University of Virginia Library

It happed in Eman at the joyous time
When wood-flowers bloomed, and roses in their prime
Laughed round the garden, and the new-fledged bird
'Mid the thick leaves its downy winglets stirred,
That the King's Story-teller, Feilimid,
'Mong all the bloom that, like a bright robe, hid
The earth's dark places, felt himself full sad,
He knew not why, and sent, to make him glad,
His henchman with a message to the king,
The nobles and the knights, and all, to bring
From the bright palace straightway to his house,
That they might hold therein a gay carouse.
And the king came, with knights and nobles all,
And soon their shields hung o'er them in the hall:
Buckles were loosened, belts and swords thrown by,
And pleasure sparkled in each warrior's eye.
Full soon the old man felt his soul restored,
As laugh and jest were bandied round the board,
As the king smiled upon him kind and gay,
As songs were sung, and harps began to play,
And cups were kissed by many a bearded lip,
And care from all hearts loosed its felon grip.
And higher rose the heart-inspiring hum
Of the glad revel through the banquet room,
As the blithe hours went on with laughter meet
With merry jest and minstrel's music sweet,
And lay of war and tale of maid and man,
And clash of cup and clinking of the can.

Upon that revel gay the sun went down,
And the pale night put on her starry crown;
Yet higher rose the joy and jollity
Of the Great King and all that company:
Till at the very topmost of their mirth,
When jokes and jovial wit had brightest birth,
And all their hearts with generous wine were high,
Through the whole house there rang a mighty cry,—
A long, shrill-sounding, quivering wail of woe,
Like the young heifer's cry in her last throe
When a great snake coils round her on the heath,
Crackling her bones and crushing out her breath.
Round the blithe board the revellers sat still,
As rose again that cry more wild and shrill:
Amazed, some held on high th'untasted cup,
Some at their swords and shields looked furtive up;
Some, readier of hand, with nervous grip
Clutched the long blade that dangled at the hip,
And eyes sought eyes with quick inquiring glance;
Till Feilimid arose, as from a trance
Of terror, with pale face,—

“O guests!” he said,
“What means this cry of anguish and of dread?
Instinctive in my heart its pangs I feel,
Like the sharp griding of the poisoned steel!
Tell me, O Caffa!—tell! thou great and wise,
Who knowest why morning dawns and daylight dies,
And comets glare and tempests pelt and beat,
And the fierce Thunder-god his brazen feet
Stamps in grim fury shaking earth and sky,—
O wise one, tell what means this woful cry!”

Then Caffa spoke,—the King's own hoary sage,
To whom all Nature like a golden page,
Well conned, lay open, full of wondrous things,—
“O knights and minstrels,—O Great King of kings,
And thou, good friend of mine, O Feilimid,—
From me of Nature's secrets few are hid.
Well do I know this portent,—well I know
Why rings throughout the house this cry of woe:
Thy wife, O Feilimid, in travail lies,
And in his strength some god speaks through her cries;
And with the last to thee a babe is born,
Bright as the dawn of May's most glorious morn!
Then let the feast go on! The goblets fill,
And round the board a great libation spill
Unto the mighty gods of Earth and Sea,
And Air and Fire, for a good destiny
To the poor babe new-born, though all in vain
I know shall be our prayers!”

Then rose again
The hubbub of the feast, as King and knight
Upstood, and brimming filled the goblets bright,
And raised them with a shout their tall heads o'er,
And turned them down, till on the shining floor
The wine flowed like the plenteous April rain,
Spattering their long limbs with its ruddy stain
Like the red tide of battle!

Through the hall
The guests again were silent one and all,
As from a far-off door there came a noise
Like that a strong wind makes, which blustering toys
With the wood's leaves upon a summer day;
And from the door in solemn slow array
A bevy of old beldames, two by two,
Paced rustling up the hall in varied hue
Of shawls and scarfs and robes and broidery
Of silk or serge, befitting their degree
As palace women. First of all there came
Old Lavarcam, the Conversation Dame
Of the Great King, who told him all the sport
And loves and plots and scandals of the Court.
A pace before them walked she mincingly,
And to each great lord bent the pliant knee;
Sharp eyes she had, each speck and fault that saw,
And face as yellow as an osprey's claw,
And wrinkled, like tough vellum by the heat,
As moved she toward the monarch's golden seat,
Smirking and smiling on the baby bright
That in her arms lay clad in lily white,
With large blue eyes and downy yellow hair,
And skin like pink-leaves when the morns are fair.
With many a bow she stopped before the King,
Then turned to Feilimid:—

“To thee I bring
This babe thy wife gave birth for thee to-night.
Did mortal brain e'er dream so fair a sight?
Did mortal eye since Miled's day behold
Such radiant skin, such hair of downy gold?
No! never on this earth thou'lt find her peer:
Then let great Caffa tell, the noble seer,
If this sweet bud shall grow to woman's bloom,
And what of joy or grief shall be her doom!”

