And ever where he came the host of Meave
Gave way before him. On and ever on!
And now the nearest of those bulwarks three
He reached, and o'er its ruins swept, back driving
The conquerors late, now conquered. On and on!
And ever through that foe thick-packed he clave

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A lane of doom and death. Ere long they reached
The second rampart. There it was he slew
The great ones of Clan Libna, and the clans
Guaré and Murdoc. Fiery faces thronged
The air around him, and the voice of Gods
Made smooth his way triumphant.

On and on—
Nor ceased he ever hurling left and right
Destruction from his sling; nor slackened sleet
Of javelins winged with fate. That brazen urn
With death-stones heaped exhausted not its store,
Replenished ever as by hand unseen
Work of some God! That brazen cirque, not less
Where stood his javelins ranged was never void;
Work of some God! The on-rolling wheels devoured
Those serried ranks; the war-steeds trod them down:
Reached was that rampart furthest of the three;
There in her war-car sat the queen; in front
The Maineys Seven were ranged: his sword forth flashed:
Four perished of the seven. Then faced the queen
Westward, and fled amazed.

He marked her flight:
Eastward he turned. As on he carved his course
Not now a lane alone of doom and death
But ever widening valleys ruin-strewn
Bore witness of his transit, for behind
Closed ever up Cuchullain's household clans,
Murthemné's, and Cualgné's. Perished there
The Ossorians, and the Olnemacian chiefs,
And many a champion famed from Slaney's bank
To Lee and Laune, from Caiseal's crested rock

Now Cashel.

To Beara's strand. Who died not, fled and left
Yet ampler 'twixt the bristling flanks of war

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That vacant space; and as the dolphin oft
Raptured by gladness of clear summer seas
While flames the noon on purple billows, swims
All round and round some ship, Cuchullain thus
Circled on foot at times that car wind-swift
Mocking its slowness; then with airy bound
Once more within it beamed. His boyhood's mirth
Returned upon him. On the chariot's floor
He marked those brazen balls, the sport that time
Of men way-faring, snatched them up, tossed high,
While yet careering round the blood-stained field,
Then caught them as they fell, a glittering ring
That girt that glittering head. Not less his eye
Watchful pursued the flying foe; his hand
Brought down to earth the fleetest.

From the crests
Of those twinned hills down rushed the total strength
At last of Uladh. Universal flight
Shook the vast field. The bravest men and best
Caught by its current on were dragged like trees
The sport of winter flood. Chieftain and king
Sought, each, his home. Meave, with a remnant small
Reached Shenan's bridgeless tide; and there had fallen
Stretching to towered Ath-Luain helpless hands,
Save that Cuchullain, 'mid the narrower way
With outstretched arms and stature as of Gods
Abashed that host pursuing: ‘Stand ye back!
One day I shared her feast: she shall not die!’
He spake, and set by Shenan's wave his shield.
Next morn the Ulidians where that shield had stood
In silence stern planted three pillar-stones,
White daughters of the tempest-beaten hills,

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In Ogham graved, ‘Vanquished by Uladh's sons
Here fled the invader, Meave.’

Fergus alone
The Exile-King, and they the Exile Band
Fled not that day. Though few and bleeding fast
Fearless upon a cloudy crag they stood,
Phalanx prepared to die, prepared not less
Dearly to sell their lives, while past them streamed
That panic-stricken throng. The host pursuing
Looked up, yet swerved not from their course. Once more
Returning from the vengeance they looked up;
Then passed in silence by.

That eve, men say,
While slowly paced Cuchullain t'ward the camp
Bosomed 'twixt Gairig's and Ilgairig's hills,
Lamenting strains of Goddesses were heard,—
For whatsoe'er was female loved the man,
If earthly female, with a human love,
If heavenly, with a love compassionate—
Lamenting strains that, ere his youth had passed
That starry head must lie by Fate's decree
Amid the dust of death. Cuchullain turned;
Softly he answered: ‘Goddesses benign!
Why weep ye? I was Uladh's Mastiff-Hound:
The mastiff lives not long. What better lot
For him than this;—the bandits chased, to die
Beside his master's gate?’

So ends the Tain:
Primeval battle-chaunt of Erin's race:
Northward thus marched from Cruachan the Kings,
Then back. The Foray of Queen Meave thus far.

The Shannon.

Athlone.

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THE SONS OF USNACH.

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TO THE MEMORY OF EUGENE O'CURRY, FIRST PROFESSOR OF IRISH HISTORY IN THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, THIS POEM IS DEDICATED.

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CANTO I. THE BABE OF DESTINY.

In Felim's house they kept the royal feast,
And all the echoing hall with tumult rang,
Tumult that still from morn to eve increased;
And now the tale they told, and now they sang.
Chief minstrel he to Conor, Uladh's lord,
Who graced that day, as oft, his favourite's board.

Sudden to Felim's seat a woman rushed
An ancient nurse with wrinkled face and worn
Clamouring, her hands upheld and forehead flushed,
‘Felim, rejoice! for lo, thy babe is born!
And proud be thou, for goodlier is this child
Than e'er till now on proudest parent smiled!’

These tidings heard, yet higher swelled the acclaim;
The Red Branch Knights oft pledged that infant's health,
And prayed that all high gifts of wealth and fame,
Great lordship, and great valour, and great wealth

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Might grace its life, and in the far-off days
Crown its bright head with everlasting praise.

But when an hour had passed, and somewhat more,
The feasters heard far off a dulcet strain,
And soon to them there entered damsels four;
With measured step advanced they twain by twain,
Bearing a cradle. On a low-raised throne
They reared it, bowered in silk, and blossom-strewn.

Therein a little maiden-wonder lay
Unlike all babes beside in mien and hue,
Bright as a lily-bud at break of day
That flashes through the night's unlifted dew:
Beaming her eyes, like planets glad and fair:
And o'er her forehead curved a fringe of hair.

The tender fairy hand, whose substance fine
Glimmered as of compacted moonbeams made
With such a stealthy smoothness did it shine
Above the coverlet unquiet strayed;
And some one said, ‘It knows the things to be,
And seeks its wand of destined empery!’

From bannered stalls the Red Branch Knights drew nigh
Circling that cradle. 'Neath the raftered roof
A far-sunk window opened to the sky,
While purple twilight wove with warp and woof
O'er deepening heavens its dewy mantle dark,
And dusking woods, that hour unseen; when, hark!

Outside that casement rang a piercing wail;
Then, past it slow, a dread and shrouded Form

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On demon wings was seen of all to sail:
Shriek after shriek out-swelled into a storm:
And o'er that flower new-born of infancy
All heard the Banshee's death-denouncing cry.

Then, from his seat in that high hall remote
Whereon all day in silence he had sate
Advanced, unguided, to that Infant's cot
Cathbad, the Druid old, and man of Fate,
And o'er that infant held his arms out-spread,
And raised to heaven his grey and sightless head.

At last he spake, ‘This day a woe to man,
And yet the crown of woman's kind, is born:
This day is sent a blessing and a ban;
She shall be black as night, and white as morn;
And lo, upon her cheek I see such red
As stains great warriors on the war-field dead.

‘A death to mighty hosts that face shall be:
Through her a king shall pass to banishment:
Through her shall perish Usnach's peerless Three;
Through her from sacred Eman's roofs fire-rent
Even now I see the reddening smoke-cloud leap:
Deirdré her name. Through her shall widows weep.’

King Conor heard, and in his angry mood
Had risen to speak her doom, ‘That child shall die!’
Save that the Uladh nobles where they stood
The king forestalling, hurled abroad their cry;
‘She must not live!’ Of all those knights but two
Willed not that deed—the bravest Erin knew.

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For at that hour upon the cradle's right
Stood Conal Carnach; at its left, though young,
Swifter in chase, and stronger yet in fight,
Cuchullain. Neither swelled that shout of wrong.
Once more it rose: but Conor ne'er was known
To walk in any counsel save his own.

He spake: ‘She shall not die: this babe I take,
My ward, until her destinies be known:
An isle tower-girt is mine in yonder lake:
There shall she live; and there shall live alone:
That fatal beauty shall by none be seen:
Full-grown the maid perchance may be my queen.’

Wondering they heard, but no man made reply
For Conor's will was lord to all and each,
A man of counsel deep and purpose high
In action sudden, sparing of his speech:
Early he won the people to his will:
Ere long they feared him: but they loved him still.

While yet a child, the stepson of that king
Who reigned in Uladh, Fergus son of Roy,
Conor had shared his home. That prince would bring
Oft to his judgment court Queen Nessa's boy
Whose forward wit unravelled every suit,
Delighting in the wrangling clan's dispute.

Fergus was loftier-minded: evermore
He loathed the sordid plea, the varnished wrong,
And inly scorned the Ollamb's learnèd lore:
More dear to him the chase, the feast, the song:
Wearied one day, he cried with laughing face,
‘Conor! speak thou the judgment in my place!’

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The boy made answer none; but instant bowed,
And judgment gave so full, so just, so clear,
A shout rang upward from the astonished crowd,
‘Worthy of kingship thou!’ His crowned compeer,
Fergus arose: incensed he made reply:
‘Throne him your king, if worthier he than I!’

Conor since then had ruled the Ulidian race,
And ever waxed in subtlety and power,
Though better loved was Fergus' honest face
And princely port, forth issuing from his tower
At times with horse and hound to chase the boar,
Crowning at times the topmost ridge of war.

Conor was loved and feared: one clan alone
Nor feared, nor loved him, Usnach's: and the king
In Usnach's house a rival to his throne
Or noting, or belike imagining,
Still watched that house to crush it had he dared;
But Uladh loved it, and her monarch spared.

CANTO II. THE BEAUTIFUL CHILDHOOD.

Meantime to that green island in the lake
The years came softly: softly went they by
As like as snowy flake to snowy flake,
As like as smile to smile, as sigh to sigh;
And as some flower that feeds on beams and dew
Its inmate rose in beauty ever new,

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Deirdré. With her abode an ancient dame,
The tale-recounter of the royal court
In years departed; Levarcam her name:
None other to that island made resort
Save now and then treading the downward rocks
Some shepherd with the firstling of his flocks.

Beauteous as heaven that gladsome captive was;
With every month more fair, more gladsome grew;
Her pastime, counting jewels in the grass,
Emerald and amethyst, and sapphire blue,
Or chasing—never part had she in sloth—
From bloom to bloom the morning-gilded moth.

Impassioned friendships hers with every kind:
To her the Robin came; to her the Hare;
And still with insight flashed from heart to mind,
She guessed their lives in tree or bosky lair,
Sharing their vernal joys, and, when the snows
Besieged their haunts, condoling with their woes.

Inquisitive the creature was, and brave:
From rock to rock alone she roamed; untaught
She knew to climb the tree and swim the wave;
Soaring and swift, for knowledge still she sought,
Nor sought in vain far wiser than she wist;
Infantine minstrel and mythologist.

For when she heard the wintry tempests raving,
Fables she told of immemorial feuds,
And warring Gods that still, for vengeance craving,
Devastated some rival's peaceful woods;
And when the morning shone, serene and mild,
She laughed and said, ‘These Gods are reconciled!’

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Often where cliffs darkened that lake's clear mirror
Far down she gazed, and saw—not her own face,
But phantom under-worlds of joy, not terror;
Now wars; now bridals of some magic race;
Now regal palace beauteous in decay;
Now flowery slopes, and fairy babes at play.

All she had seen in the upper world, and all
Pictured by Levarcam in legend glowing,
Met her more gem-like in that watery hall
There flushed with glories of her own bestowing:
And oft, aggrieved, from those fair scenes ideal
The creature raised her eyes on objects real.

Betwixt that island and the forest green
A causeway stretched. Scorning King Conor's law,
O'er it in summer maidens tripped unseen
And told her tales of all they heard and saw,
And flowers in May, and fruits in summer brought her
Or with her danced beside the moonlit water.

Two men alone she saw; at times the king:
His grizzled beard and searching eye she fled,
And wept to think that in some far-off spring
She must be his. That thought with angry dread
Touched her keen instinct. In that face august
Something unblest she saw, and ill to trust.

Yet oft he came, watching that flower of beauty
That still from crude, reluctant bud emerged,
And citing still past vow, and future duty
Impledged thereby; and still with presents urged;
And ever reaped for such more scoffs than gain—
Officious is his zeal whose hope is vain!

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The other visitor she better loved,
A Druid, silver-headed: to her isle
Daily he came, a teacher well-approved;
And much he taught her, with his grave calm smile
Advancing still into his pupil's heart:
To elicit thence, he knew, was to impart.

He taught her all a monarch's bride had need
In those old days to learn. Devout and grave,
He taught her all the Ogham signs to read,
Inscribed on mossy stone or mystic stave;
And how to trace green Erin's Kings, each one
To Heber or Heremon, Ir, or Donn.

One morn as on their glories he descanted
‘Where are they now?’ his wondering listener said,
Then silent stood like shape to stone enchanted:
But when he answered sadly, ‘They are dead,’
She bounded t'ward the on-wavering butterfly,
And cried, ‘At least he lives; and so do I!’

Once too she caught that Druid by the sleeve
And spake: ‘Great Master, this I ask of thee!
Who was it made the sun, the morn and eve,
The stars, the flying clouds, yon boundless sea?’
Her great wide eyes, clasped hands, and lips compressed,
Better than words enforced the unending quest.

The Druid answered, dubious, still refining
With stress and strain of profluent words that left
The problem's jet-black surface smooth and shining
But ne'er the mystery's heart of marble cleft,

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And ended; ‘God is God:—but ah, the woe!
That which God is, not even the Druids know!’

‘Then God must be a God who hides Himself
In sport, or else for cause we know not of!
And doubtless,’ thus ran on the careless elf,
‘Who hides in sport will show His face in love;
Much seeking will not find Him. He will come
Then when He wills; and take His children home.

‘For I remember once in yonder wood
My nurse, to mock me, hid her in an oak,
Whilst idly I a dragon-fly pursued:
I missed her soon: I wept: then forth she broke!
Thus likewise God, hearing His creatures moan,
Will flash on them, and cry, “Mine own, mine own!”

‘That day the wise will serve Him; but the fool
Will sport with Ogham stave, or dragon-fly
That lights his spark—lo there—on dusky pool!
Of those that sport at once, and serve am I!
Therefore, come quickly, God! And thou, good stave,
Fly hence!’ And forth she flung it on the wave!

But when she found within the Master's face
Not wrath—for that she looked—but awe-struck woe,
A change there passed too swift for eye to trace
Athwart her rain-dark eyes and front of snow;
And straight the child, by love's remorse possessed,
Kissed with her whole bright face that Druid's breast.

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The years passed by; and, onward as they sped
That child from beauty still to beauty grew;
In her full many a fair one came and fled.
Like sunny gleams that each the last pursue;
And yet that glad succession brought no change;
Each child in turn was wilful, sweet, and strange.

Older, beyond her island bounds she strayed
Despite the king; for, ever since her birth,
Of nought that tender heart had been afraid:
Banshee, or ghost, she heard of, now with mirth
And now with awe, but never with affright;
And gladly would have faced them if she might.

Not so old Levarcam! a spasm of dread
Oft blanched her cheek remembering Conor's word,
‘Keep safe the child or forfeit is thy head!’
In Deirdré's absence, if a leaf but stirred
She shook, and endless tales and legends told
To keep her young lamb safe within the fold.

She told how first, from regions of the morn
With black-sailed ships stemming the ocean tide
To Erin's forest yet of men forlorn
Came Partholan, the Grecian Parricide:
And how the ill race had perished. Deirdré cried
With reddening cheek; ‘Glad am I that they died!’

Then, with a brightening in her old, pale face,
Her nurse resumed: ‘But we—the Gael—but we,
The offspring are we of a lordlier race,
The heirs of some diviner destiny!
King Miledh was our sire! From far Espán
His dauntless sons led forth the Gaedil clan.’

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Of Scota next she told, the widowed Queen;
And how that sad one left her lonely throne
Girt by eight sons; and how with eye serene
She marked above the wine-black ocean prone
Sea-monsters rise; nor feared to watch the wave
Heaven-high, anon descending to its grave.

Time on her brow had graved no characters;
Sorrow no splendour stol'n from that wide eye
That ever, as the legend old avers,
Reposed on some far seat of sovereignty
By others hoped;—to her alone revealed
Beyond sea-cloud, and ocean's heaving field.

She saw the waves engulf the drowning decks;
Yet nought could scare that eye or blanch that cheek:
Four sons she saw upon their mastless wrecks
High driven on Erin's rocks and headlands bleak
From Inver Scena to the House of Donn:
She said; ‘The price is paid; the Isle is won!’

She saw the victory's prelude and no more;
Half-way 'twixt ocean marge and mountain crest
Where sleep the Great Ones of the days of yore
Early she made her venerable rest,
And holds, well-pleased, an ever spreading fame,
Sealing a mighty people with her name.

Not all the themes were war; the fabler told
Of Feale, the dusk-eyed beauty of the South,
By Lewy won 'mid olive forests old:
Such minstrelsies went freshening from his mouth

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That in his hand her own the princess placed,
Nor feared, his wife, to dare the wan sea-waste.

She told how, later, by that northern tide
A blush of causeless shame her cheek had stained;
And how, heart-grieved at fancied guilt, she died,
Where wrong was none; and how her husband plained
Year after year, while she, at Scota's feet,
Rested revered where earth and ocean meet.

Next told she how for Tara's King they found
No consort worthy of the royal bed
From east to west through Erin's utmost bound;
And how, dream-warned, the youth had northward sped:
And how, from fountain-bower by Fairy Brugh,
A white maid looked on him with eyes of blue.

And how that beauteous phantom, Eadane,
Had laid a hand like light upon his hair:
And next, lest he should die of yearnings vain,
Assumed a woman's form though woven of air,
And borne him pretty babes within their bower;
Yet bade him oft beware the destined hour.

