From the Land of Dreams :: :: University of Virginia Library

From the Land of Dreams

By John Todhunter. With an introduction by T. W. Rolleston

Todhunter, John (1839-1916)

UNDER THE WHITEBOY ACTS, 1800

THE SUNBURST

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xxiv

DEDICATION

I

For all my fellow-countrymen,
And women, East or West,
For every kindly Irish heart
Within an Irish breast;

II

All exiles for the Old Land who long,
And those whose destinies
Have held them in that Land of Dreams,
Knowing no other skies;

III

For all abroad, and all at home,
My songs to every wind
I breathe, in hope one song of mine
One Irish heart may find.

LYRICS AND BALLADS

AN INVOCATION

O Memory, Nurse of Dreams, out of the night
Steal to my hearth, and by the autumn fire
Crouch like a Fairy woman, and fan the turf,
Fan the sweet Irish sods until they glow!
Then lay thine ear close to thy sounding shell,
And listen, till within its winding caves
The words of mystery wake; and to my spirit,
Roaming the shadowy halls of lonely thought,
Where deep it dwells, lamped by a sibylline star,
Come visions of the never dying past.

A golden youth flames in thy hoary hair
And withered cheek, and all the world grows young
In the soft shining of thy dream-lit eyes.
Thou art the grave Recording Angel, calm
As a bright cloud of dawn, and in thy voice
The eternal deep that lies behind me calls
To the eternal deep that lies before.

DREAMS IN EXILE

I
LONGING

I

Oh! the sunshine of old Ireland when it lies
On her woods and on her waters,
And gleams through her soft skies
Tenderly as the lovelight in her daughters'
Faithful eyes!

II

Oh! the brown streams of old Ireland, how they leap
From her glens, and fill their hollows
With wild song, till charmed to sleep
By the murmuring bees in meadows where the swallows
Glance and sweep!

III

Oh! my home there in old Ireland, the old ways
We had when I knew only
The ways of one sweet place;
Ere, afar from all I loved, I wandered lonely
Many days.

IV

Oh! the springtime in old Ireland! O'er the sea
I can smell our hawthorn bushes,
And it all comes back to me—
The sweet air, the old place, the trees, the cows, the thrushes
Mad with glee.

V

I'm weary for old Ireland! Once again
To see her fields before me
In sunshine or in rain;
And the longing in my heart, as it comes o'er me,
Stings like pain.

II
SPRING

I

Oh! the flowers, the Irish flowers of my visionary home,
In the fields where I wandered, where I wandered as a boy!
In the meads where they were growing I could see the Shannon flowing,
And growing still I see them, and my heart grows young in joy,

In the sunny fields of memory ever in splendour blowing,
Where Time's grey wings no shadow cast, the young hours to annoy.

II

Oh! the primroses with faces that looked from lonely places
Wistfully on me, pearly with morning's early dew!
When I dreamed, as children dream, by that legendary stream
Where, agleam in shining mail, the slender dragonflies, I knew,
Served our freaksome Irish fairies for steeds, as through the reeds
They flitted on their blazoned wings, in mail of green and blue.

III

Oh! the cowslips in the grass, where the sunshine seemed to pass
Like Spring's young life through all things, in the golden afternoon!
Their scent, like Spring's first honey, made all the fields more sunny,
And fairy money was their gold, that left me poor too soon

Of my wealth gained in the meadows of the Spring, when I was king,
With a cowslip crown upon me in the golden afternoon.

IV

Oh! the daisies, when they came with their stars of silver flame,
The baby buds, in green with crimson caps, by fairies drest!
Their breath of childhood lingers in my heart, as on my fingers
Their smell when first I picked them in the pastures of the West;
And when memory moves my longing for flowers of childhood's hours,
The Spring comes rushing in my blood—they blossom in my breast.

III
SUMMER

I

Over the Wicklow hills the sun's vast blaze
Palpitates in the abyss of azure bright;
Dim through the splendour, in a pearly haze
The glowing woodlands loom. Slow sail the white
Swan-breasted argosies the ocean calm

Of the blue air, their shadows drowsily
Moving like dreams over the fields and flowers;
And every field is pasture for the bee,
Each flower a blithe voice in the fragrant psalm
Antheming earth's delight in summer hours.