Then Caffa rose, at first with peering gaze,
Like one who looks through morning's misty haze
To see some dark things hid in plains beyond;
Then his eyes flashed: then with light hand and fond
He touched the little babe on brow and breast,
And thus to her alone these words addressed:—

“O lovely little bud of womankind,
In thy short day small gladness shalt thou find,
Though thou shalt bourgeon into bloom and be
Fairest of women! Mighty queens shall see
Thy fame spread wide, fulfilled of envy's gall,
And long for thy destruction. Kings shall fall
Before thee. Each thread of thy yellow hair
For some great hero's heart shall be a snare
Of love's enchantment: blue shall be thine eyes
As the deep sapphire depths of April skies;
White pearls thy teeth, thy lips and bright cheeks red
As berries in the bosky wildwood bred
'Neath summer suns, and fair and smooth thy skin
As the soft satin rose-leaves white and thin
Of the King's garden in the prime of June!—
Alas for thee, that ere the woful noon
Of thy young day,—that day of grief distraught,—
Full many a deed of darkness shall be wrought!
For thou, all beautiful, shalt wake the fire
Of jealous anger and insane desire
In many a hero's heart; and war's red field
Shall gleam with levelled lance and brazen shield
And thirsty sword, where hostile banners rise
Of kings renowned, to win thy smiles and sighs:
Alas! for in thy day, and all for thee,
Great Usna's sons shall die by treachery
And the King's wrath; and from that deed of shame
Fair Eman's halls shall feed the ravening flame
Of war and carnage, kindled by the light
Of thy destroying glances, till the night
Of woe enwrap the land accurst of men,
O Deirdrè, evil fate beyond our ken!
O leveller of Ulad's fair abodes!
O beautiful bright firebrand of the gods!”
Then rose an aged lord with haughty air
And shaggy brows and grizzled beard and hair,
Whose fierce eye o'er the margin of his shield
Had gazed from war's first ridge on many a field
Unblinking at the foe that on him glared,
And might be ten to one for all he cared.
Now unto all things was he callous grown,
And his hard heart was like the nether stone,
As on the babe he bent his dreadful eye:
“O King!” he said, “O champions great and high!
O minstrels! list this tale I tell to ye
My father brought from lands beyond the sea:—

Far in the North, a smooth Hebridean strand
Spread to the changeful heavens its silvery sand,
And o'er it in a vale 'mid cliffs and rocks
A village gleamed, whose herds and woolly flocks
Fed o'er the inland downs and ferny dells
And breezy moorlands gay with heather bells.
Joyful the village life by shore and mead;
They reared their flocks and sowed their barley seed,
And fished the fruitful sea when winds were light,
And prayed unto the good gods morn and night,
And sheared and reaped in peace and quietness,
Unknowing envy's pangs or war's distress.

One young June day, when Winter with shrill groans
Felt coming death through all his frozen bones,
And three long days had struggled in the North
In storm to march his drunken army forth
Of icebergs toppling o'er the ocean swell
Against the South from their cold citadel,
A strong wind's voice mixed with the breakers' roar;
The villagers had gathered by the shore,
To watch the icebergs' terrible array,
Over the waters stretching far away.
Some bright with sun-gleams, some enwrapt in cloud,
Some struggling each 'gainst each with thunder loud
On their long march to fight the joyous sun,
And in the fight to find themselves undone.
And as the people looked, upon the floe
They saw a little thing as white as snow
Come towards them with the tide the wind before,
Till a great breaker dashed it on the shore.
A small, frail thing it was, with pearly hair,—
The far-sent offspring of the Northern Bear,
And to their simple minds a thing like it
Upon their windy shores had never lit;
As weak it moaned like a young lamb that wails
For its lost mother in the lonesome dales.