And how at Tara, while the nobles sate
Gracing his feast, that queen sent forth a cry:
And how the Fairy-King through guards and gate
Passed swiftly mailed in dew-like jewelry
And like a whirlwind bore in sight of all
That Fairy Princess to her father's hall!

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While thus the tales ran on the years ran by,
Tales, some of sadness, some of mirth and jest,
Till now the child to maiden prime was nigh:
The tales of war and wonder pleased her best:
The love-tales well began, no doubt: yet all
Ended, she thought, in something slight and small.

And still whate'er she heard of good and pure
Within the virgin's memory held its place
Like names on tree-stems graved that aye endure:
Of questionable things survived no trace:
They passed, like letters written in a rill
That upward laughs to heaven, re-virgined still.

One day it chanced that, while the March wind's breath
Was softening round the daffodil's first bud,
Their shepherd old had saved a lamb from death,
And slain the wolf, and in their gateway stood;
And, as the wounded creature bled, below
A crimson blood-pool stained the last night's snow.

Sudden there swooped to earth a raven black,
And feasted on that blood. As in a dream
The maiden watched it long: at last she spake,
Whilst o'er her grave face ran a laughing gleam,
‘These be Love's colours, black and red, and white;—
Yet Love, we know, is nought when judged aright!

‘These be Love's colours, white and black, and red:—
Some little foolish maid, to love inclined,
Might say: “Though all should love me none shall wed
Until in one dear face those three I find;

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Not raven locks alone, or front of snow,
But on the heroic cheek the battle's glow!”’

Beside the girl stood Levarcam; she smiled,
And spake: ‘Good sooth, your shaft hath hit its mark;
Yea doubtless, you were born a prophet's child!
For Naisi's front is white, his tresses dark;
And still of him men say, “On Naisi's cheek
Not roses, but red dawns of battles break!”’

Then to the flash from Deirdré's peerless eyes
Her nurse made answer: ‘Naisi, who is he?
Warrior there treads not under Erin's skies
But knows the man! the swiftest of those Three!
They need no hounds; afoot they chase, each morn,
The stag, and downward drag him head and horn!

‘Ever at Uladh's feasts the clansmen say,
“Place ye the sons of Usnach side by side,
A rock behind them, or some cromlech grey,
Then blow a trump o'er Erin far and wide,
And range her hosts against them, face to face,
Those Three shall hew them down or homeward chase!”

‘Their singing is the best all Uladh boasts;
Of all her sons most courteous they and kind,
To heaven devoutest of her countless hosts:
Softly along his path they lead the blind;
Submission made, they scorn to avenge the ill
Nor ever kissed a maid against her will.

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‘To these the clans send embassies from far
Laden with gifts, and suing, “Grant us aid!
Rule us in battle's hour, and head our war!”
But women say, “How well their mother prayed
For sons both mild and valiant!” Lo, a ray
Of her sweet countenance lives in theirs this day!’

Here Levarcam a moment stopped for breath;
Then Deirdré rose and sought the neighbouring strand:
Ice-bound it was, and cold that hour as death:
To her 'twas warm as mead by May breeze fanned:
She paced along its pebbly beach for hours;
And to her feet its shingles felt like flowers.

Returned, more lofty looked she than at morn;
With more of inward gladness, yet less gay;
More confident, though thawed, her girlish scorn
In some half womanhood's benigner ray:
Smiling, she met her nurse's smile, and then,
‘Naisi,’ she said, ‘will love me! Who cares when?!’

The maiden paused; she mused; again she spake,
Fixing on Levarcam those marvellous eyes;
‘Three by Love's colours—white, and red, and black:
White for the sake of Love's white sanctities:
And red, for Love must war on many a foe;
And black, since Love, though crowned, must end in woe.’

Again she mused:—‘Yes, Love must war! Who fears?
Though Love must fight, he fights in love, not hate!
Some glorious conflict rages through the years;
Great Love must take therein his part, elate:

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And woe comes last. On raven pinions borne
Night comes not less:—but after night comes morn!’

From that time Naisi's name she named no more;
Nothing she seemed to lack; nothing to crave:
Her heart through spiritual realms was strong to soar,
Self-lifted as o'er windless seas the wave;
A spirit of strength from earthly bonds escaped
She trod; her body's self but spirit draped;

A spirit of strength and swiftness onward borne
Through luminous realms all resonant and free,
Happier because unwinged, like endless morn
With silver feet circling the spherèd sea:
And still her lonely thought with song was blent;
And bird-like still she warbled as she went.

For music then, like warfare, not from art
Grew up laborious:—born of frank good-will
'Twas Joy's loud clarion in the generous heart;
Through pains more perfect grew the harper's skill,
Yet still from purest soul, and bravest breast
The minstrelsy came brightest still and best.

Deirdré besides, on Naisi's music musing—
That strain far-famed she once had heard in dream—
Through some strange craft of Nature's sweet infusing
Unconscious copied it. A lily's gleam
Shines thus, reflected in the lake below,
More softly, green for green, and snow for snow.

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One morn she marked two mated eagles flying
Far from their cliff, her little lake above,
Sunward in strength, and clapped her hands loud crying,
‘On, wedded Spirits, on! for this is Love!
No woodland murmurs yours, and thraldom none!
Sail on till buried in the ascending sun!’

That vision shaped her life. Through wild and wood
That day, but later, Naisi chased the stag:
It took the wave and vanished: silent stood
At noon the hunter on a jutting crag:
His eye upon a tower-crowned island fell;
Thereon it fastened, bound as by a spell.

‘There lies,’ he mused, ‘that wondrous-countenanced child,
Like some poor bird a captive from its birth,
In that lone island year by year exiled:
How little she suspects her grace and worth!
Our household foe ere long will clutch that hand—
Is yon a causeway leading to the land?’

An hour had fled, and lo! that bridge he paced;
Ere long, no child, but, sparkling like a flower,
The imprisoned maid nor startled nor shame-faced
Passed by the youth, advancing from her bower
With breeze-like step, yet down-dropp'd lids of snow:
‘Ah foot,’ he cried, ‘more light than foot of doe!’

An instant back she flashed her magic eyes
And from her laughing lip the answer leaped,
‘Where stags are none, the doe must monarchise!’
Some ballad old it was, but never steeped

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Till then with such strange sweetness to his ear:
Was it reproof or challenge, vague yet dear?

Naisi rejoined: ‘A monarch rules this land;
For you he destines Erin's proudest throne!
Ah, but for that how many a warrior's brand’—
She spake; ‘His realm is his: my heart mine own:
A maiden I have lived: maiden would die:’
The warrior fixed on hers his strong grey eye.

That eye, though young and sweet with such clear light,
Had marshalled many a death-strewn battle-field;
Had watched the meeting tides of many a fight;
Taught many a proud, inviolate fort to yield.
With gaze as frank his gaze thus answered she,
‘I know you well! the eldest of those Three!

‘Where are your brothers? She whom nurse I call
Has told me all the Three are kind and brave:
Fain would I sister be to each and all:
Fain too my life from love tyrannic save!’
‘Their sister you shall be,’ the youth replied;
‘Mine if you will; but none the less my bride!’

He spake; then, for the maiden's safety fearing
With passion changed continued: ‘Spurn my suit!
The king will slay thee!’ She, the warrior nearing
Held forth both hands and gazed upon him mute;
And last, in love's high truth—and truth is best—
Made answer, ‘Thine!’ He snatched her to his breast.

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Thence lifting soon a countenance glad yet tearful
She spake: ‘Your knighthood stands consummate now!
Since a true maid, of Conor's wrath not fearful,
Has heard and with her own has crowned your vow.
Forth, on your task decreed! Fly hence, and prove
Ten years in battle-fields what might hath Love!

‘In ten years bring me back your trophied spoils
From every land and clime; for mine they are!
I that inspired can well requite your toils:
Ever till then my spirit like a star
O'er you shall hang! Farewell, yet, ere you go,
Sing! for how great your songs long since I know.’

So, hand in hand, upon that causeway standing,
Those youthful lovers measure after measure
Poured forth, their bosoms more and more expanding
At once with music's zeal, and love's pure pleasure;
For Deirdré still her voice with Naisi's twined,
All-perfect harmony though undesigned.

And though till then no war-song she had sung
That hour her song grew warlike as his own!
And, o'er her heaven-like beauty as he hung,
His war-songs tender grew and sweet of tone:
And still they sang, till now through woodlands ringing
The men of Erin east and west came winging,

And found those lovers in that lonely haunt,
That sunset glowing round them and above;
And saw the forests flash, the blue waves pant;
And heard that mingled praise of war and love:

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Then ceased that pair, and softly smiled, and said,
‘What makes us glad is this: we two are wed!’

But when, to many a questioner replying,
They found that they had only met that noon
The lovers laughed a sweet-voiced laughter, crying,
‘We thought we had been wedded many a moon!
Great love it seems lives long in little time;
Yet shall great love be ever in his prime!

‘Perchance of us some future bard shall say,
“Their bright, swift life went o'er them like a breath
Of stormy southwind in the merry May;
And brief their unfeared, undivided death:”
For unto those who love, and love aright,
Life is Love's day; and Death his long, sweet night.’

But straight the men of Erin cried aloud,
‘The king, the king!’ and Naisi's brothers twain,
Ainli and Ardan, though to help him vowed
At need, not less to break that troth were fain:
The king they named not. Cathbad long ago
Foretold that Babe was born for Uladh's woe!

Yet, when within those lovers' eyes they saw
Wild mirth alone, and blank astonishment,
They deemed the thing divine; and, though with awe,
Their spirits on the high adventure bent,
And council took, and with one mind decreed
That self-same night o'er Uladh's bound to speed.

This therefore was the order of their going:
A hundred warriors marching in the van;
A hundred maidens next with veils loose flowing;
A hundred clansmen last of Usnach's clan,

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And each a greyhound leading in a cord;
Swiftly with these they trod the moonlit sward.

So well were Usnach's sons both loved and feared
King Conor could but rail against the wrong:
All round the isle they marched with banner reared,
And trumpet blown, and many a tale and song,
Welcomed in court and camp both near and far,
From Esro's Fall to sea-beat Binedar.

Nathless through Conor's craft such toils were woven
'Twixt them and Erin's Kings, to spare that wrong
Felt at low hearths when royal pacts are cloven,
They drew to northern Moyle a fleet ere long,
And spread their sails from Kermnah Dûn, and o'er
The grey-green billows sailed to Alba's shore.

When Conor heard the warriors were departed
He smiled. From rigid lips austere and thin
Keen as a poignard's gleam that smile forth darted,
Mute witness of an edict vowed within:—
‘They 'scape,’ thus mused he; ‘yet their hour is nigh:
This long lean arm shall drag them back to die.’

CANTO III. THE SONS OF USNACH IN ALBA.

O noble Alba, Scotia later named
Then when the race of Scota and her Lord
O'er all thy holy isles and highlands famed
Had raised the Gaelic harp, the Gaelic sword,

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And Kenneth, Pictish rule extinct, had reared
That throne of kings for centuries revered!

Great land of Alba! in that hour supreme
Conqueror, not conquered, wert thou! Thy great heart,
Flinging from off it, like a nightmare dream,
A sway ignobler, chose the better part,
Throning the lofty spirit in lofty place:
It brought thee bliss and bale, but nothing base!

When, centuries earlier, stood on Alba's coast
Usnach's brave sons, her king received them well:
Treaty they made: they joined to his their host,
And taught him soon the insurgent tribes to quell,
Yet still they loved him not: ‘His soul is mean,’
They said; ‘by him shall Deirdré ne'er be seen.’

Yet near his court they dwelt; and once it chanced
A palace churl while o'er the forest boughs
New leaved the earliest beam of morning glanced,
Made way, with missive sped, to Naisi's house,
And on by dusky doors, though timorous, crept,
And found at last that room where Naisi slept.

Before its stony threshold slumbering lay
Ainli and Ardan, clasping, each, a sword,
For ever wont were these by night and day
Their brother and their sister thus to ward:
The intruder o'er them stepped and entrance made
To where in sleep that princely pair were laid.

Between them stretched from pillow on to pillow
The massive trail of Deirdré's luminous hair,
Like gold-touched tendrils of a budded willow
Breeze-blown against the dawn. Already there

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The greedy, youngling sunrise made his feast,
Though still in cloud half muffled was the East.

Longer that churl had stood save that in sleep
Growled the great wolf-hound couched beside the bed:
The traitor turned; and, skilled to crawl and creep,
Reached the half open gates, and homeward fled,
And found the king new-risen, and nodding spake,
‘Rejoice, great monarch, for thy kingdom's sake!

‘Till now thou hast not found a woman meet
In all thy land the royal throne to share;
Behold, the loveliest lady and most sweet
Of all the earth is near, and thou not 'ware!
Compared with her the rest are sheep and kine—
Bid Naisi die! his consort crown as thine!’

Then told the man his tale from first to last
With added circumstance. The Pict replied
Well pleased, albeit at Naisi's name aghast,
‘To slay that chief were hard; to snare his bride
Were sweet. In secret traffic with her! Say,
She must be first my love; my queen one day!’

Forth sped the accursed one on his mission foul,
And came on Deirdré singing all alone,
And took his stand, ill visaged as a Ghoul,
And named the terms, base love and future throne:
And she with darkening eyes no word replied
Save this alone: ‘Till I return, abide!’

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Swiftly she walked: she came where stood the Three;
Then from her white lips rushed her wrong like flame:
‘Dishonoured wife!’ she cried, ‘with me, with me,
Though not the treason, lives for aye the shame!
Ah, surely never wife such scorn has known
Unless the fault was first in part her own!’

But Naisi smiled, forth issuing with his brand,
And said but this: ‘Abide till I return;’
And soon, that head ill-omened in his hand,
Came back with countenance bright, at once and stern:
Then Deirdré spake, ‘My hand had borne that freight
If thine had spared it! At the bad king's gate

‘Lay first that head, and march we hence this night!’
The Brothers answered: ‘No! nor yet three days!’
Three days in scorn they paced a neighbouring height:
Three days the Pict, thus challenged, stood at gaze,
And ofttimes grimly turned from lord to lord:
They answered nought; nor any raised his sword.

But when the fourth dawn o'er the forest soaring
Sent through the heavens divergent beams of splendour,
Upon the earth glory and gladness pouring,
That host arose; nor took they farewell tender:
Three stones the clansmen, each, above his head
Flung backward far in scorn: then forth they sped.

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And, lest the sun should dazzle Deirdré's eyes,
Westward that morn their pilgrimage began:
First, under standards bright with myriad dyes
A hundred Usnach warriors led the van:
Maids next: then clansmen, holding, each, a hound
That strained against the leash with bark and bound.

Ere long their march was through the misty highlands:
They tracked Glenorchy's immemorial woods;
Loch Lomond's bosky mountain-skirts and islands;
Birch-braided Katrine's sylvan solitudes;
And where on shores of Fyne, now low now higher,
With punctual tide the salt sea floods respire.

Meantime the natives of those lonely regions
Came fiercely forth from many a distant shore
Though worsted oft, in ever thickening legions;
Ere long the rumour rushed the ocean o'er:
Thenceforth there flocked from Uladh's coast in swarms
Her noblest youth, clan Usnach's mates in arms.

For there, beside the spring her pitcher watching,
The maid would sing of Naisi's strength and fleetness,
Ofttimes in turn on breeze of evening catching
Some shepherd's song of Deirdré's truth and sweetness:
And still they ended, each: ‘Ill deed, King Conor,
That banished such! Alas, the land's dishonour!’

The exiles nothing grudged that storm of war,
In victory glad, not downcast in defeat:
Three winter months when fortune pressed them sore
Within a western isle they made retreat,

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The nearest of those emerald Hebrides
Set 'mid the crystal splendour of the seas.

Returned, with varying fortune raged the feud:
Clan Usnach triumphed now: anon the foe:
And oft, a swordless warrior mild of mood,
Amid those Three was Deirdré seen: and lo!
Still as the radiance bickers round the gem
So flashed the battle's flame round her and them.

She smote not; yet she conquered. Victory's sun
Where'er she moved upon their banners played:
Full half the realm the Uladh warriors won:
Her face inspired them! Peace ere long they made—
Laughing that hour they swore their songs between
‘King Conor's Exile shall be Alba's Queen!’

It was that season when the spirit of joy
Runs million-footed forth through earth and air;
When the hale shepherd grows once more the boy;
The girl-like youth is prompt to do and dare;
When womanhood looks softer than its wont;
The star shines whiter from the infant's front.

It was that season when the maiden's heart,
Though guarded, faster beasts against its bound;
When Love's long hidden fount, by happier art
Divined, is nearer to the surface found:
When to the faded cheek returns its bloom;
And tears less bitter stain the flower-decked tomb.

It was that season when on fields late dreary
Thickest at dawn the awakened daisy throngeth,
When in the dim sweet gloaming, never weary
Latest the darkling thrush her song prolongeth;

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And pillow-spurning children fret for morn
Fresh flowers, new leaves, and ecstacies re-born.

Ah then to Naisi, and to Deirdré then
Like fire the gladness of the spring-tide came:
That causeway old they seemed to tread again,
Sang the same song! Love's wild, yet vestal flame
Caught them once more as on that first of May;
And three glad wedded years became a day.

Then, dawn by dawn, ere yet the low-tongued wind
From unreluctant buds their balm was wooing,
While earliest shafts through ragged fissures blind
Of cloud forth flashed, the flying night pursuing,
Those brothers and that sister clomb the crag
And blew the horn, and roused the antlered stag.

O joy his course through woodland gulfs to follow
Deirdré and they, to Etive's salt sea lake!
To hear from shadowy cliff and cavern hollow
Through glistening air that horn's far echoes break,
And mark, o'er wide green plain, and purple mere
The mountain-wall its glooming bastion rear

More high when seen through mist: to watch it quivering;
From rock to cloud to track the eagle's flight;
And then, close by, on spray shining and shivering
To note the tender-footed bird alight,
Or flower down-bending 'neath the silenced bee,
Or gleam from rill remote on-winding noiselessly!