II

Like spirits clothed in light they shine and sing,
In heaven's own loom woven are the robes they wear,
Angels on every wind grace to them bring,
And back to heaven their sweet oblations bear.
The basking thyme sheds balm about my feet;
The yellow iris o'er the marshy ground
Flames, where the river wanders through the dale;
The woodbine her grave incense breathes around;
Red poppies blaze among the sunburnt wheat,
And silver lamps gleam where the bindweeds trail.

III

But oh! the roses! Here hot afternoon
Sleeps with her winds in this lone woodland glade
Where shine the roses. Ah! fade not so soon,
Sweet flowers, each winsome as an Irish maid.

For when your last buds wane, and withered be
Your frail immaculate petals red and white,
This nook your delicate fragrance makes divine,
Will seem the temple of a lost delight;
Where, while ye breathe, to breathe is ecstasy,
Embalming your brief hours in memory's shrine.

IV

The sun's heart still throbs through the luminous haze,
I wander through the lost land of a dream;
Heaven stoops to embrace earth, as she stands at gaze,
Wondering at her own beauty in the stream.
Summer in triumph comes to celebrate
In magic robes her druid mysteries here;
I feel the drowsy glamour of her eyes—
Time swoons, earth dreams. What ancient gods appear?
What mystic rites? What Kings in solemn state?
What Bards, what Heroes from their gravemounds rise?

V

O Land of Dreams! O haunted Innisfail!
O Land enchanted for a thousand years!
O forlorn Land where sings no nightingale,
Counting thy woes on rosaries of tears!
Before me, cloudlike, sail wild visions by:
High tragedies of passionate love and hate:
Battles and festivals; heroic deeds,
Orgies of crime. Some unappeased fate
Hangs like dumb thunder in the brooding sky,
And phantom fears come stalking through the meads.

VI

I wake—how far away! How long ago
I roamed, that summer day, my spirit aflame
With youth, ambition, hope, the rapturous glow
Of courage born, when to my heart Love came,
Singing the song that makes this world of ours
Beautiful as a new-created star!
Yet still, though Time, the spectre with grey hair,
Bears me each day from youth's glad fields more far,
I hear that song Love sang among the flowers,
And pay no homage to the fiend Despair.

IV
AUTUMN

I

Now is the season of rewarded toil,
When sunburnt labourers reap to sow again,
And each lean handful cast into the soil
Waits its rich usury; where the loaded wain,
Heavy with harvest, lately left its track;
For Mother Earth smiles on each golden grain,
Pledge of man's trust in her who gives him back
An hundredfold for one spared from her spoil.

II

What do men reap now in our Land of Dreams?
What do they sow? Here, over stubbles, leas,
And hills, a sultry mist of sunshine seems
Deeply to brood, wakening old memories:
Sad, patient eyes, in faces pinched and pale,
Haunt me from days when Ireland's enemies,
Famine and fever, in the Golden Vale
Ravaged and slew, where Suir still flows and gleams.

III

Those days grow dim, and Ireland wakes at last
Out of her Great Enchantment, and her eyes
Turn from vain brooding o'er the bitter past,
While in her dauntless heart new hopes arise;

New songs, like streams outleaping from springs,
Fill her glad vales with music, as though her skies
With mellower music hearten him who sings;
The Nation's blood begins to flow more fast.

IV

Now is our seedtime, when the sering leaves
Whisper low dirges for the days gone by,
With their dead children, to each wind that heaves
The baring boughs. All things outworn must die,
Yet, dying, quicken, as their life they yield,
Earth and the air with a new potency;
And every seeds finds in the furrowed field,
Bare earth to-day, food for to-morrow's sheaves.

V
WINTER

I

Oh! those nights, those Winter nights
By the fire, when the sweet brown turf-sods glowed;
When the punch went round, and uncanny sights
I saw in the flickering shadows, while flowed
The talk when a neighbour or two dropped in;

Or maybe old Tom the Fiddler would come,
With: “God save all here!” and glad welcome win
To a seat by the hearth, in our farm at home.