Then Erc, a fisherman, fell on his knee
And cried, ‘Some god hath sent his progeny
To bless our village and to be our stay
In time of joy, or in the evil day:
So let us build a temple fair and new,
Where we may worship it with reverence due,
And give the heedful god his full content
Of glory for the bright boon he hath sent!’
Straightway they built a temple o'er a spring
That to the wind and sun its waves did fling
Beside the village green with murmuring sound
Of gladness all the changeful seasons round,
Since Mananan, the Sea-god, first upthrew
The wild isle's stony ribs unto the blue.
And there within that temple's fair abode
They worshipped year by year their new-found god,
And morn and eve they fed it daintily
Upon the best fruits of the land and sea,
And morn and eve within the fountain bright
It washed its woolly coat all silvery white;
And as the years went on it grew and grew,
Till the great bull that ranged their pastures through
Seemed like a heifer when it stood a-nigh:
And thus it fared till ten long years went by
In happiness, and to the people brought
Each dream they dreamed, and each fond wish they sought.
One day of summer, when the village men
Were far away by mountain and by glen
Hunting or herding, or on ocean's field
Fishing for what the teeming waves might yield,
And on the green the children were at play
With merry gambols 'neath the genial ray,—
The mighty she-bear stole from out her house
With step as noiseless as the small brown mouse
Makes when a crumb of bread is on the floor
And the cat nigh, and ranged the bright green o'er
As was her wont.

Beneath a hawthorn-tree
A little child sat weeping piteously,
With a great thorn in his white foot sunk deep
That made the red blood flow. Then 'gan to creep
The great bear round him snuffing, till she came
And licked the blood; then shot a dreadful flame
From the fierce depths of her red rolling eye,
And like a fiend she reared her head on high
O'er the fair child, and with fell face and grim
In hot blood wallowing tore him limb from limb;
Then turned she on the children all around
And slew them, till the smooth green's grassy ground
Was all one mass of steaming flesh and gore
And echoing to her loud remorseless roar!

Up from the sea-beach in that hour of fear
Old Erc returned, and drave his iron spear
Into the great bear's heart, and slew her. Then,
From the hills running, came the village men;
And Colp, the father of the first slain child,
In his blind ecstasy of vengeance wild
Fell upon gray-haired Erc and took his life:
Then Erc's strong grandson buried deep his knife
In Colp's brave heart: and then in parties two
The people ranged themselves, and slew and slew,
Strong knee to knee and bloody sword to sword;
And the deep vale the echoing terrors roared,
Till the great sun beyond the island hills
Cast his last beams upon the red blood rills,
And the pale moon arose,—when nought was seen
But death and ashes where blithe peace had been!—
What with the she-cub first should they have done?”—

“Slain it upon the strand!” cried every one!

Then on the babe the warrior looked again,
And sternly said, “Thus let this child be slain,
That we may scape unsuffering from the sting
And gall of the black woe that she shall bring!”

As when, mid Allen's bogs, some sunny day
The wild geese with their offspring are at play,
And as they gambol by the lakelet's edge
The hunter's arrow shears the rustling sedge
And splashes in the shallow marsh thereby;
At once the wild fowl raise their signal cry
Of danger, and loud cackling in their fear
Some hide in reeds, some seek the middle mere,—
So at the grisly warrior's words of doom
The aged dames 'gan rustling round the room;
Some fled the hall, some gathered round the child,
And shrieking clapped their hands with clamor wild.
Then up stood Feilimid, and strove to lull
The tumult; but his heart of pain was full,
And the grief-laden words stuck in his throat:
Then rose the king's voice like a clarion note,
Joyful and speaking gay words full of cheer:—

“O men!” he said, “what marvel do ye fear
In this small baby beautiful and bright?
As well feel terror at the morning's light
That comes as Nature sends it; at the sheen
Of springtide when the fields put on their green;
Or at the lovely leaves and golden flowers
That bloom at summer in bright Eman's bowers!
Be sure the fates no treachery intend,
Be sure the mighty Gods could never send
A thing on earth so beautiful as this
To make our sorrow and to mar our bliss.
Then let us rather thank the Glorious Ones
Who rule in heaven, and roll the stars and suns,
That they have thought us worthy here below
On our dull lives a treasure to bestow
Of beauty like this babe beyond all price:
Then, cease your fears and let my words suffice,
No harm shall come to Eman in her day,
For I will build a palace fair and gay,
Where she shall blossom like the fairest rose
That in the loveliest bower of Eman blows,
And in the tide of time in Eman's hall
Shall be my bride, the best-belov'd of all!”

Then rang the carven rafters to the shout
The revellers gave; and then the merry rout
Went on once more with tenfold joy and zest,
With minstrel's tale, and jovial song and jest,
Till morn's gay star rose o'er the golden sea,
And sent to slumber all that company.