O joy, to hear in woods the loud hounds baying,
Or plunge of floods adown some hoarse ravine!
To watch the level wave o'er sea-ledge swaying;
Thence refluent dragged in trails of grassy green;

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Or, farther yet, that surge forever hoary
Seething round lone tormented promontory!

Three tents they planted where the forest's skirt
Sheltered the lowland from the increasing heat;
In one, with hand assiduous and expert
Deirdré prepared that food by toil made sweet;
In one they held their banquet; and in one
Sang their glad songs till half the night was done.

And many a night on Etive's flowery margin
She moved, while moonbeams glazed the purple wave,
Blithest of wives; light-footed as a virgin;
Or at the entrance of some ivied cave
Sang note prolonged that ended oft in laughter—
Sweet were the days, pledging some sweet hereafter!

One night, when Naisi to his rest had passed,
Deirdré, long lingering at the bridal door,
Her eyes on Ainli and on Ardan cast,
Great eyes with tears unused all misted o'er,
And took their hands, and spake in low, soft tone
‘To you my Naisi's weal is as your own!

‘But you, like Naisi, must have, each, your bride,
Unhumbled maids not willing to be wed,
To walk in glorying gladness at your side:
Find such, and I round each a silver thread
Will twine; and bring the creatures to you bound:
Discrowned the proud must be; and Love be crowned!’

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CANTO IV. THE KING'S TREASON.

The heroic song hath sorrows, but not sighs;
The heroic legend tender is, yet hard;
With grief alike, and joy, can sympathise;
Yet keeps the heroic heart from weakness barred.
Love's strenuous gale for three glad years had blown:
Then Fate, that rules the nations, claimed her own.

Thus it befell; once more at Conor's call
The Red Branch Knights partook his birthday feast,
Ranged 'neath their standards round Emania's hall;
And when at last the hunger rage had ceased,
Song after song rang out in turn and died
Far echoed; and the warriors' shout replied.

But 'mid the triumph, 'mid the jest, the laugh,
The minstrel chaunt, and flash of boastful wit,
Sad as a snow-flecked grave-stone's epitaph
Were Conor's wintry face and brow close-knit;
And ever round that various-vested scene
His stern grey eye wandered with inquest keen.

He mused; they love the Usnach clan, not me;
Those Three that daily lure my best away;
That filched my Bride; my kingdom's fall decree;
Make broad their Alban borders day by day:—
But highest while they soar, that brood accurst,
The bolt of my revenge shall on them burst!

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Thus musing, sudden in his eye there shone
A baleful gleam: for as the loud-voiced pack
In frosty woods long baffled, finds anon
The scent, and follows fast the trail and track,
Even so King Conor's thoughts, ravening for aye
At last, though far, had glimpsed their destined prey.

He rose: ‘How say ye, Lords! With plainness speak—
Give counsel true and courtly scruples quell:
Find ye in Uladh aught decayed or weak,
Amiss, or lacking? Or are all things well?’
And they made answer: ‘All things right we find,
Nor aught deficient. King, we speak our mind!’

Yet once again King Conor rose and said,
‘My mind is other-minded, Lords, than yours;
For I, though ne'er by random counsel swayed,
Far less by murmurs low of kernes and boors,
Find this amiss; that Usnach's sons this day
For one bad woman's sake are far away;

‘A loss to Uladh, and to me the most
Losing each month our bravest.’ Then the acclaim
Burst louder thrice from that exulting host;
And thus they cried: ‘We feared the royal blame,
And therefore hid our counsel; but that morn
Those Three return, old Uladh stands re-born.’

Again the plot-deviser rose and spake:
‘Men of great stomachs, Lords, we count those Three:
“Exiles,” they sware, “we go: but ne'er come back
Till sureties strong are ours, and guarantee
By Conor sent, firm pledge of endless troth:”
Thus Naisi sware: and sacred is an oath.

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‘Likewise thus vowed he, ne'er to tread again
Green Erin's soil, his glory and his joy,
Till Conal Carnach fetched him o'er the main,
Or else Cuchullain, or the son of Roy,
Fergus, my dearest. I these three will test,
And learn by proof which loves King Conor best.’

Then Conor unto Conal signed; and these
Stood speaking in a casement far apart:
‘Conal, if I should send thee o'er the seas,
And lo! on Uladh's soil, through Naisi's heart
The Fates sent darkness, what would happen then?’
And Conal answered: ‘Deaths of many men!

‘King! if he fell, of Uladh's sons one-half
For Naisi's sake would lie ere three days dead,
And for my surety broken.’ With a laugh
King Conor filliped Conal's cheek, and said,
‘Fool! that canst never understand a jest!
Go hence! It is not thou that lov'st me best!’

Next, to Cuchullain Conor signed; then spake:
‘Cuchullain! if I sent thee o'er the sea,
With Usnach's exiled sons a pact to make,
And then, despite thy surety given, those Three
Vanished, late-landed; what would happen then?’
Cuchullain answered: ‘Deaths of many men!

‘For, not alone who wrought that deed accursed
Slaying those Three, should perish by this hand,
But they the impious deed who counselled, first;
And, next the man who issued that command!’
Then Conor frowned:—‘What night-mare loads thy breast?
Hence, for thou know'st me not; nor lov'st me best!’

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To Fergus last the royal plotter signed,
And made, yet softlier tuned, the self-same quest;
But he the questioner's meaning nought divined
A prince whose heart, as naked as his crest,
Contemned disguise; suspecting treachery none
Thus answered Fergus, Roy's once sceptred son:

‘King, thou, and I, and Usnach's sons must die—
What matters when, if spotless our good name?
The hand that strikes in daylight I defy;
If traitor's knife attempts their lives, that shame
All Uladh's race shall expiate save alone
That stained, yet guiltless king on Uladh's throne!’

Then Conor caught his hand: ‘Thou, sole of all
Lov'st me! The rest but fear: they never loved!
Cautious are they: thou swift at honour's call!
Now therefore be thy love and fealty proved:
To Alba speed: bring home those exiled Three,
Thyself their surety, pledge, and guarantee.

‘But with them plight this covenant beside,
That instant when they tread my kingdom's strand
To me they speed; with no man else abide;
Favour or feast accept at no man's hand:
My bread must be the first those exiles break;
All griefs thenceforth forgotten for its sake.

‘I charge thee too from Alba's coast returned
To land at Barach's castle in the north;
There shall thy monarch's further will be learned:’
Then Fergus pledged his word, and issued forth:
But Conor beckoned Barach from the feast;
Then long time stood a-gazing North and East.

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Low-toned he spake: ‘Barach! a keep thou hast
There where the grey cliffs break the northern brine:
When Fergus comes from Alba hold him fast:
Heap high thy banquet; make that proud one thine!
If from thy board he turns he stands forsworn,
By Geisa bound

These Gesa, or Geisa, often as trivial in character as they were rigidly enforced, have a large place in the legends of the Irish pre-Christian times. Sometimes they applied to particular individuals alone: thus, in the case of Cuchullain, it was a Gesa that no one should wake him out of his sleep. Sometimes they were self-imposed: thus Fergus Mac Roy and Cuchullain also, had bound themselves in youth never to refuse an invitation to the feast of a good man, however humble. The most remarkable illustrations of the Gesa will be found in ‘Conary,’ the noble poem of my friend, Sir Samuel Ferguson, who speaks of them as ‘certain sacred injunctions, the violation of which was attended with temporal punishment. The agents in inflicting such retribution appear in the form of Fairies.’ (Poems by Sir Samuel Ferguson, p. 61. McGee, Dublin; George Bell, London.)

no good man's feast to scorn.

‘But thou, the sons of Usnach send to me:
What cause I have to trust that race thou knowest:
Be sure thy feast hold out two days or three:
My love thenceforth thou hast where'er thou goest.’
The courtier smiled, and bowed, ‘I hear, and heed:’
And Conor thus: ‘True friend is friend at need!’

Next morning Fergus o'er the waters sped
At earliest dawn; with him his sons alone,
Illan the Fair; Buini the Ruthless Red,
His shield-bearer, the third. By swift winds blown
They rushed above the waves a day and night;
At dawn Loch Etive's mountains loomed in sight.

Ere noon he landed on the Alban coast:
Wild from the woods a stag there issued bounding;
The prince his mission grave forgat, and tossed
Through the green-caverned forest loud-resounding
As he was ever wont, his hunting cry;
And lo! the tents where Naisi dwelt were nigh.

Deirdré and he were playing chess together

Chess was the favourite game of the Irish in early times.

:
Their bending heads nigh met above the board;
While sunny gleams of that unclouded weather
Glancing through boughs the chequered ivory scored.

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Her brow was bright with thought; her hand, raised high,
Above its destined prize hung hoveringly.

The cry of Fergus reached them. Naisi spake:
‘Erin! A son of Erin breathed that shout!’
Deirdré replied: ‘Not so! On Etive's lake
Some fisher boasts a spoil, or chieftain's scout
Welcomes his fellows far away. Play on!’
She laughed; but from her cheek the rose was gone.

Once more abroad the cry of Fergus pealed;
And Naisi cried: ‘Our Erin nursed that voice!’
Then Deirdré: ‘Nay, but from some rock-girt field
Loud-voiced the shepherd bids his mates rejoice:
Some boar is slain, or wolf that vexed the land:
Play on!’ And on her heart she pressed her hand.

But when a third time rang that shout, now nearer
The three brave brothers recognised the sound,
And listening, larger grew their eyes, and clearer,
And from their seats they leaped, and gazed around,
And smote their palms and clamoured, ‘O the joy!
Fergus is come! Our Fergus! Fergus Roy!’

Then Naisi sent the twain abroad to meet him;
But Deirdré said, ‘I knew that earliest cry!
Woe to the man, and them this hour who greet him!
This day the bolt is launched from yonder sky:
This day the Destiny foretold beginneth:
Woe to the Three! Worst woe to him who sinneth!

‘All night I saw three birds from Erin's peaks
To Alba strain through tempest and eclipse:
Three honey-drops they wafted on their beaks:—
O Love! they dropped that sweetness on thy lips;

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Ere long each death-black wing, and gold-crowned head
With life-blood from thy heart, O Love, was red!’

She rose: on visions dread she seemed to stare!
She stood: she pressed her hands upon her eyes:
From the wan brows the horror-stricken hair
Like angry meteors rose, or seemed to rise;
She towered aloft a prophetess; till, near,
The step well known of Fergus smote their ear.

She whispered low: ‘Trample the honeyed lure!
Make not with Conor! He will have thy blood!’
A moment more, and, entering from the moor
Fergus, that royal presence, by them stood:
The cloud fell from her! Basking like blue sky
She met her husband's guest full lovingly.

There stood they, Fergus loftiest by the head,
His sons beside him, stalwart men, and tall,
Illan the Fair, Buini the Ruthless Red:
Reverent and sweet she kissed them, each and all,
She and the Brothers: next they made demand
Of Erin's weal—Erin, their native land.

Swift came the answer: ‘Friends, the news is this:
The king repents him of the ignoble deed
That cost his realm her bravest; zealous is
To quench that deed, and cancel; hath decreed
That you and yours, henceforth and evermore
Shall live secure on Erin's sacred shore:

‘Likewise of this, a kingdom's oath and pledge,
I stand myself, surety and guarantee:
Conor in turn, to dull past injury's edge
Demands, implores a single vow from thee,

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That till beside his board thou breakest bread
No meaner house than his shall roof thy head.’

Then Naisi and the brethren rose in joy;
But Deirdré came before them speaking thus:
‘King—for, except the race and stock of Roy,
O'er Uladh kings may reign, but not o'er us—
The eagle lives not save in large domain:
These Three have won this land, and here must reign!

‘King Conor caught and caged me, yet a child;
King Conor into exile drave these Three;
To pardon is not to be reconciled:
The sentenced man shall stand absolved; but we
Desire a healthier breeze than makes resort
Within the perfumed precinct of a court.’

‘Lady, you doubt the safety of your Lord!—
“Must reign!” I reign no more; not less my Name
Would move in might before him like a sword
Though all the hosts of Erin 'gainst him came!’
A red spot stood on Fergus' crownless brow;
The Three looked up; and spake: ‘We go, and now!’

Then Deirdré inly said, ‘We go to die:’
Death-pale she stood, yet spake no further word;
Their promise pledged, albeit unwittingly,
The worst that might befall them she preferred
To treason's semblance and a vow forsworn:
She spread the board; westward they sailed ere morn.

And ever as the wine-dark seas they clave
The sons of Usnach stood upon the prow
And spread their arms to Erin o'er the wave;
And each to each exclaimed: ‘To guide the plough

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Or break the clod, still breathing Erin's air
Were better than to rule and reign elsewhere!’

But Deirdré stood upon the vessel's stern
Alone, with eyes on Alba's headlands bent
Dreaming the hills she could no more discern,
And as they faded thus she made lament:
‘O Land, our home no more, to me and mine
Gentle thou wert: therefore my heart is thine!

‘O beauteous Land, oft on thy heathery bed,
Wearied with chase, upon my sleepless heart
My Naisi laid at noon his sleeping head;
And therefore thine I am; and dear thou art.
I came to thee with Naisi hand in hand,
But now no more I see thee, beauteous Land!

‘O Coona! 'mid thy bursting buds the thrush
Sang well in spring! In thee the autumnal berry
Sent forth its flash from reddening brake and bush
Like scoff from hard old lip of beldam merry!
We laughed to mark it, while far off we heard
Ainli with Ardan sing as bird with bird.

‘Glenorchy, O Glenorchy! sweet in thee
To hear the cuckoo's note, that glad new-comer;
And sweet o'er Masan's sands to watch the sea
Sleep on unwakened half the long, blue summer!
Thou gav'st us, O thou Erin of the East!
The song, the chase, the battle, and the feast!

‘Loch Etive, O Loch Etive! near thy shore,
Lulled by thy waters pure, and airs heart-healing,
Latest we lived, who live there now no more;
Earliest in thee we raised our little shieling:

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Good things the Sons of Usnach gat from thee,
And I, the ill-omened Sister of the Three!’

Thus in her song honouring the land she loved
Sad Deirdré stood while back the waters hoar
Streamed from the ship, and singing never moved:
From her chilled lip the wind its music bore,
Till plainly Erin's cliffs at last shone forth
And Barach's castle facing to the North.

Then Barach, as that fated bark drew near,
With courteous seeming but a purpose fell
Sailed forth to meet it making goodly cheer
With bannered boat and tossing coracle
So densely clustered that the billow green
Betwixt them scarcely showed its sparkling sheen.

Ere long the exiles leaped on Erin's strand:
The courtier followed fast: with loud-voiced glee
He bade them welcome to their native land
And kissed the hands of each full reverently,
Deirdré's the last; and said, ‘Your home is here!
Abide a week and after that a year!’

But when the Brothers told him of their oath
In no man's house to eat or rest their head,
Howe'er to slight a friendly welcome loth
Until with Conor they had broken bread,
He turned to Fergus;—‘Oath thou too hast sworn,
Thy Geisa oath, no humblest feast to scorn.

‘Behold, for thee this day my board is decked;
My dish is garnished; and my fatlings slain:
Likewise to greet thee many a chief elect
Rides fast to-day from distant vale and plain:

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If vain their zeal, a mock that loyal haste,
My father's house henceforward stands disgraced.’

'Twas true! That Geisa oath—so Fancy glozed
That day in Erin—with such rites was fenced
Whether from heaven the vow, or self-imposed
So iron-bound with sanctions undispensed,
The man who spurned it, like the man who fled
The battle's front, thenceforth was as the dead.

This Fergus knew: he stood in anguish mute,
His giant bulk bowed by his spirit's pain
That ever downward worked from scalp to foot:
Like stag whom serpent folds begin to strain
He stood—that strives in vain that coil to break—
And flame was on his face while thus he spake:

‘Ill done, ill done, O Barach, is thy deed!
Ill-timed, ill-omened, and unblest thy feast:’
Then Barach; ‘Let those Three to Conor speed;
The king is greatest here, and I am least:
But thou—thine oath that later pledge foreran:
If broke, it lays thine honour under ban.’

Still Fergus mused;—‘'Tis true: that oath I made;
Made ere an upstart's craft had filched my crown:
To break it were my greatness to degrade,
To blot a princely birth, a life's renown:
Uladh would cry, “He shames the blood of Roy
To 'scape the frown of Nessa's ill-crowned boy!”’

Doubt bred new doubt:—away the False One strode;
But Fergus still mused on and never stirred,
His royal head depressed and neck embowed;
At last he turned to Naisi with this word:

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‘My friend, speak thou!’ But ere her lord replied,
Deirdré spake first, with queenly port and pride:

‘The choice is thine, not his; and this that choice;
For a feast's sake to cast from thee thy charge
Subject and servile to a courtier's voice;
Or spurn that feast, and walk, a soul at large.’
And Fergus said, ‘My sons with thine and thee
Might ride. I bind on them my guarantee.’

Low-toned he spake; but Naisi heard, and thus
Made answer, reddening like a rising moon:
‘We scorn their aid! Our swords suffice for us!
All help beside we count a worthless boon!’
Then Fergus frowned: by wrath from doubt released
With them he sent his sons and joined the feast.

Yet Fergus all that day at heart was sore
Since of all men he loved the best those Three;
And, though he mused, ‘We meet in two days more
Despite all Geisas,’ mute at feast sat he:
And thrice he heard that night, an hour ere morn,
That Banshee's shriek heard when that Babe was born.

CANTO V. THE NIGHT RIDE TO EMANIA.

So forth the Brothers rode, while high o'erhead
Through that primeval forest's woven screen
Now in long lanes the sky its radiance shed
And now in purple stars of splendour keen;
Not far behind them marched the Usnach clan
Loud singing and on-trampling like one man.