II

“Tom the Rover,” “Tom of the Tongue,”
That could reel off stories, cap jest with jest,
Tom the crony of old and young,
Tom who could hold his own with the best.
Oh! the keene, or the lilt of the strings when he played,
When the girls came wheedling for “one more tune!”
But God help the fools of whom hares he made!
Try a fall with Tom, and he grassed you soon.

III

Oh! the stories I heard from him:
Tales of Kings in the days of old,
Merrows, changelings, and spectres grim,
Tales that made my young blood run cold,
Tales of humour, tales of romance,
Of faithful lovers at odds with fate,
Tales of the Irish Brigade in France,
Tales of the horrors of Ninety-eight.

IV

Strange were the sights old Tom had seen:
“The Headless Coach,” and the Leprechaun,
And the fairies' court, where he danced with their Queen,
When into her magic hill he'd gone.
And “beyant by the bridge,” one moonlit night,
There crouched the Banshee by the water side,
“With a freckled face, an' she all in white,
Thryin' over her keene for O'Neill that died.”

V

Oh! the rambles I had with him!
He taught me the ways of beasts and birds;
For he loved them all, fly, or walk, or swim,
Made me know the lives we but docket with words.
If Tom had his dreams he had eyes as well
For the world God fashions for man's high school,
The world that spins between heaven and hell,
And His scholar, Tom, was no book-learn'd fool.

VI

O Tom, 'twas yourself made me laugh and cry!
When our tunes come singing now in my ear,
The old days come back, and clear to my eye
The old place stands there, and the dead appear.

They welcome me home at the door. I grasp
My Father's hand, and his hearty voice
Breaks on my name; I feel the clasp
Of my Mother's arms by that door of joys!

VII

Ah! that door of joys! it opens for me
Only in dreams, and never more
Will open on earth, save when memory
Brings back the days I have lived before.
Ah! the life we lead here from day to day
Is but a struggle for life, it seems,
That finds us callow, that leaves us grey,
Our spirits dwell in the Land of Dreams.

VI
A FENIAN'S RETURN

(Inscribed to the Memory of John O'Leary)

I

From exile in a Land of the Stranger,
I come, as from long voyage, eagerly,
To her port with many a scar of many a billow,
A ship comes flying, singing o'er the sea;
Safe bearing in her weathered hull, storm-battered,
Her cargo of things rare,
As in my heart, their golden shrine, unshattered,
My shipwrecked hopes I bear.

II

And here I stand, a stranger, yet no stranger,
In Ireland, on the soil where first I knew,
In the vision and the glamour of life's morning,
The silent consecration of her dew;
The dreams that came, like angels, in her sunlight,
Ghosts in her twilight grey;
The mystery and sadness of her moonlight,
That was dearer than the day.

III

The sun fills heaven and earth with his last glory,
And, like phantoms, through the veil of golden mist,
Loom the Connemara mountains, huge and solemn,
Hewn out of heaven's aerial amethyst.
Plain and mountain dream, entranced in subtle splendour,
Bog and pasture still the same,
Gleam through miles of glowing light, and shadows tender
In the palpitating flame.

IV

And the sunset-wind comes wandering out of Dreamland,
That Dreamland where I wandered long ago,

With whispering in my ear and ghostly singing,
Druid words, and dirgelike music, sweet and low,
Comes from far away, where lilies white are sailing
On waters vast and cool,
Comes o'er cotton-grass and myrtle softly wailing,
And through rushes by the pool.

V

In the bog stand three lonely pine-trees,
Waifs of fortune, planted there by Fate's grim choice,
And the wind wails o'er the bog, and in their branches,
And thrills me with solitary voice;
Like the Spirit of an ancient Desolation
It comes wailing o'er the West,
And the burden of its ancient lamentation
Is echoed in my breast.

VI

The wind wails o'er the bog, and in the pine-trees,
With an Irish note of sorrow, soft and wild,
And old memories of dead days come with its wailing,
Till the heart in me is weeping like a child.
It wafts to me the smell of turf-sods burning

In some cabin far away,
And the homelike Irish odour sets me yearning
For a hearth—cold many a day.