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But Deirdré, slowly lifting eyes divine
Dewed with dark tears, upon the Brothers, spake:
‘True counsel, lo! I give you, brothers mine;
And yet that counsel true ye will not take;
There shine the rocks of Rathlin! On its shore
Abide till this disastrous feast is o'er!’

Then spake to Illan, Fergus' kindlier son,
The Ruthless Red: ‘Small faith in us they place!’
Whom Naisi hearing, made reply, ‘Ride on!’
And Deirdré raised to heaven her heaven-sweet face,
And made this song; for, as in girlhood, all
Her musings, dark or bright, grew musical.

‘O would my Love were safe in some far isle!
And I were like some shadow passed away;
Yea, though some other liegeful wife, the while,
Partook his board at eve, his chase by day:
For I am that doomed Babe of long ago;
And I on those fair Three have brought this woe!

‘One time by far Loch Etive—'twas in jest—
My Naisi kissed a sweet-eyed Alban maid:
I sought my death! my bark from crest to crest
I dashed, too deeply wounded to upbraid!
The Brothers saw, and followed fast—and I—
Ah, that for me those peerless Three should die!’

Meanwhile all day in light discourse or deep
The sons of Usnach and of Fergus rode,
And came at eve to Fuad's mountain-steep;
But Deirdré, bent for once by sorrow's load
Though strong, behind them dropped, and on a bank
Moon-lit sat down; and slumber on her sank.

338

There Naisi found her 'neath a yew-tree old,
Shivering; and she his steps approaching knew
Though sleeping still; and through the moonlight cold
T'wards him stretched forth her hand so kind and true;
And, ‘What, O what is this,’ he said, ‘my Queen?’
Waking she answered, anguished yet serene:

‘A dream it was that kept me from thy side:
Wakeful all day that dream I saw, and see:
I saw King Fergus' sons beside us ride,
Saw as they are, not that they seemed to thee:
Illan a bleeding bulk without a head,
I saw: yet true he proved when traitors fled.

‘Buini I saw, the Ruthless Red; full strong
He towered, and stately as a summer tree:
But, when that strife dishonest did us wrong
No help he proved, O Love, to thine and thee!
So one was faithful, yet of greatness shorn:
And one was greatness perjured and forsworn.

‘Thou knowest that, from a child, with me was vision;
That truth I knew, I saw; and see it yet:
Child changed to maid—one hour's divine transition—
I saw thy face and knew it when we met:
No lettered lore was mine; yet what must be
Ever I saw. Who seeth must foresee.

‘Now ride we on!’ they rode for many an hour,
Till through an oak-glade in that glimmering wood
Forth loomed Emania veiled in cloud and shower:
Above the edge of that black cloud there stood

339

A moon nigh setting in a sanguine shroud;
And many thunders heard they, far, not loud.

Upon that sanguine shroud as on a sign
Deirdré gazed long; then turned her eyes, and spake:
‘True counsel, lo! I give you, brothers mine,
And yet that counsel true ye will not take;
No further towards Emania ride this hour;
Seek we, not far it stands, Cuchullain's tower!

‘Or house with Conal Carnach, leal and true:
He to the court ere noon with us will ride—
Naisi! when on that causeway I and you
That evening sang, what prayer hadst thou denied?’
Yet, though she chid him, nearer him she crept:
The one sole time that in his arms she wept!

Buini drew near! At once the Three replied,
‘Because we never feared and cannot fear
To Eman on we will whate'er betide!’
Unseen by him she wiped away her tear;
While from the black boughs fell a poison-dew;
And Fate her net more closely round them drew.

Thenceforth was Deirdré changed. Emania's gate
They reached as rose the sun, and blew their horn:
Indifferent, yea, as one with either fate
Content alike, she spake in careless scorn;
‘Omens the Druids find in bird and beast:
A Druid I; a laughing one at least!

‘I doubted Conor's faith: if mine the fault
Harbouring distrust, King Conor thus will speak:
“Abide with me three months: partake my salt;
Drink of my cup: my bread securely break!”

340

If under alien roof he bids us lie
Then know his pit is dug; and we shall die.’

She spake! around her lip a smile there curled;
Her kindling eye was fixed as eye of one
Who sees, beyond the limits of the world,
Beyond the thresholds of our moon and sun,
Beyond the abysmal night, a gleam of day
And can abide the issue come what may.

As thus they stood the gate was opened wide;
Anon forth stepped a herald with this word:
‘Great Sirs, the king, himself by sickness tried,
Within the Red Branch House hath decked your board
With Uladh's best from mead and river brought:’
They on each other gazed, yet answered nought.

‘He bids you there with blessing.’ At that speech
Silent they sought that House. In stately throng
The knights received them: yet on brows of each
Devoid of guile, a dubious sadness clung:
Anon the seats were set; the tables spread;
Nor ceased that revel till the day was sped.

Not all partook it. Silent and apart
In a huge window caverned from the wall
By some high builder's long-forgotten art,
Sat Deirdré, and the Brothers three. No thrall
To royal craft the warriors now. What meant
The king, they knew, and waited the event.

Scorning to make complaint they scorned not less
To share a traitor's feast, and ate of nought

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Waving each dish away in haughtiness
Save little loaves that with them they had brought.
Their chess-board next they ranged with pawn and queen;
And Deirdré laughed or frowned the moves between.

CANTO VI. THE FATE FULFILLED.

At times it chanceth in the ways of men
That, midmost at the crisis of great woes,
The torrent pauseth ere its fall; again
The horizon brightens ere the tempests close:
The better Genius of our life draws nigh :—
His warning scorned, next cometh destiny.

'Twas thus with Conor. Seated in his tower
A mile from Eman near a wood-girt lake,
Sudden the stillness of that eve had power
Though not his heart to soften, yet to shake:
Had it been earth's supremest hour, her death
She had not faced with closelier-holden breath.

No ripple broke against that castle's base:
No passing gust darkened that crystal mere:
No vapour dimmed that heaven's untroubled face:
No dove was heard remote, no leaflet near.
The external calm mocking that hell within
Roused Conor's fear. Suspicion comes of sin.

342

He sat and mused: ‘The cup is at my lip—
What if some poison mingles with the wine?
Forced as we are to drain our draught, not sip,
Its after-might we know not, yet divine:
To Fergus once the realm I sway belonged:
This day I make forsworn whom then I wronged.

‘His wrath will be a wrath inexorable,
For sacred was that pledge and guarantee
He vowed but late to Usnach's sons. Unstable
Is Fortune's grace. Cuchullain loves not me:
Both he and Conal guessed my drift that hour:
On brows of both I saw the vengeance lower.’

A second change traversed the Traitor's thought,
And thus he drugged his spirit half-consciously;
‘What if I risk my all to gain a naught?
Beauty dies soon; and beauteous once was she:
My ruin she may prove; has proved my shame—’
He rose: ‘Send hither Levarcam!’ She came.

She stood beside the man; and thus he spake:
‘Forth, since I spared thy life when Deirdré fled,
And tidings bring me whether, for love's sake,
Yet lives her beauty on that False One's head:
The girl hath known rough skies and scanty board:’
Then Levarcam went forth, with wiles well stored.

Drawing a thousand thoughts into one noose
Of woman-craft she sped, in silks arrayed;
And came with speed, such speed as age may use,
To where at chess the death-doomed princes played
In that high window; next one finger raised
High as her brow; then round her peering gazed.

343

Naisi she loved from childhood; loved scarce less
His brothers; felt for Deirdré love and spleen:—
‘Through grace of yours, all-bashful Forwardness,
Save for my craft this trunk had headless been!
I wiled the sword from Conor's hand! Well, well!
My Wanton's face retains its childish spell!

‘I come to you at peril of my life—
Hush, hush! The thought was mine! They must not hear!
With rumours dark Emania's streets are rife:
The king has vowed your death:—draws any near?
Then when the Babe was born, the seer foretold—
What? Must men die because a maid was bold?’

In tears awhile the faded fine one stood;
And next, mechanic-wise oracular,
Kept nodding of her head. Then changed her mood
To fires of youth. ‘Close gate, and casement bar!
Fight well, ye sons of Fergus! If your sire
Makes speed, he'll trample yet this flame in mire!’

Last, like that bird which fan-like spreads her plumes
For pride, to Conor's palace she returned,
And found him seated in presageful glooms;
And spat as though some reptile shape she spurned,
‘Woe, woe; for Deirdré's brightness is gone by;—
Brown moth is she that once was butterfly!’

King Conor heard, ill-pleased, and yet well-pleased,
And stood, before him dangling still this thought,
At least then Naisi of his love is eased;
And that proud minx has lost my realm for nought:
Perhaps 'twere best to let old rancours pass:
Kingdoms live on: but beauty fades like grass.

344

Thus mused the king: but while he sat at meat
And, later, when the wine had fired his blood,
The thought of Deirdré's face, tender and sweet
Too bright to fade, star-like before him stood;
And loud he cried: ‘Sits any brave man here
Who dreads not death and holds King Conor dear?

‘Forth to the Red Branch Mansion let him speed
And there with Deirdré secret converse hold,
And learn if yet upon her lives indeed
The glory of that beauty hers of old.’
Then Trendorn went, a sordid churl, ill-starred,
And found that mansion's gateways closed and barred:

Yet clomb he darkling, to that casement high;
And Deirdré turned her face:—in awe and fear
Of that great splendour o'er it shed, the spy
Slid from his place, and racing like a deer
To Conor cried: ‘As shines in heaven the sun
So she on earth: and like her there is none!’

That instant Conor saw the maid again!
That instant rage of love his heart possessed
Venomed by past repulse, and jealous pain:
And thus he cried, hoarse-voiced with stifling breast,
‘Storm ye the Red Branch House! Die, he that will!
Mine was that maid: and mine I deem her still.’

In silence sat the chiefs, mindful at once
Of duty sworn to Uladh's king, their Lord,
And of his counter-pledge to Usnach's sons;
But all the Bonachts ranged adown the board

345

Rushed forth to boast their zeal, and clutch their prey,
Aliens base-born that fought not save for pay.

To these were joined the vile ones of the street
For in their breasts Conor this seed had sown,
Imposture sordid and obscene conceit,
‘Traitors in Alba late to princes grown
Would make their Pictish tyrant Uladh's king!’—
They girt the Red Branch House, thus clamouring.

The Red Branch Knights nought answered, sore amazed,
Those brave but simple chiefs o'er Erin feared:
For Usnach's sons as kings they prized and praised;
But like a God King Conor they revered:
At last they spake, and after that changed not,
‘We in this war will bear nor part nor lot.’

And when the stony storm blackened the heaven,
And gate rolled in, and casement burst and brake,
And all that House was as a ship rock-riven
In midnight storm, they sat and never spake;
For two contrarient thoughts their minds had cleft—
Astonied men of manhood's might bereft.

Naisi, meantime, and Deirdré, fixed, attent
Their eyes in stillness on the ivory board,
And silent o'er their game the brothers bent;
But Fergus' sons stood up with hand on sword
Forth from the casement gazing; and the red
Burned on their brows: then Deirdré, careless, said:

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‘Long time, methinks, at feast doth Fergus tarry—
Good speed for that crowned hawk which hangs on high
With beak turned downward toward his skiey quarry!’
Buini broke in: ‘My sire is false; not I!’
And gat him down; and shouted Fergus' name:
And straight a host around him flocking came.

But Conor sent for Buini, and at door
Whispered him low: ‘I yield thee Fo-äd-Fell!’
Yet Buini spurned the bribe, and said, ‘What more?’
And Conor thus: ‘Henceforth mine oracle
At council board be thou, and only thou!’
Then Buini pledged with Conor hand and vow.

Thenceforth around the Red Branch Mansion higher
The madness of the people surged, and roar
As though of tempest when great woods catch fire,
Or winter waves raking some northern shore;
And on the portals seven they dashed; and lo!
Their seven huge hinges groaned 'neath blow on blow.

Meantime the Red Branch Knights, like men in sleep
Trod the vast courts; or like some shepherd boor
Who feels his way on cliffs that crest the deep
When mist invests the mountain and the moor;
Yet certain of Clan Usnach from afar
That tempest heard, and rushed into the war.

Then Deirdré, as the battle raged below,
Spake lightly thus, while on she pushed a pawn,
‘Buini has gone like Fergus—let him go!’
But Illan, grieved at heart, with sword half drawn

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Replied, ‘While lives this sword, whoe'er may fly
Faithful and true to Usnach's Sons am I!’

And gat him down, and drew a host, and drave
Southward that seething mass a mile and more,
As when the wind before it drives the wave;
And shouted, ‘Traitors’ still; and slew six score.
Then—sped from heaven—above the heads of all
Ran Fear; and reached King Conor's council-hall.

There, girt by chiefs sat Conor on his throne
With cloudy brows, and pale lips ridged in scorn,
Who thus addressed Fiacre, his first-born son:
‘Son, thou and he the self-same hour were born,
Illan—the man that from this head even now
Sweeps Uladh's crown! Go forth and meet him, thou!

‘And, since the arms he weareth of his sire,
Fergus, once king, wear thou mine arms this day,
“Ocean,” my shield, that sea-like roars in ire
Echoed on Erin's farthest coasts, men say;
And “Victory's wing,” and “Flying Fate,” my spears,
And “Death,” my sword, annealed in widows' tears.’

Then strode Fiacre to battle, iron-mailed:
But straight the king to Conal Carnach sent,
‘My kingdom reels by rebel hosts assailed:
My son goes forth to meet them. Sickness-bent
I wait the close. My bravest knight, my best!
Strike for thy king! What care I for the rest?’

Next to Cuchullain sent he: but that knight
Frowned on the herald in his perilous mood,
And said, ‘What part have I in civil fight?’
Soon, face to face Fiacre and Illan stood:

348

At last the royal youth, 'neath Illan's sword
Sank to one knee: at once in fury roared—

Roared, as right well the legends old avouch—
‘Ocean,’ King Conor's shield; for wroth was he
A prince's head beneath his shade should crouch,
And wroth Emania's coming doom to see—
Three times that shield sent forth its sea-like roar;
And thrice the three chief waves on Erin's shore

Responded, from the blue deeps landward rolling;
The wave of Toth on Erin's northern coast;
Green Clidna's wave like funeral bells far tolling;
And Rory's wave, the loudest. Through the host
Rushed Conal Carnach at the third wave's cry,
And, shouting thus, ‘King Conor's son will die!’

Dashed in while Illan o'er Fiacre was bending—
Illan his friend—and drave through Illan's side,
Knowing him not, the sword, his heart-strings rending:
But Illan rose, and spake before he died:
‘Thy deeds were great, O friend! This last—this one—
Was not like Conal! I am Fergus' son!

‘I die to guard his name and Conor's pledge.’
Then Conal cried in storm of rage and woe,
‘Since Conor lied to me this faulchion's edge
Shall pay the debt he owes and that I owe,
A debt to honour and to vengeance due;’
And down he dragged Fiacre, and, trampling, slew.

That hour the royal host pierced through by grief,
Clamoured, yet quailed at glance of Conal's eye;

349

While shouted Illan's band, ‘Be thou our chief!
Illan is dead.’ Vouchsafing no reply
Silent from both he turned; and, like a God
Spurning some death-doomed city, homeward strode.

But when the tidings came, ‘Fiacre is dead,’
King Conor dropped in swoon; and if that hour
Illan had lived, and not the Ruthless Red,
All Eman's chiefs had joined to his their power;
For Illan, like his sire, had Eman's love:—
Thus Fate round Usnach's Sons her net enwove.

Around the Red Branch House that Bonacht host
Gathered once more: but on the left the might
Of Ardan backward hurled them and their boast;
And Ainli's strength rebuked them on the right:
Till lit on Conor's heart a wingèd thought;
And ‘Fire!’ he cried; and branch and beam were brought

Circling the walls: up rushed the red flames roaring;
And one by one, the seven great gates fell down;
Then rushed from court to court, still onward pouring,
Native with alien, man-at-arms with clown:
Yet still the assailed fought on from stair to stair,
Long time in rage, and later in despair.

Meanwhile along the loftier cloister floors
As though with fettered feet moved knight with knight,
Or, idiot-like, stood peering by the doors,
Divided purpose making null their might;
Or stood in groups, and watched where, undismayed,
That kingly pair at chess in silence played.

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But Naisi, glancing up, on Deirdré's hair
Saw the red reflex from a roof far off,
And on her marble cheek the fiery glare,
And heard from her fine lip the careless scoff
‘At Conor's fireside welcome sits the guest!’—
He rose, and sudden clasped her to his breast;

Then held her from him, on her countenance bright
Gazing. In neither face that hour was fear:
She saw in his a sadness infinite:
He saw, in hers, content and princely cheer:
At last she spake: ‘Self-questioning thoughts repel,
Nor grieve at trust misplaced; for all is well!

‘O Love, not thus upon that causeway old
We stood that day, chaunting our nuptials high!
Yet nothing is that was not then foretold—
Hast thou not happy been? More happy I,
That hour thy love; for three glad years thy bride;
That ran, and slept, and wakened at thy side!

‘The good must still the auspice be of good;
They never loved who dream that Love can die!
In lordlier strength, in happier sanctitude
Be sure he waits us in some realm more high.
All thanks, thou Power Unknown!’ She spake and kissed
With all her young bright face her husband's breast.

Then rushed to them the Brothers shouting, ‘Forth!’
And forth they sped through courts foot deep in blood,
And reached the gate that issued to the north
Where fierceliest raged the fight: and Deirdré trod

351

Midmost between the twain, and Naisi first;
And on the battle lion-like they burst.

And still the Three above their sister raised
Their mighty shields that, like three glittering spheres
Glared through the gloom, and friend and foeman dazed;
And fierce as living creatures worked their spears
Dealing black death around, till all the plain
Lay like a death-vault, strewn by warriors slain.

And, foot by foot, the hostile hosts fell back;
And, more and more, true friends, till then dismayed,
Fought by their side, or followed in their track:
Due northward t'ward the sea their march they made:
And, marching, eyed ofttimes that fortress fired—
Therein full many a Red Branch Knight expired.

Then, as a poplar near a river whitens
O'er-blown by gusts, and as some snowy vale
Grows grimly dark when sudden o'er it brightens
The mountain's moonlit flank, thus dark, thus pale,
Grew Conor with far eyes their course pursuing;
‘They 'scape,’ he cried, ‘and that is my undoing!

‘Cathbad! give ear!’—for by him stood that hour
The blind old Druid with the silver hair—
‘To Alba make they! thence ere long with power
Return in vengeance! Think you they will spare?
And Conal and Cuchullain by their side
Will march: and Fergus! Would that I had died!

352

‘Help, Cathbad! last of friends! If e'er from thee
Or child or stripling, help or love I gat;
My craft has futile proved: my legions flee;
Yet magic power, we know, can level flat
All power of man in one brief moment's space:
Slay me, or spare my kingdom this disgrace!’

To whom replied the old man tremulously:
‘Would God that ne'er had come that night of old
When shriek on shriek confused the revelry,
And I that new-born Infant's fate foretold;
For ne'er in ninety years deceived was I
Or by man's art, or wiles of Destiny!

‘Not less, great king, this deed I dare not do,
For Justice keeps an axe, and keen its edge
In worlds unseen; and they their sin shall rue
Who spill the righteous blood, or break the pledge.
Here Wrong holds court; but Justice reigneth there:
King! In those unseen regions I have share!’

Him Conor answered: ‘Cathbad! oath I make
By all those regions sacred and unseen,
By all the Powers that in them sleep or wake,
The Gods that are, or shall be, or have been,
This hand on Usnach's sons shall work no wrong;
Captive, not dead, I wish them—nor for long.’

He spake, and softly to the Druid stept
And pressed that Druid's hand to lips and eyes;
Then o'er the old man's heart compassion crept
With flattered pride which oft to good and wise
Makes way, thus veiled, in weak unwary hour;
And o'er the North he waved his wand of power.

353

Three times with muttered spell he waved that wand,
Filling the air with visions of dismay:
That hour through Conor's host, and far beyond,
Usnach's brave clan had carved its desperate way
Hourly in numbers waxing; in their rear
That Bonacht swarm. It raged, but came not near.

Upon that clan the Druid's spells took hold,
Feigning what was not: and the wide green plain
Seemed to their eyes a great flood slowly rolled
From phantom hills. Through it they pushed with pain:
And on their eyes a phantom mist was driven:
And o'er them leaned, low-hung, a phantom heaven.

But, forward as they toiled, that flood ere long
Deepened, so seemed it, to a billowy sea;
And they, with arms in swimmer's act forth flung,
Clave that imagined deep. Alone the Three
And Deirdré, spite of spells illusion-proof,
Saw still green field, and heaven's unclouded roof.

Ah God! How oft in agony that hour
Caught they this man and that, and cried, ‘Arise!
But now triumphant, will ye crouch and cower
In death the coward's jest, the traitor's prize?’
'Twas vain! Those dreamers still swam on till brand
And shield down dropt from every helpless hand.

The Bonachts stood in marvel; then dashed on,
Their terror past; and Conor sent decree
‘Except the woman see ye spare not one!
Smite first the sons of Usnach, smite the Three!’
And lo! like sheep that old and far-famed clan
Lay on the war-field slaughtered to a man.

354

Alone, girt round by hostile rank on rank,
Usnach's great sons, unvanquished, still fought on:
And ever when their arms exhausted sank
And for a moment strength was all but gone,
Deirdré, amidst them, like a prophet poured
Her war-songs forth, and still that strength restored.

'Twas vain! At noon the dire death-battle ceased:
That glorious Three who late the world o'er-strode
Lay facing to the South, and West, and East;
A frozen spectre Deirdré o'er them stood:
The Bonachts gat their hire: kneeling drew near
Uladh's sad sons with many a moan and tear.

Remembering days gone by, the victors there
Wept for the dead: and when the king sent word
To leave those Three unburied, stark and bare
For beasts to rend, his mandate they abhorred,
And dug the grave where those brave Brothers died;
And, reverent, therein laid them, side by side.

Upon the right of that dim burial pit
Was Conal Carnach standing; on its left
Cuchullain; each with brows in sorrow knit,
Each with a heart by one sharp memory cleft:
For true to Usnach's sons in word and deed
These twain had lived; yet failed them at their need.

But Deirdré at the grave-head stood alone,
The surging crowd held back by holy dread;
Her face was white as monumental stone;
Her hands, her garb, from throat to foot were red
With blood—their blood. Standing on life's dark verge
She scorned to die till she had sung their dirge.

355

‘Dead are the eagles three of Culan's peaks;
The lions three of Uladh's forest glades;
The wonders three of Alba's lakes and creeks;
The loved ones three of Etive's fair young maids:
The crownless sons of Erin's throne are sped:
The glories of the Red Branch Order dead.

‘Is there who dreams that, now my Naisi's breath
Is stilled, his wife will tarry from his side?
Thou man that dig'st far down yon cave of death
Be sure thou dig it deep, and dig it wide!
There lie the Brothers Three! 'Tis just, 'tis meet
Their Sister take her place before their feet.

‘Ofttimes for me they piled their shields and spears
In Alba's woods, roofing my winter bed:
Thou man that build'st, this day, far down their biers
Be sure the spear and shield are nigh the head!
They had great joy in these of old: below
Lack them they shall not, though they meet no foe.

‘Ofttimes I heard in Etive's hunting grounds
Their deep-toned voices rolling like the sea—
My Naisi led me from our native bounds:
Ainli and Ardan followed. Woe is me!
That hour when I was born I should have died:
The ill-omened Infant was the ill-omened Bride!’

Thus Deirdré sang, and silent stood a space;
Then spake once more: ‘I come, my Love, my Lord!’
And forward fell into that loved embrace,
In happy death to him she loved restored:
When Conal and Cuchullain raised her head,
There lay she smiling, dead among the dead.

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The men of Erin reared the funeral stone
And piled the cairn, in Ogham characters
Cyphering the sorrows of the Four thereon:
And, age by age, that legend grey avers,
Sad voices issuing from that grave foretold
The fates of lovers young and kingdoms old.

But Cathbad laid a curse upon the king,
Likewise his race: and Eman, and the land,
Because they hated not that evil thing,
And hindered not, with dreadful rites he banned;
And lastly, ‘Woe to me not less,’ he cried,
Three times; and gat him to his place; and died.

With speed came up at earliest gleam of morn
Fergus to Eman. Dreadful his array;
For many a chief, though Conor's liegeman sworn,
In wrath had joined the old king on his way:
And Fergus cursed the Ruthless Red, and said,
‘A woman's hand one day shall strike him dead!’

The battle ceased not till that day was done:
With his own hand at noontide Fergus slew
Maini, King Conor's best belovèd son:
Old Eman's walls and towers to earth he threw
And burned the city. Half the men therein
Perished, and many an infant, for its sin.

Ulster.

Eman, also called Emania, on the present site of Armagh.

The Irish, for centuries ‘Scoti,’ were so called from Scota.

Ballyshannon.

Howth.

357

THE CHILDREN OF LIR.

AN ANCIENT IRISH ROMANCE.

‘Deus dedit carmina in nocte’— Job, cap. xxxv. v. 10.

358

TO THE MEMORY OF DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY, TO WHOM ENGLISH AND IRISH READERS OWE, BESIDE MANY A GAELIC LEGEND, THE BEST WORKS OF CALDERON, THIS POEM IS DEDICATED.

359

CANTO I. THE STEPMOTHER'S MALEDICTION.

Ere yet great Miledh's sons to Erin came,
Lords of the Gael, Milesian styled more late,
An earlier tribe, Tuatha was their name,
Likewise Dedannan, ruled the Isle of Fate,
A tribe that knew nor clan, nor priest, nor bard,
Wild as the waves, and as the sea-cliffs hard.

Some say that race of old from Greece exiled
Long time had sojourned in the frozen North
Roaming Norwegian wood and Danish wild:
To Erin thence more late they issued forth,
And thither brought two gifts both loved and feared,
The Lia Fail, and Ogham lore revered.

Fiercer they were, not manlier, than the Gael,
Large-handed, swift of foot, dark-haired, dark-eyed,
With sudden gleams athwart their faces pale,
Transits of fancies swift, or angry pride:
Strange lore they boasted, imped by insight keen;
Blackened at times by gusts of causeless spleen.

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These, when the white fleet of the Gael drew nigh
Green Erin's shore, their heritage decreed,
O'er-meshed through rites unholy earth and sky
With sudden gloom. The invaders took no heed
But dashed through dark their galleys on the strand;
Then clapped their hands, and laughing leaped to land.

Around them drew Tuatha's race in guile,
Unarmed, with mocking voice and furtive mien,
And scoffed: ‘Not thus your fathers fought erewhile!
Say, call ye warriors knaves that creep unseen,
While true men sleep, up inlet dim and fiord,
Filching the land they proved not with their sword?’

Then to the Gael their bard, Amergin, spake:
‘Sail forth, my sons, nine waves across the deep,
And when this island-race are armed, come back;
Take then their realm by force; and, taking, keep!’
The Gael sailed forth, nine waves; then turned and gazed—
Night wrapt the isle, and storm by magic raised!

Round Erin's shores like leaves their ships were blown:
Strewn on her reefs lay bard and warrior drowned;
Not less the Gael upreared ere long that throne
Two thousand years through all the West renowned.
O'er Taillten's field God held the scales of Fate:
That last dread battle closed the dire debate.

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There fell those three Tuatha queens who gave
The land their names—they fell by death discrowned:
There many a Gaelic chieftain found his grave:
Thenceforth the races twain adjusted bound
And right, at times by league, at times by war;
Nor any reigned as yet from shore to shore.

Still here and there Tuatha princes ruled
Now in green vale, and now on pale blue coast,
Huge warrior one, and one in magic schooled;
The graver made Druidic lore their boast,
And knew the secret might of star and leaf:
Grey-haired King Bove stood up of these the chief.

Southward by broad Lough Derg his palace stood:
Northward, beside Emania's lonely mere
In Finnahá, embowered 'mid lawn and wood,
King Lir abode, a warrior, not a seer;
Well loved was he, plain man with great, true heart,
Who loathed, despite his race, the sorcerer's art.

Five centuries lived he ere that better light
Gladdened the earth from Bethlehem: ne'ertheless
He judged his land with justice and with might,
Tempering the same at times with gentleness;
And gave the poor their due; and made proclaim,
‘Let no man smite the old; the virgin shame.’

His prime was spent in wars: in middle life
He bade a youthful princess share his throne:
Nor e'er had monarch yet a truer wife
With tenderer palm or voice of sweeter tone,

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The one sole lady of that race was she
Sun-haired, with large eyes azure as the sea.

She moved amid the crafty as a child;
Amid the lawless, chaste as unsunned maid;
Amid the unsparing, as a turtle mild;
Wondering at wrong; too gentle to upbraid:
Yet many a fell resolve, as she rode by,
Died at its birth—the ill-thinker knew not why!

Sadness before her fled: in years long past
As on a cliff the warriors sang their songs
A harper maid with eyes that stared aghast
Had chaunted, ‘Not to us this isle belongs!
The Fates reserve it for a race more true
Ye children of Dedannan's stock, than you!’

And since she scorned her music to abate
Nor ceased to freeze their triumph with her dirge
The princes and the people rose in hate
And hurled her harp and her into the surge:
Yea still halfway 'twixt midnight and the morn
That dirge swelled up, by tempest onward borne!

Remembering oft this spectre of his youth
King Lir would sit, a frown upon his brow:
Then came the queen with words of peace and truth;
‘Mourn they that sinned! A child that hour wert thou!
Thou rul'st this land to-day: in years to be
Who best deserves shall wield her sovereignty.’

Then would the monarch doff his sullen mood
With kingly joy, and, bright as May-day's morn,
Ride forth amid his hounds through wild and wood,
Thrilling far glens with echoes of his horn;

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Or meet the land's invaders face to face
Well pleased, and homeward hew them with disgrace.

Thus happy lived the pair, and happier far
When four fair children graced the royal house,
Fairer than flowers, more bright than moon or star
Shining through vista long of forest boughs.
Finola was the eldest, eight years old:
The yearling, Conn, best loved of all that fold.

These beauteous creatures with their mother shared
Alike her blissful nature and sweet looks,
Like her swan-soft, swan-white, blue-eyed, bright-haired,
With voices musical as birds or brooks:
Beings they seemed reserved for some great fate,
Mysterious, high, elect, and separate.

At times they gambolled in the sunny sheen;
At times, Fiacre and Aodh at her side,
Finola paced the high-arched alleys green
At once their youthful playmate and their guide:
A mother-hearted child she walked, and pressed
That infant, daily heavier, to her breast.

Great power of Love that, wide as heaven, dost brood
O'er all the earth, and doest all things well!
Light of the wise, and safeguard of the good!
Nowhere, methinks, thou better lov'st to dwell
Than in the hearts of innocents that still,
By dangerous love untempted, work Love's will!

Thou shalt be with them when the sleet-wind blows
Not less than in the violet-braided bower:

364

Through thee 'mid desert sands shall bud the rose,
The wild wave anthems sing! In trial's hour
A germ of thine shall breed that quenchless Faith
Amaranth of life, and asphodel of death.

Ah lot of man! Ah world whose life is change!
Ah sheer descent from topmost height of good
To deepest gulf of anguish sudden and strange!
A nation round their monarch's gateway stood:
All day there stood they, whispering in great dread:
The herald came at last—‘Our Queen is dead!’

In silence still they stood an hour and more,
Till through the West had sunk the great red sun,
And from the castle wall and turrets hoar
The latest crimson utterly had gone:
At last the truth had reached them; then on high
An orphaned People hurled its funeral cry.

They hurled it forth again and yet again,
The dreadful wont of that barbaric time
Cry after cry that reached the far-off main
And, echoing, seemed from cloud to cloud to climb;
Then lifted hands like creatures broken-hearted,
Or sentenced men; and homeward, mute, departed.

Fast-speeding Time, albeit the wounded wing
He may not bind, brings us at least the crutch:
Winter was over, and the on-flying Spring
Grazed the sad monarch's brow with heavenly touch
And raised the head, now whitening, from the ground
And stanched, not healed, the heart's eternal wound.

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King Bove, the Pontiff king of that dark race,
To Lir sent missives, ‘Quit thee like a man!
The Gaels, our scourge, and Erin's sore disgrace,
Advance, each day, their armies, clan by clan;
Against them march thy host with mine, and take
To wife my daughter, for thy children's sake.’

Lir sadly mused; but answered: ‘Let it be!’
And drave with fifty chariots in array
To where the land's chief river like a sea
There named Lough Derg, spreads out in gulf and bay
And many a woody mountain sees its face
Imaged in that clear flood with softened grace.

There with King Bove the widowed man abode
Two days amid great feastings. On the third
The king led forth his daughter—o'er her glowed
A dim veil jewel-tissued—with this word:
‘Behold thy wife! The world proclaims her fair:
I know her strong to love, and strong to dare.’

And Lir made answer: ‘Fair she is as when
A mist-veiled yew, red-berried, stands in state:
Can love, you say! Love she my babes! and then
With her my love shall bide; if not—my hate.’
And she, a crimson on her dusky brow,
Replied, ‘If so it be, then be it so!’

King Lir, a fortnight more in revels spent,
Made journey to his castle in the North
With her, his youthful consort, well content:
Arrived, in rapture of their loving mirth
Forth rushed into his arms his children four
Bright as those wavelets on their blue lake's shore;

366

On whom the new queen cast a glance oblique
One moment's space; then, flinging wide her arms,
With instinct changed and impulse lightning-like
Clasped them in turn and wondered at their charms
And cried, ‘If e'er a stepmother could love
I of that tribe renowned will tenderest prove.’

And so by her great loving of those four
Still from her husband won she praises sweet
And plaudits from his people more and more;
Her own she called them: nor was this deceit:
She loved them with a fitful love—a will
To make them or to mar, for good or ill.

She wooed them still with shows, with flowers, with fruit;
Daily for them new sports she sought and found:
Yet, if their father praised them she was mute
And, when he placed them on his knee, she frowned,
Murmuring, ‘How blue their eyes! their cheek how pale!
Their voices too are voices of the Gael!’

Meantime, as month by month in grace they grew,
Their father loved them better than before;
And so, one eve, their slender cots he drew
Each from its place remote, and lightly bore,
And laid them ranged before his royal bed;
And o'er the four a veil gold-woven spread;

Their mother's bridal-veil: and still as dawn
Was in its glittering tissue caged and caught
He left his couch, and, that light veil withdrawn,
Before his children stood in silent thought;

367

And, if they slept, he kissed them in their sleep,
Then watched them with clasped hands in musings deep.

And, if they slept not, from their balmy nest
With under-sliding arms he raised them high,
And clasped them each, successive, to his breast,
Or on them flashed the first light from the sky:
Then laid him by his mute, sleep-feigning bride,
And slept once more: and oft in sleep he sighed.

Which things abhorring, she her face averse
Turned all day steadfast from the astonished throng:
And next, as one that broods upon a curse,
She sat in her sick-chamber three weeks long,
And never raised her eyes, nor made complaint,
Dark as a fiend and silent as a saint.

Lastly to Lir she spake: ‘Daily I sink
Downward to death. I wither in my prime:
Home to my father I would speed, and drink
Once more the breezes of my native clime:
All night in sleep along Lough Derg I strayed,
And wings of strength about my shoulders played.

‘These four—thy children—with me I will take
To please my father's eye; he loves them well:
Thou too, whene'er thy leisure serves, shalt make
Thither thy journey.’ All the powers of Hell
Thrilled at that speech in penal vaults below;
But Lir, no fraud suspecting, answered, ‘Go!’

Therefore next morn when earliest sunrise smote
Green mead to golden near the full-fed stream,
They caught four steeds that grazed thereby remote
And yoked abreast beside the chariot beam;

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And when the sun was sinking toward the West
By Darvra's lake drew rein, and made their rest.

There the bad queen, descending, round her cast
A baleful look of mingled hate and woe,
And with those babes into a thicket passed,
And drew a dagger from her breast; and lo!
She struck them not, but only wailed and wailed—
So strongly in her womanhood prevailed.

The mood was changed. She smiled that smile which none
How wise soe'er, beholding, could resist
And drew those children to her, one by one;
Then wailed once more, and last their foreheads kissed
And cried with finger pointing to the lake,
‘Hence! and in that clear bath your pastime take!’

She spoke, and from their silken garb forth-sliding
Ere long those babes were sporting in the bay;
And, as it chanced, the eddy past them gliding
Wafted a swan's plume: 'twas less white than they:
Frowning, the queen beheld them, and on high
Waved thrice her Druid wand athwart the sky:

Then, standing on the marge wan-cheeked, wideeyed,
As near they drew, awe-struck and wondering,
Therewith she smote their golden heads, and cried,
‘Fly hence, ye pale-faced children of the king!
Cleave the blue mere, or on through ether sail;
No more his loved ones but a dolorous tale!’

369

Straightway to snow-white swans those children turned:
And, sideway as they swerved, the creatures four
Fixed on her looks with human grief that yearned;
Then slowly drifted backward from the shore;
While loud with voice unchanged, Finola cried,
‘Bad deed is thine, false queen and bitter bride!

‘Bad deed afflicting babes that harmed thee not;
Bad deed, and to thyself an evil dower:
Disastrous more than ours shall be thy lot!
Thou too shalt feel the weight of Druid power:
From age to age thy penance ne'er shall cease:
Our doom, though long it lasts, shall end in peace.’

Then rang a wild shriek from that dreadful shape:
‘Long, long, ay long shall last those years of woe!
Here on this lake from misty cape to cape
Three centuries ye shall wander to and fro;
Three centuries more shall stem with heavier toil
Far Alba's waves, the black sea-strait of Moyle.

‘Lastly three centuries where the Eagle-Crest
O'er-looks the western deep and Inisglaire
Upon the mountain waves that know not rest
Shall be your rolling palace, foul or fair,
Till comes the Tailkenn, sent to sound the knell
Of darkness, and you hear his Christian bell.’

Lo, as a band of lilies white and tall
Beneath a breeze of morning bend their head

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High held in virgin state majestical
So meekly cowered those swans in holy dread
Hearing that promised Tailkenn's blissful name:
For they long since had heard in dream the same.

Then fell a dew of meekness on the proud
Noting their humble heart; and dropped her front;
And sorrow closed around her like a cloud;
And thus with other voice than was her wont
To those soft victims of her wrath she cried:
‘Woe, woe! Yet Fate must rule, whate'er betide!

‘The deed is done; but thus much I concede:
In you the human heart shall never fail
Changed though you be and masked in feathery weed:
Your voice shall sweet remain as voice of Gael;
And all who hear your songs shall sink in trance
And sleeping dream some great deliverance.’

She spake, and smote her hands; and at her word
O'er-awed and mute men caught the royal steeds
Grazing in peace beside the hornèd herd
Amid the meadow flowers and yellow weeds:
And breathed her spirit into those steeds and drave
And reached Lough Derg what time above its wave

The sun was rising; and at set of sun
Entered once more her father's palace gate:
Seated thereby his nobles, every one,
Arose and welcomed her with loving state:
She answered naught, but sternly past them strode
And found her girlhood's bower, and there abode.

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But when of Lir King Bove had made demand,
She answered thus: ‘Enough! My Lord is naught;
Nor will he trust his children to thy hand
Lest thou shouldst slay them.’ Long in silent thought
The old man stood, then murmured in low tone
‘I loved those children better than mine own!’

That night in dream King Lir had anguish sore,
And southward ere the dawn rode far away
With many a chief to see his babes once more
Beside Lough Derg; and lo, at close of day
Nighing to Darvra's lake, the westering sun
In splendour on the advancing horsemen shone.

Straightway from that broad water's central stream
Was heard a clang of pinions and swift feet—
Unchanged at heart those babes had caught that gleam,
Instant from far had rushed, their sire to greet
Spangling the flood with silver spray; and ere
That sire had reached the margin they were there.

Then, each and all, clamorous they made lament
Recounting all their wrong and all the woe
And Lir, their tale complete, his garments rent,
Till then transfixed like marble shape; and lo!
Three times, heart-grieved, his warriors raised their cry
Piercing the centre of the low-hung sky.

But Lir knelt down upon the shining sand
And cried, ‘Though great the might of Druid charms,

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Return and feel once more your native land,
And find once more and fill your father's arms!’
And they made answer: ‘Till the Tailkenn come
We tread not land! The waters are our home.’

But when Finola saw her father's grief
She added thus; ‘Albeit our days are sad
The twilight brings our pain in part relief:
And songs are ours by night that make us glad:
Yea, each that hears our music though he grieve
Rejoices more. Abide, for it is eve.’

So Lir, and his, couched on the wave-lipped sod
All night; and ever as those songs up swelled
A mist of sleep upon them fell from God
And healing Spirits converse with them held:
And Lir was glad all night: but with the morn
Anguish returned; and thus he cried, forlorn:

‘Farewell! The morn is come; and I depart:
Farewell! Not wholly evil are things ill!
Farewell, Finola! Yea, but in my heart
With thee I bide: there liv'st thou changeless still:
O Aodh! O Fiacre! the night is gone:—
Farewell to both! Farewell, my little Conn.’

Southward with speed the childless rode once more
And saw at last beyond the forests tall
The great lake and the palace on its shore;
And, entering, onward passed from hall to hall
To where King Bove majestic sat and crowned
High on a terrace with his seers around,

A stately terrace clustered round with towers,
And jubilant with music's merry din,

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Beaten by resonant waves, and bright with flowers:
There—but apart—she stood that wrought the sin,
Like one that broods on one black thought alone
Seen o'er a world of happy hopes o'erthrown.

The throng made way: onward the wronged one strode
To Bove, sole-throned and lifting in his hand
For royal sceptre that Druidic rod
Which gave him o'er the Spirit-world command;
Then, pointing to that traitress, false as fair,
The childless spake: ‘There stands the murderess!—there!’

Straight on the King Druidic insight fell;
And, mirrored in his mind as cloud in lake,
His daughter's crime distinct and visible,
Before him stood. He turned to her and spake:
‘Thou hear'st the charge: how makest thou reply?’
And she: ‘The deed is mine! I wrought it! I!’

Then spake King Bove with countenance like night:
‘Of all dread shapes that traverse earth or sea,
Or pierce the soil, or urge through heaven their flight,
Say, which abhorrest thou most?’ And answered she:
‘The shape of Spirits Accursed that ride the storm:’
And he: ‘Be thine henceforth that demon form!’

He spake, and lifted high his Druid Wand:—
T'ward him perforce she drew: she bowed her head:
Down on that head he dropp'd it; and beyond
The glooming lake, with bat-like wings outspread

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O'er earth's black verge the shrieking Fury passed;
Thenceforth to circle earth while earth shall last.

As when, on autumn eve from hill or cape
That slants into grey wastes of western sea,
The sun long set, some shepherd stares agape
At cloud that seems through endless space to flee
On raven pinions down the moaning wind,
Thus on that Fury stared they, well-nigh blind.

Then spake the Pontiff-king with head that shook,
‘I loved thy babes: now therefore let us go
Northward, and on their blameless beauty look,
Though changed, and hear their songs: for this I know
By Druid art, they sing the whole night long
And heaven and earth are solaced by their song.’

Northward ere dawn they rode with a great host;
And loosed their steeds by Darvra's mirror clear
What time purpureal evening like a ghost
Stepped from the blue glen on the glimmering mere:
And camped where stood the ruminating herds
With heads forth leaning t'ward those human birds.

And, ever o'er the wave those swans would come
To hear man's voice, and tell their tale to each,
Swift as the wind and whiter than the foam;
Yet never mounted they the bowery beach,
And still swerved backward from the beckoning hand
Revering thus their stepmother's command.

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And ever, when the sacred night descended
While with those ripples on the sandy bars
The sighing woods and winds low murmurs blended
Their music fell upon them from the stars,
And they gave utterance to that gift divine
In silver song or anthem crystalline.

Who heard that strain no more his woes lamented:
The exiled chief forgat his place of pride:
The prince ill-crowned his ruthless deed repented:
The childless mother and the widowed bride
Amid their locks tear-wet and loosely straying
Felt once again remembered touches playing.

The words of that high music no one knew;
Yet all men felt there lived a meaning there
Immortal, marvellous, searching, strengthening, true,
The pledge of some great future strange and fair
When sin shall lose her might, and cleansing woe
Shall on the Just some starry crown bestow.

Lulled by that strain the prophet king let drop
In death his Druid-Staff by Darvra's side:
And there in later years with happy hope
King Lir, that mystic requiem listening, died:
And there those blissful sufferers bore their wrong
All day in weeping, and all night in song.

Not once 'tis whispered in that mystic story
They raised their voice God's justice to arraign:
All patient suffering is expiatory:
Their doom was linked with hope of Erin's gain;
And, like the Holy Elders famed of old,
Those babes on that high Promise kept their hold.

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And they saw great towers built, and saw them fall;
And saw the little seedling tempest-sown;
And generations under torch and pall
Brone forth to narrow graves ere long grass-grown;
And all these things to them were as a dream,
Or shade that sleeps on some fast hurrying stream.

More numerous daily flocked to that still shore
Peace-loving spirits: yea, the Gaelic clans
And tribes Dedannan, foemen there no more,
From the same fountains brimmed their flowing cans,
And washed their kirtles in the same pure rills,
And brought their corn-sheaves to the self-same mills.

Thus, though elsewhere the sons of Erin strove
From Aileach's coast and Uladh's marble cliffs
To where by Lee, and Beara's inmost cove,
The fishers spread their nets and launched their skiffs
Round Darvra's shores remained inviolate peace;
There too the flocks and fields had best increase.

In that long strife the Gael the victory won:
Tuatha's race Dedannan disappeared;
Yet still the conqueror whispered, sire to son,
‘Their progeny survives, half scorned, half feared,
The Fairy Host; and mansions bright they hold
On moonlight hills and under waters cold.

‘To snare the Gael perpetual spells they weave:
O'er the wet waste they bid the meteor glide:
They raise illusive cliffs at morn and eve
On wintry coasts: sea-mantled rocks they hide:

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And shipwrecked sailors eye them o'er the waves,
Dark shapes pygmean couchant in sea-caves.

‘Some say that, 'tween the mountains’ sunless walls
They throng beneath their stony firmament,
An iron-handed race. At intervals
Through chasm stream-cloven, and through rocky rent
The shepherd hears their multitudinous hum
As of far hosts approaching swift yet dumb.

‘In those dread vaults, Magian and Alchemist
Supreme in every craft of brain and hand,
The mountains' mineral veins they beat and twist;
And on red anvils forge them spear and brand
For some predestined battle. Yea, men say
The island shall be theirs that last great day!’

CANTO II. THE PENANCE OF THE INNOCENTS.

What time, forth sliding from the Eternal Gates,
The centuries three on earth had lived and died,
Thus spake Finola to her snowy mates,
‘No more in this soft haven may we bide:
The second Woe succeeds: that heavier toil
On Alba's waves, the black sea-strait of Moyle.’

Then wept to her in turn the younger Three:
‘Alas the sharp rocks and the salt sea-foam!
Thou therefore make the lay ere yet we flee
From this our exile's cradle sweet as home!’

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And thus Finola sang while, far and near,
The men of Erin wept that strain to hear:

‘Farewell, Lough Darvra, with thine isles of bloom!
Farewell, familiar tribes that grace our shore!
The penance deepens on us and the doom:
Farewell! The voice of man we list no more
Till he, the Tailkenn, comes to sound the knell
Of darkness, and rings out his gladsome bell.’

Thus singing, 'mid their dirge the sentenced soared
Heaven-high; then hanging mute on plumes outspread,
With downcast eye long time that lake explored;
And lastly with a great cry northward sped:
Then was it Erin's sons, listening that cry,
Decreed: ‘The man who slays a swan shall die.’

Three days against the northern blast on-flying
To Fate obedient and the Will Divine,
They reached, what time the crimson eve was lying
On Alba's isles and ocean's utmost line,
That huge sea-strait whose racing eddies boil
'Twixt Erin and that cloud-girt headland Moyle.

There anguish fell on them: they heard the booming
Of league-long breakers white, and gazed on waves
Wreck-strewn, themselves entombed and all-entombing,
Rolling to labyrinths dim of red-roofed caves;
And streaming waters broad as with one will
In cataracts from grey shelves descending still.

379

There, day by day, the sun more early set;
And through the hollows of the high-ridged sea
Which foamed around their rocky cabinet
The whirlwinds lashed them more remorselessly:
And winter followed soon: and ofttimes storms
Shrouded for weeks the mountains' frowning forms.

In time all ocean omens they had learned;
And once, as o'er the darkening deep they roved,
Finola, who the advancing woe discerned,
Addressed them: ‘Little brothers well beloved,
Though many a storm hath tried us, yet the worst
Comes up this night: now therefore, ere it burst

‘Devise we swiftly if, through God's high Will,
Billow or blast divides us each from each,
Some refuge-house wherein, when winds are still,
To meet once more—low rock or sandy beach:’
And answer thus they made: ‘One spot alone
This night can yield us refuge, Carickrone.’

They spake, and sudden thunder shook the world
And blackness wrapped the seas and lightnings rent;
And each from each abroad those swans were hurled
By solid water-scud. Outworn and spent
At last, that direful tempest over-blown,
Finola scaled their trysting-rock—alone.

But when she found no gentle brother near,
And heard the great storm roaring far away,
Anguish of anguish pierced her heart, and fear,
And thus she made her moan and sang her lay:
‘Death-cold they lie along the far sea-tide:
Would that as cold I drifted at their side!’

380

Thus as she sang, behold, the sun uprose,
And smote a swan that on a wave's smooth crest
Exhausted lay, like one by pitiless foes
Trampled, and looking but to death for rest:
At last he clomb that rock, though weak and worn,
With bleeding feet and pinions tempest-torn.

Aodh was he! He couched him by her side;
Straight her right wing Finola o'er him spread:
Ere long nearing the rock Fiacre she spied,
Wounded yet more; yet soon he hid his head
'Neath her left wing, her nestling's wonted place,
And slept content in that beloved embrace.

But still Finola mused with many a tear,
‘Alas for us, of little Conn bereft!’
Then Conn came floating by, full blithe of cheer,
For he, secure within a craggy cleft,
Had slept all night; and now once more his nest
He made of right beneath his sister's breast.

And as they slept she sang: ‘Among the flowers
Of old we played where princes quaffed their wine;
But now for flowery fields sea-floods are ours;
And now our wine-cup is the bitter brine;
Yet, brothers, fear no ill; for God will send
At last His Tailkenn, and our woes find end.’

Then God, Who of least things has tenderest thought,
Looked down on them benignly from on high
And bade that bitter brine to enter not
Their scars, unhealed as yet, lest they should die;
And nearer sent their choicest food full oft,
And clothed their wings with plumage fine and soft.

381

And ever as the spring advanced, the sea
Put on its kindlier aspect. Cliffs deep-scarred
To milder airs gave welcome festively
Upon their iron breasts and foreheads hard,
And, while about their feet the ripples played,
Cast o'er the glaring deep a friendlier shade.

And when at last the full midsummer panted
Upon the austere main, and high-peaked isles,
And hills that, like some elfin land enchanted,
Now charmed, now mocked the eye with phantom smiles,
More far round Alba's shores the swans made way
To Islay's beach and cloud-loved Colonsay.

The growths beside their native lake oft noted
In that sublimer clime no more they missed;
Jewels, not flowers they found where'er they floated
Emerald and sapphire, opal, amethyst,
Far-kenned through watery depths or magic air,
Or trails of broken rainbows, here and there.

Round Erin's northern coasts they drifted on
From Rathlin isle to Fanad's beetling crest,
And where, in frowning sunset steeped, forth shone
The ‘Bloody Foreland’ gazing t'ward the west;
Yet still with duteous hearts to Moyle returned—
To love their place of penance they had learned.

One time it chanced that, onward as they drifted
Where Banna's onward torrent cuts the sea,
A princely company with banners lifted
Rode past on snow-white steeds and sang for glee:
At once they knew those horsemen, form and face,
Their native stock, Tuatha's ancient race!

382

T'ward them they sped: their sorrows they recounted:
The warriors could not aid them, and rode by:
Then higher than of old their anguish mounted;
And farther rang through heaven their piteous cry;
And when it ceased, this lay Finola sang
While all the echoing rocks and caverns rang:

‘Whilom in purple clad we sat elate:
The warriors watched us at their nut-brown mead:
But now we roam the waters desolate
Or breast the languid beds of waving weed:
Our food was then fine bread; our drink was wine;
This day on sea-plants sour we peak and pine.

‘Whilom, our four small cots of pearl and gold
Lay, side by side, before our father's bed
And silken foldings kept us from the cold:
But now on restless waves our couch is spread;
And now our bed-clothes are the white sea-foam:
And now by night the sea-rock is our home.’

Not less from them such sorrows swiftly passed
Since evermore one thought their bosoms filled—
Their father's home. That haunt, in memory glassed,
Childhood perpetual o'er their lives distilled:
And, coast what shore they might, green vale and plain
Bred whiter flocks, men said, more golden grain.

The years ran on: the centuries three went by:
Finola sang: ‘The second Woe is ended!’
Obedient then, once more they soared on high;
Next morn on Erin's western coast descended,

383

While sunrise flashed from misty isles far seen,
Now gold, now flecked with streaks of luminous green.

And there for many a winter they abode,
Harbouring in precincts of the setting sun;
And mourned by day, yet sang at night their ode
As though in praise of some great victory won,
Some conqueror more than man; some heavenly crown
Slowly o'er all creation settling down.

There once—what time a great sun in decline
Had changed to red the grey back of a wave
That showered a pasture fair with diamond brine,
Then sank, anon uprising from its grave
Went shouldering onward, higher and more high,
And hid far lands, and half eclipsed the sky—

There once a shepherd, Aibhric, high of race,
Marked them far off, and marking them so loved
That to the ocean's verge he rushed apace
With hands outspread. Shoreward the creatures moved:
And when he heard them speak with human tongue
That love he felt grew tenderer and more strong.

Day after day they told that youth their tale:
Wide-eyed he stood, and inly drank their words;
And later, harping still in wood and vale,
He fitted oft their sorrow to his chords;
And thus to him in part men owe the lore
Of all those patient sufferers bare of yore.

384

For bard he was; and still the bard-like nature
Hath reverence, as for virtue, so for woe,
And ever finds in trials of the creature
The great Creator's purpose here below
To lift by lowering, and through anguish strange
To fit for thrones exempt from chance or change.

There first the Four had met that sympathy
Dearest to humblest heart. That treasure found
So much the more ere long calamity
Tasked them, thus strengthened; tasked and closed them round;
And higher yet fierce winds and watery shocks
Dashed them thenceforth upon more pitiless rocks.

At last from heaven's dark vault a night there fell
The direst they had known. The high-heaped seas
Vanquished by frost, beneath her iron spell
Abased their haughty crests by slow degrees:
The swans were frozen upon that ice-plain frore;
Yet still Finola sang, as oft before,

‘Beneath my right wing, Aodh, make thy rest!
Beneath my left, Fiacre! My little Conn,
Find thou a warmer shelter 'neath my breast,
As thou art wont: thou art my little son!
Thou God that all things mad'st, and lovest all,
Subdue things great! Protect the weak, the small!’

385

But evermore the younger three made moan;
And still their moans more loud and louder grew;
And still Finola o'er that sea of stone
For their sake fragments of wild wailings threw;
And ever as she sang the on-driving snow
Choked the sweet strain; yet still she warbled low:

Then, louder when she heard those others grieve
And found that song might now no more avail
She said: ‘Believe, O brothers young, believe
In that great God whose help can never fail!
Have faith in God since God can ne'er deceive!’
And lo, those weepers answered, ‘We believe!’

So thus those babes, in God's predestined hour,
Through help of Him, the Lord of Life and Death
Inly fulfilled with light and prophet power
Believed, and perfect made their Act of Faith;
And thenceforth all things, both in shade and shine,
To them came softly and with touch benign.

First, from the southern stars there came a breeze
On-wafting happy mist of moonlit rain;
And when the sun ascended o'er the seas
The ice was vanquished; and the watery plain
And every cloud with rapture thrilled and stirred:
And lo, at noon the cuckoo's voice was heard.

And since with that rough ice their feet were sore
God for their sake a wind from Eden sent
That gently raised them from the ocean's floor
And in its bosom as an ambient tent
Held them, suspense: and with a dew of balm
God, while they slept, made air and ocean calm.

386

Likewise a beam auroral forth He sped
That flushed that tent aerial like a rose
Each morn, and roseate odours o'er it shed
The long day through. And still at evening's close
They dreamed of those rich bowers and alleys green
Wherein with Lir their childish sports had been.

And thrice they dreamed that in the morning grey
They gathered there red roses drenched with dew:
But lo! a serpent 'neath the roses lay:
Then came the Tailkenn, and that serpent slew;
And round the Tailkenn's tonsured head was light
That made the morning more than noonday bright.

Thus wrapt, thus kindled, in sublimer mood
Heaven-high they soared and flung abroad their strain
O'er-sailing huge Croagh-Patrick swathed in wood
Or Acaill,

Now Achill Head.

warder of the western main,
Or Arran Isle, that time heroic haunt,
Since Enda's day Religion's saintlier vaunt.

And many a time they floated farther south
Where milder airs endear sea-margins bleak
To that dim Head far seen o'er Shenan's mouth
Or Smerwick's ill-famed cliff and winding creek,
Or where on Brandon sleeps Milesius' son
With all his shipwrecked warriors round him—Donn.

The centuries passed: her loud, exultant lay
Finola sang, their time of penance done,
And ended: ‘Lo, to us it seems a day;
Not less the dread Nine Hundred Years are run:

387

Now, brothers, homeward be our flight!’. And they
Chanted triumphant: ‘Home, to Finnahá!’

Up from the sea they rose in widening gyre,
And hung suspended 'mid the ethereal blue,
And saw, far flashing in the sunset's fire
A wood-girt lake whose splendour well they knew;
And flew all night; and reached at dawn its shore—
Ah, then rang out that wail ne'er heard before!

There where the towers of Lir of old had stood
Lay now the stony heap and rain-washed rath;
And through the ruin-mantling alder-wood
The forest beast had stamped in mire his path;
And desolate were their mother's happy bowers
So fair of old with fountains and with flowers!

More closely drew the orphans each to each:—
'Twas then Finola raised her dirge on high
As nearer yet they drifted to the beach
In hope one fragment of past days to spy;
‘Upon our father's house hath fallen a change;
And as a dead man's face this place is strange!

‘No more the hound and horse; no more the horn!
No more the warriors winding down the glen!
Behold, the place of pleasaunce is forlorn
And emptied of fair women and brave men;
The wine-cup now is dry; the music fled:
Now know we that our father, Lir, is dead!’

She sang, and ceased, though long the feathered throat
Panted with passion of the unuttered song:

388

At last she spake with voice that seemed remote
Like echoed voice of one the tombs among:
‘Depart we hence! Better the exile's pain!’
And they: ‘Return we to rough waves again!’

Yet still along that silver mere they lingered
Oaring their weeping way by lawn and cape
Till evening, purple-stoled and dewy-fingered,
O'er heaven's sweet face had woven its veil of crape;
And tenderer came from darkening wood and wild
The voice far off of woman or of child.

And when, far travelling through the fields of ether,
The stars successive filled their thrones with light
Still to that heaven the glimmering lake beneath her
Gave meet response, with music answering light;
For still, wherever sailed that mystic four
With minstrelsy divine the lake ran o'er.

But when the rising sun made visible
The night-mist hovering long o'er banks of reed
They cast their broad wings on a gathering swell
Of wind that, late from eastern sea-caves freed
Waved all the island's oakwoods t'ward the West;
And seaward swooped at eve and there found rest.

And since they knew their penance now was over,
Penance that tasks great hearts to purify,
Happier were they than e'er was mortal lover,
Happy as Spirits cleansed that, near the sky,
Feel, 'mid that realm, ‘The Higher Purgatory,’
Warm on their lids the unseen yet nearing glory.

389

Thenceforth they roamed no more, at Inisglaire
Their change awaiting. In its blissful prime
That island was, men say, as Eden fair
The swan-soft nurseling of a changeful clime
With amaranth-lighted glades, and tremulous sheen
Of trees full-flowered on earth no longer seen.

Not then the waves with that still site contended;
On its warm sand-hills pansies always bloomed;
And ever with the inspiring sea-wind blended
Came breath of gardens violet-perfumed;
And daisies whitened lawn and dell, and spread
At sunset o'er green hills their under-red,

Faint as that blush which lights some matron's cheek
Tenderly pleased by gentle praise deserved—
That island's winding coast from creek to creek
Like curves of shells with dream-like beauty swerved:
And midmost spread a lake, from mortal eyes
Vanished this day like man's lost paradise.

Around that lake with oldest oakwoods shaded
Were all things that to eye are witching most
Green slopes dew-drenched, and grey rocks ivybraided;
Yet speechless was the region as a ghost;
No whisper shook those woods; no tendril stirred;
Nor e'er within the cave was ripple heard.

A home for Spirits not home for man it seemed;
Or Limbo meet for body-waiting Souls—
Of such in Pagan times the poets dreamed:
That stillness which invests the unmoving poles

390

Above it brooded. In its circuit wide
A second Darvra lived—but glorified.

Upon its breast perpetual light there lay
Undazzling beam and uncreated light;
For lake and wood the sunshine drank all day
And breathed it softly forth to cheer the night,
A silver twilight pure from cloud or taint
Like aureole round the forehead of a saint.

There dwelt those Swans; there louder anthems chanted;
There first they sang by day—rapt song and hymn
Till all those birds the western coasts that haunted
Came flying far o'er ocean's purple rim,
Scorning thenceforth wild cliff and beds of foam;
And made, then first, that sacred isle their home.

So passed three years. When dawned the third May morn
The Four, while slowly rose the kindling mist
Showing the first white on the earliest thorn,
Heard music o'er the waters. List, O list!
'Twas sweet as theirs—more sweet—yet terrible
At first; and sudden trembling on them fell.

A second time it sounded. Terror died
And rapture came instead and mystic mirth
They knew not whence: and thus Finola cried:
‘Brothers! the Tailkenn treads our Erin's earth!’
And as the lifted mist gave view more large
They saw a blue bay with a fair green marge.

On that green marge there rose an Altar-stone:
Before it, robed in white, with tonsured head,

391

Stood up the kingly Tailkenn all alone:
Not far behind, in reverence, not in dread,
With low-bent brows a princely senate knelt
Girding that altar as with golden belt.

Marvelling, as on they sailed that Rite they saw:
But, when a third time pealed that Tailkenn's bell,
They too their halleluias, though with awe,
Blended with his. The Ill Spirits heard their knell,
And shrieking fled to penal dungeons drear;
And straight, since now those blissful Four drew near,

Saint Patrick stretched above the wave his hand,
And thus he spake—and wind and wave were stilled—
‘Children of Lir, re-tread your native land,
For now your long sea-penance is fulfilled.’
Then lo! Finola raised the funeral cry—
‘We tread our native land that we may die.’

And thus she made the lay, and thus she sang:
‘Baptize us, priest, while living yet we be!’
And louder soon her dirge-like anthem rang:
‘Lo, thus the Children's burial I decree:
Make fair our grave where land and ocean meet;
And t'ward thy holy Altar place our feet.

‘Upon my left, Fiacre; upon my right
Let Aodh sleep; for such their place of rest
Secured to each by usage day and night:
And lay my little Conn upon my breast:
Then on a low sand pillow raise my head,
That I may see his face though I be dead.’

392

She spake; and on the sands they stept—the Four—
Then lo, from heaven there came a miracle:
Soon as they left the wave and trod the shore
The weight of bygone centuries on them fell:
To human forms they changed, yet human none;—
Dread, shapeless weights of wrinkles and of bone.

A moment prone the wildered creatures lay,
Then slowly up that breadth of tawny sand,
Like wounded beast that can but crawl, made way
With knee convulsed and closed and clutching hand,
Nine-centuried forms, still breathing mortal breath,
Though shrouded in the cerements pale of death.

That concourse on them gazed with many a tear;
Yet no man uttered speech or motion made,
Till now the Four had reached that altar-bier
Their ghastly pilgrimage's goal, and laid
Before its base their bodies, one by one,
And faces glistening in the rising sun.

There lying, loud they raised the self-same cry
As Patrick o'er them signed the conquering Sign,
‘Baptize us, holy Tailkenn, for we die!’
The saint baptized them in the name Divine,
And, swift as thought, their happy spirits at last
To God's high feast and singing angels passed.

Now hear the latest wonder. While, low-bowed,
That concourse gazed upon the reverend dead
Behold, like changeful shapes in evening cloud
Vanished those time-worn bodies; and, instead,
Inwoven lay four children, white and young
With silver-lidded eyes and lashes long.

393

Finola lay, once more an eight years' child:
Upon her right hand Aodh took his rest,
Upon her left Fiacre;—in death they smiled:
Her little Conn was cradled on her breast:
And all their saintly raiment shone as bright
As sea-foam sparkling on a moonlit night;

Or as their snowy night-clothes shone of old
When now the night was past, and Lir, their sire
Upraised them from the warm cot's silken fold
And bade them watch the sun's ascending fire,
And watched himself its beam, now here now there,
Flashed from white foot, blue eyes, or golden hair.

The men who saw that death-bed did not weep
But gazed till sunset upon each fair face;
And then with funeral psalm and anthems deep
Interred them at that sacred altar's base,
And graved their names in Ogham characters
On one white tomb, and, close beneath them, Lir's.

Those Babes were Erin's Holy Innocents,
And first-fruits of the land to Christ their Lord,
Though born within the unbelievers' tents:
Figured in them the Gael his God adored,
That later-coming, holier Gael, who won
Through Faith the birthright, though the younger son.

Bamba, Fodhla, and Eire.

The current running between Cantire, in Scotland, and the northern coast of Ireland.

Achill Island, on the coast of Connaught.

The ‘Tonsured One,’ i.e. St. Patrick.

‘The term Mael, Mull (or Moyle, as Moore calls it), does not properly apply to the current itself, but to the Mael, or bald headland by which it runs.’—Professor Eugene O'Curry.

‘They met a young man of good family whose name was Aibhric, and his attention was often attracted to the birds, and their singing was sweet to him, so that he came to love them greatly, and that they loved him; and it was this young man that afterwards arranged in order and narrated all their adventures.’— The Fate of the Children of Lir, prose version, by Professor O'Curry.

395

EARLY IRISH RECORDS.

397

THE BALLAD OF KING CORMAC'S CHOICE.

[_]

According to the Irish chronicles, Cormac, King of all Ireland, renounced the worship of idols about two centuries before the arrival of St. Patrick, having received in a vision the promise of the true Faith.

Who shall forbid a king to lie
Where lie he will, when life is o'er?
King Cormac laid him down to die;
But first he raised his hand and swore;

‘At Brugh ye shall not lay my bones:
Those pagan Kings I scorn to join
Beside the trembling Druid stones,
And on the northern bank of Boyne.

‘A grassy grave of poor degree
Upon its southern marge be mine
At Rossnaree, where of things to be
I saw in vision the pledge and sign.

‘Thou happier Faith, that from the East
Slow travellest, set my People free!
I sleep, thy prophet and thy priest,
By southern Boyne, at Rossnaree.’

He died: anon from hill and wood
Down flocked the black-robed Druid race
And round the darkened palace stood
And cursed the dead King to his face,

398

Uptowering round his bed, with lips
Denouncing doom, and cheeks death-pale,
As when at noontide strange eclipse
Invests grey cliff and shadowed vale;

And proved with cymbal'd anthems dread
The Gods he spurned had bade him die:—
Then spake the pagan chiefs and said
‘Where lie our Kings, this King must lie.’

In royal robes the corse they dressed;
They spread the bier with boughs of yew;
And chose twelve men, their first and best,
To bear him through the Boyne to Brugh.

But on his bier the great dead King
Forgat not so his kingly oath;
And from sea-marge to mountain spring
Boyne heard their coming, and was wroth:

He frowned far off 'mid gorse and fern
As those ill-omened steps made way;
He muttered 'neath the flying hern;
He foamed by cairn and cromlech grey;

And rose, and drowned with one black wave
Those Twelve on-wading; and with glee
Bore down King Cormac to his grave
By southern Boyne, at Rossnaree!

Close by that grave, three centuries past,
Columba reared his saintly cell;
And Boyne's rough voice was changed at last
To music by the Christian bell.

399

So Christ's true Faith made Erin free,
And blessed her women and her men;
And that which was again shall be,
And that which died shall rise again.

ST. COLUMBA'S FAREWELL TO THE ISLE OF ARRAN ON SETTING SAIL FOR IONA.

[_]

FROM THE GAELIC.

Farewell to Arran Isle, farewell!
I steer for Hy: my heart is sore:—
The breakers burst, the billows swell
'Twixt Arran Isle and Alba's shore.

Thus spake the Son of God, ‘Depart!—
O Arran Isle, God's will be done!
By Angels thronged this hour thou art:
I sit within my bark alone.

O Modan, well for thee the while!
Fair falls thy lot, and well art thou!
Thy seat is set in Arran Isle:
Eastward to Alba turns my prow.

400

O Arran, Sun of all the West!
My heart is thine! As sweet to close
Our dying eyes in thee as rest
Where Peter and where Paul repose.

O Arran, Sun of all the West!
My heart in thee its grave hath found:
He walks in regions of the blest
The man that hears thy church-bells sound.

O Arran blest, O Arran blest!
Accursed the man that loves not thee!
The dead man cradled in thy breast—
No demon scares him: well is he.

Each Sunday Gabriel from on high,
For so did Christ our Lord ordain,
Thy Masses comes to sanctify:
With fifty angels in his train

Each Monday Michael issues forth
To bless anew each sacred fane:
Each Tuesday cometh Raphael
To bless pure hearth and golden grain.

Each Wednesday cometh Uriel,
Each Thursday Sariel, fresh from God;
Each Friday cometh Ramael
To bless thy stones and bless thy sod.

Each Saturday comes Mary,
Comes Babe on arm, 'mid heavenly hosts:
O Arran, near to heaven is he
That hears God's Angels bless thy coasts!

In the Bay of Galway. It was one of the chief retreats of the Irish monks and missionaries, and still abounds in religious memorials.

Iona.

Scotland.

401

SAINT COLUMBA'S STORK.

A MINSTREL SONG.

Columba raised in wrath a war;
Heart-stricken then for penance prayed:
‘See thou thy native land no more:’—
The Hermit spake: the Saint obeyed.

He sailed: he reached an island green:
Alone he clomb its grassy steep:
Though dimly, Eire could still be seen:
Once more he launched into the deep.

Iona's soil at last he trod.
There, there once more, they say he mixed
His hymns of Eire with hymns of God
Standing with dim eyes southward fixed.

Three years went by. One stormy morn
He grasped a Monk that near him stood:
‘Go down to yonder beach forlorn
O'er which the northward sea-mists scud.

‘There, bleeding thou shalt find ere long
A Stork from Eire that loves her well
Sore wounded by the tempest's wrong:
Uplift and bear her to thy cell.

‘Three days that Stork shall be thy guest:
The fourth o'er yonder raging main
The exile, strong through food and rest,
Will seek her native Eire again.’

402

The Monk obeyed: that Stork he found
And fed, three days. Those three days o'er
The exile, soaring, gazed around,
Then winged her to her native shore.

The Harper ended. Loud and shrill
They raised their shout, and praised that Stork,
And praised the Saint that, exiled, still
Could sing for Eire; for God could work.

ST. BRIGID AND THE BLIND NUN.

St. Brigid is the mother, all men know,
Of Erin's nuns that have been or shall be
From great St. Patrick's time to that last day
When Christ returns to judge the world with fire.
Her life was full of marvels; here is one
Some deem than miracle miraculous more.

'Twas summer eve: upon a grassy slope
Which overlooks Cill Dara's boundless plain
She sat, and by her side a fair blind nun
Of them that followed her and loved her rule,
And sang her nocturn psalms. They spake of God,
The wonder of His dread inscrutable Being,
Round all, o'er all, in all; the wonder next
That man, so slight a thing, can move His love,
Can love Him, can obey: the marvel last
Of God made Man; the Infinite in greatness
By infinite descent a creature made,
Perchance within the least of peopled worlds

403

For saving of all worlds. The sun went down:
Full-faced the moon uprose: the night-wind sighed:
It broke not their discourse. For them it swayed
Not Dara's oaks but boughs of Olivet,
Brightened their midnight dews.

The dawn returned:
It flushed the clouds: it fired the forest's roof:
It laughed on distant streams. The splendour burned
In the green grass and lived in brake and bush:
Transfigured earth upreared a face as when
Man—his terrestrial to celestial changed—
Shall look upon his Maker; such a face
As angel-hosts raised to God's universe
When, first evoked, it burst upon their sight
From night primeval and that chaos old.

St. Brigid gazed upon that dawn: a thought
Keen as a lance transfixed her heart: she mused,
‘Alas, this poor blind Sister sees it not!’
She clasped that Sister's hand, she raised, she kissed it:
That blind one spake: ‘Why weepest thou, Mother mine?
Thy tears are on my hand!’ The Saint replied;
‘I weep because thou canst not see yon dawn,
Nor in it God's great glory.’ Then the nun;
‘If that thought grieves thee, pray and I shall see.’
St. Brigid knelt; and, lo, the blind one saw!

'Twere sin to paint in words that creature's gladness:
It lasted long: it passed: by slow degrees
A twilight shadow tinged the sweet, pale face:
She spake: ‘Great Mother, you can watch yon dawn

404

Yet nothing lose of that more heavenly vision
Which lights God's inner realm within our hearts.
That inner world hath been my comfort; there
Ever I saw my Jesus, first a Babe
Couched in His crib, a Boy within the Temple,
At Cana's marriage feast, by Lazarus' tomb,
Upon the mount of His Beatitudes,
Upon the mount of His Transfiguration;
I tracked His steps through fields of Palestine;
I heard His Parables; I saw Him lay
His hand upon the blind, the dumb, the dead;
I knew that voice in all its holy changes,
His footstep, and the joy upon the face
Of those who heard that footstep though far off
Martha, or Mary, or the loved disciple;
Daily these things I saw:—that vision pales,
Dazed by the earthly splendours of this dawn,
Dim as earth dimmed when blindness near me drew.
Never be blindness mine to heavenly things!
Still let me feel when other help is none
That God is nearest to me, Mother mine!
A weakling I; grant me what weaklings need!
Kneel down once more, and give me back my blindness.’

Then knelt the Saint and prayed once more, and God
Restored to her she loved her holy blindness:
For forty years it lasted: then she died.

She died a.d. 523.

Now Kildare.

405

THE BALLAD OF TURGESIUS THE DANE;

OR, THE GIRL-DELIVERER.

The people sat amid the dust and wept:
‘In darker days than these God burst the chain,’
(Thus sang the harper as the chords he swept,)
‘Hear of the Girl-Deliverer and the Dane.’

PART I.

Twin ivy wreaths her forehead wound,
A green wreath and a yellow:
Her hair a gleaming dusk in ground
With ends of sunshine mellow.

Fair rose her head the tall neck o'er;
Her neck in snows was bedded:
Some crown, they swore, unseen she bore—
That queenly head it steadied.

Her sable vest in front was laced
With laces red as coral;
Her golden zone in gems was traced
With leafy type and moral.

As treading hearts her small feet went
In love-suspended fleetness:
And hearts thus trodden forth had sent
An organ-sob of sweetness.

406

Upon the dais when she stept
Meath's peopled hall rang loudly:
Their hundred harps the minstrels swept:
Her sire looked round him proudly.

The Dane beside him, darkening, sate,
At once his guest and victor;
Green Erin's scourge—the true King's fate—
The sceptred serf's protector.

‘Sir King! our worship grows but small!
Here Gaels alone find honour:
A white girl cannot cross your hall
But all men gaze upon her!

‘My speech is short: yon stands my fort!
Ere three nights thither send her
With twenty maidens of her court,
Your fairest, to attend her.’

PART II.

The Dane strides o'er his stony floor,
A strong, fierce man, yet hoary:
The low sun fires the purple moor
With mingled gloom and glory.

The tyrant stops; he stares thereon:
Sun-touched, his armour flashes:
His rough grey hair a glow hath won
Like embers seen through ashes.

His mail'd hand grasps his tangled beard:
He laughs that red sun watching,
Till the roofs laugh back like a forest weird
The laughter of Wood-gods catching.

407

‘My Sea-Kings! mark yon furnace-sheen!
The Fire-god is not thrifty!
No flame like that these eyes have seen
For winters five-and-fifty!

‘My sire lay dead: the ship sailed north,
The pyre and the corse on bearing:
Six miles it sailed; the flame sprang forth
Like sea-vext Hecla glaring!

‘We'll pledge him to-night in the blood-red wine:
'Tis wrought, the task he set me!
From coast to coast this Isle is mine:
Not soon will her sons forget me!

‘I have burned their shrines and their cities sacked;
Their Fair Ones our castles cumber;
We were shamed to-night if the bevy lacked
The fairest from their number.

‘Young wives for us all; too many by half!
Strange mates—the hind with the dragon!’
He laughed as when the reveller's laugh
Rings back from the half-drained flagon.

PART III.

The girl hath prayed at her Mother's grave,
And kissed that grave, and risen:
She hath swathed a knife in a silken glaive:
She is calm, but her great eyes glisten.

Between silk vest and spotless breast
A dagger she hath hidden;
With lips compressed gone forth, a guest
Unhonoured—not unbidden.

408

Through moonshine wan on moves she, on:
But who are those, the others?
They are garbed like maids, but maids are none:
They are lovers of maids, and brothers.

The gates lie wide: they enter in:
Loud roars the riot and wassail:
They hear at times 'mid the conquerors' din
The harp of the Gaelic vassal.

The Dane has laid on her head his hand,
The love in his eye is cruel:
Out leap the swords of that well-masked band:
Two nations have met in duel!

'Twas God their sentence on high that wrote!
'Tis a righteous doom—that slaughter!
His Sea-Kings lie drowned in the castle moat,
And the Tyrant in Annin Water.

From mountain to mountain the tidings flashed:
It pealed from turret to turret:
Like a sunlit storm o'er the plains it dashed:
It hung o'er the vales like a spirit.

'Twas a maiden's honour that crowned the right:
'Twas a vestal claim, scarce noted
By the power which trampled it out of sight,
That rose on the wrong, and smote it!

409

THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF;

OR, THE KING'S SACRIFICE.

The battle of Clontarf, fought A.D. 1014, annulled for ever the Danish power in Ireland. During two centuries and more the sons of the North had landed on the Irish coasts, sacked the monasteries, burned the cities and churches, and in many places well-nigh destroyed the Christian civilisation of earlier times, although they were never able to establish a monarchy in Ireland. The native dynasties for the most part remained; and Brian the Great, then King of all Ireland, though aged and blind, led Forth the native hosts against the invaders for one supreme effort. He placed his son Murrough in command; but he offered up, notwithstanding, his life for his country, and the lives of all the Royal Family. His sons and his grandson partook his glory and his fate. His death was a favourite theme with the bards of ancient Erin.

By green Clontarf they thronged the unhappy shore
Whence James had fleeted like a transient guest:—
‘We had Kings of late; we had Kings of yore,’
Thus sang the Bard; ‘but the first were best!’

And the shouts of the anguished around him rang,
From streaming eyes forth flashed the fire
As thus King Brian's death he sang,
The blind old King who died for Eire.

I.

‘Answer, thou that from the height
Look'st to left, and look'st to right,
Answer thou, how goes the fight?’

410

II.

Thus spake King Brian, by his tent
Kneeling, with sceptred hands that leant
Upon that altar which, where'er
He marched, kept pure his path with prayer;
For after all his triumphs past
That made him wondrous 'mid his peers
On the blind King God's will had cast
The burden of his fourscore years:
And therefore when that morn, at nine
He rode along the battle's van
No sword he lifted but the Sign
Of Him Who died for man.
King Brian's fleshly strength decayed,
Three times in puissance waxed his spirit
And tall like oak-trees towered his merit,
And like a praying host he prayed:—
From nine to twelve, with crown on head,
Full fifty prayers the King had said;
And unto each such power was given
It shook the unopening gates of heaven.

III.

‘O King, the battle goes this hour
As when two seas are met in might,
When billow billow doth devour,
And tide with tide doth fight:

‘I watch the waves of war; but none
Can see what banners rise or fall;
Sea-clouds on rush, sea-crests on run
And blood is over all.’

411

IV.

Then prayed the King once more, head-bare
And made himself a cross in prayer,
With outstretched arms, and forehead prone
Staid on that topmost altar-stone
Gem-charged, and cleansed from mortal taint
And strong with bones of many a Saint.
In youth his heart for God had yearned,
And Eire: now thrice his youth returned:
A child full oft, ere woke the bird
The convent's nocturns he had heard,
In old Kincora, or that isle
Which guards, thus late, its wasted pile
While winds of night the tall towers shook;
And he would peer into that Book
Which lay, lamp-lit, on eagle's wings
Wherein God's Saints in gold and blue
Stood up, and Prophets stood, and Kings;
And he the Martyrs knew,
And Maids, and Confessors each one,
And—tabernacled there in light—
That blissful Virgin enough bright
To light a burnt-out sun.
The blazoned Letters well he kenned
That stood like gateways keeping ward,
Before the Feast-Days set, to guard
Long ways of wisdom without end:
He knew the music notes black-barred
And music notes, like planted spears,
Whereon who bends a fixed regard
The gathering anthem hears
Like wakening storms 'mid pines that lean
Ere sunrise o'er some dusk ravine.—

412

The thoughts that nursed his youth, that hour
Were with his age, and armed with power.

V.

So fifty Psalms he sang, and then
Rolled round his sightless eyes again
And spake—‘Thou watcher on the height,
Make answer quick, how goes the fight?’

VI.

‘O King, the battle goes as when
The mill-wheel circles round and round:
The battle reels; and bones of men
Beneath its wheel are ground:

‘The war-field lies like Tomar's wood
By axes marred or charred with fire
When, black o'er wood-ways ruin-strewed,
Rises the last oak spire.’

VII.

Then to his altar by the tent
Once more King Brian turned, and bent
Unsceptred hands and head discrowned
Down from that altar to the ground
In such sort that the cold March air
With fir-cones swept his snow-white hair;
And prayed, ‘O Thou that from the skies
Dost see what is, and what must be,
Make mine and me Thy Sacrifice,
But set this People free!’

413

VIII.

That hour, he knew, in many a fane
Late ravaged by the Pagan Dane
God's priests were offering, far and wide,
The Mass of the Presanctified:
For lo! it was Good Friday morn,
And Christ once more was crowned with thorn:
God's Church, he knew, from niche and shrine
Had swept those gauds that time consumes,
Whate'er sea-cave, or wood, or mine
Yield from their sunless wombs:
Veiled were the sacred images
He knew, like vapour-shrouded trees,
Vanished gold lamp, and chalice rare;
The astonished altars stripped and bare
Because upon the cross, stone-dead,
Christ lay that hour disraimented.

IX.

He prayed—then spake—‘How goes the fight?’
Then answer reached him from the height:—

X.

‘O King, the battle goes as though
God weighed two nations in His scale;
And now the fates of Eire sink low,
Now theirs that wear the mail:

‘O King, thy sons, through God's decree,
Are dead—save one, the best of all,
Murrough—and now, ah woe is me!
I see his standard fall!’

414

XI.

It fell: but as it fell, above
Through lightning-lighted skies on drove
A thousand heavenly standards, dyed
In martyrdom's ensanguined tide;
And every tower, and town, and fane
That blazed of old round Erin's shore
Down crashed, it seemed, in heaven again;—
So dire that thunder's roar!
The wrath had come: the Danes gave way:
For Brian's prayer had power that day;
Seaward they rushed, the race abhorred—
The sword of prayer had quelled their sword.
So fled they to the ship-thronged coast;
But, random-borne through Tolga's glade
A remnant from that routed host
Rushed by where Brian prayed;
And, swinging forth his brand, down leap'd
Black Brodar, he that foremost rode
And from the kingly shoulders swept
The old head, praising God;
And cried aloud, ‘Let all men tell
That Brodar, he that leagues with Hell,
That Brodar of the magic mail
Slew Brian of the Gael.’

XII.

Him God destroyed! The Accursed One lay
Like beast unburied where he fell:
But Brian and his sons this day
In Armagh Church sleep well.
And Brian's grandson strong and fair
Clutching a Sea-King by the hair

415

Went with him far through Tolga's wave—
Went with him to the same sea-grave.
So Eire gave thanks to God, though sad,
And took the blessing and the bale,
And sang, in funeral garments clad,
The vengeance of the Gael.
Silent all night the Northmen haled
Their dead adown the bleeding wharf:—
Far north at dawn the Pirates sailed;
But on thy shore, Clontarf,
Old Eire once more, with wan cheeks wet
Gave thanks that He Who shakes the skies
Had burst His people's bond, and yet
Decreed that Sacrifice:
For God is One Who gives and takes;
Who lifts the low, and fells the proud;
Who loves His land of Eire, and makes
His rainbow in His cloud.

Thus sang to Eire her Bard of old;
Thus sang to trampled kerne and serf
While, sunset-like, her age of gold
Came back to green Clontarf.

University of Virginia Library

II. VOL. II.

THE LEGENDS OF SAINT PATRICK.

THE BAPTISM OF ST. PATRICK.

THE DISBELIEF OF MILCHO,

OR, SAINT PATRICK'S ONE FAILURE.

ARGUMENT.

SAINT PATRICK AT TARA.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE TWO PRINCESSES.

FEDELM ‘THE RED ROSE,’ AND ETHNA ‘THE FAIR.’

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDREN OF FOCHLUT WOOD. This wood extended along the coast near the present town of Killala.

ARGUMENT.

‘THE LAY OF THE HEADS.’

SAINT PATRICK AND KING LAEGHAIRE.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE IMPOSTOR;

OR, MAC KYLE OF MAN.

ARGUMENT.

SAINT PATRICK AT CASHEL;

OR, THE BAPTISM OF AENGUS.

ARGUMENT.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDLESS MOTHER.

ARGUMENT.

SAINT PATRICK AT THE FEAST OF KNOCK CAE;

OR, THE FOUNDING OF MUNGRET.

ARGUMENT.

SAINT PATRICK AND KING EOCHAID.

ARGUMENT.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE FOUNDING OF ARMAGH CATHEDRAL.

ARGUMENT.

THE ARRAIGNMENT OF SAINT PATRICK.

ARGUMENT.

THE STRIVING OF SAINT PATRICK ON MOUNT CRUACHAN

ARGUMENT.

EPILOGUE.

THE CONFESSION OF SAINT PATRICK.

ARGUMENT

OISEEN THE BARD AND SAINT PATRICK.

I. THE GREAT CONTENTION.

II. THE DEATH OF OSCAR.

III. OISEEN'S YOUTH.

IV. OISEEN'S QUESTION.

V. OISEEN'S GRATEFUL COUNSEL.

VI. OISEEN'S MISGIVINGS.

VII. OISEEN'S VISION.

VIII. OISEEN'S GOOD CONFESSION.

LEGENDS OF IRELAND'S HEROIC AGE.

THE FORAY OF QUEEN MEAVE;

OR, ‘THE TAIN BO CUALGNÉ.’

PROLOGUE.

BOOK I. THE CAUSE OF THE GREAT WAR.

ARGUMENT.

BOOK II. THE DEEDS OF CUCHULLAIN.

ARGUMENT.

BOOK III. THE COMBAT AT THE FORD.

ARGUMENT.

BOOK IV. THE INVASION OF ULADH.

ARGUMENT.

BOOK V. QUEEN MEAVE'S RETREAT.

ARGUMENT.

THE SONS OF USNACH.

CANTO I. THE BABE OF DESTINY.

CANTO II. THE BEAUTIFUL CHILDHOOD.

CANTO III. THE SONS OF USNACH IN ALBA.

CANTO IV. THE KING'S TREASON.

CANTO V. THE NIGHT RIDE TO EMANIA.

CANTO VI. THE FATE FULFILLED.

THE CHILDREN OF LIR.

AN ANCIENT IRISH ROMANCE.

CANTO I. THE STEPMOTHER'S MALEDICTION.

CANTO II. THE PENANCE OF THE INNOCENTS.

EARLY IRISH RECORDS.

THE BALLAD OF KING CORMAC'S CHOICE.

ST. COLUMBA'S FAREWELL TO THE ISLE OF ARRAN ON SETTING SAIL FOR IONA.

SAINT COLUMBA'S STORK.

A MINSTREL SONG.

ST. BRIGID AND THE BLIND NUN.

THE BALLAD OF TURGESIUS THE DANE;

OR, THE GIRL-DELIVERER.

PART I.

PART II.

SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDREN OF FOCHLUT WOOD.

This wood extended along the coast near the present town of Killala.