VII

Oh! the story of my home, the dismal story,
The story of a thousand homes like mine:
The four walls in their grave-grass, cold the hearth stone,
Dead my kin, or driven like felons o'er the brine!
Raise the keene, O wind! for Ireland's ancient sorrow,
O'er the desolated West!
Raise the keene for our dead hopes of her tomorrow,
The pale treasures of my breast!

VIII

Yet, like sweet, remembered kisses of my Mother,
I feel each Irish sight, and scent, and sound;
Like her love I feel the tender Irish twilight
With gentle consolation clasp me round.
Oh! the magical, drear beauty of this lone land,
Oh! its welcome, sad and wild!
To the Mother's breast of Ireland, of my own land,
I come, weeping like a child!

VII
TIR-N'AN OG

TIR N'AN OG. The legend of Tir n'an Og, “The Land of the Young,” is the Irish version of the legend of the Island Atlantis. The Irish tradition is that there was once an Island in the Atlantic, sometimes visible from the West Coast of Ireland. It was inhabited by a race of happy magicians, beautiful and unscathed by evil, who never grew old. Sometimes their Island floated on the surface of the Atlantic, and sometimes it sank under the waters; but when the Sun of the Earth mingled his beams with those of his sunken brother, the Island rose and floated on the waves. And many who saw it went mad, and sailed in search of it; but were lost or shipwrecked. But some who saw the vision were content with that, and became Poets.

I

On a cliff in the West, the shy wild West,
The ecstatic, tender, desolate West,
Sits, in a nook where the sea-pink shakes to the surges
Thundering far down, a Boy.

II

Far before him,
Thronging the dusk-blue waste of waters,
Foam on their way, like untamed sea-horses,
Rearing, plunging, the giant waves.
Over the waves uncouthly careering
Loom in the gleaming amber sky
Grey clouds: in their smouldering fringes
Fiery embers of sunset, fading,
Turn ashen pale.

III

All alone sits the Boy, and gazes,
Dumb, with the wistful eyes of a peasant—
Sits, while the memoried blood of Kings,
Long lines of legendary Kings,
Whispers to his heart that listens
Wordless magic lore, as he gazes,
Dumbly dreaming.

IV

Far below him,
Landward, with heaving, gleaming shoulders,
Charge, with a thousand miles of onset,
In crested legions, the ocean-rovers,
The huge Atlantic waves.

V

Bellowing, foaming, the ocean-rovers,
The moon-adoring, fanatic waves,
Armed with the sea's eternal thunder,
Swoln with the sea's mad conqueror's lust,
Storm at the bastions of the land,
Ever shattered, advancing ever.

VI

Fresh blows the wind, the wind of the West,
The Irish wind! Like a lusty lover
He woos on the crags the tufted sea-pink,
With sea-salt kisses;
And high on the cliff's brow he overmasters
With fierce caresses the lissome cliff-grass,
That quivers and bends, as she vainly wrestles,
Faintly hissing.

VII

O wizard wind, alchemic wind,
Seed-bearing wind of change! O wind whose seeds are dreams!

O brine-soaked, soft, caressing wind!
The Boy too feels it over him swooping,
With downy wing-strokes and gentle buffets,
And moan in his ears, as of far sea-music,
A vast, invisible owl of the sea;
And his Irish blood exults in the wind,
And sings in his veins as the wind blows through him.
It comes, through sad farewells of day,
From the Land of the Sunken Sun,
Tir-n'an Og, fathoms down, whelmed by the insolent sea,
A thousand fathoms down.

VIII

But, when the Magian Sun, to walk the Western waters,
Dons his enchanter's robe, and pacing the cold waves,
From Ireland turns his face, Tir-n'an Og, fathoms down,
Feels his faint smile of dawn, and rises dim, and sits
A spectre on the waters—the Land no voyage makes,
The Land of Youth!

IX

The West-wind blows, blows
Over Ireland, The Land of Dreams,
Bearing dreams from the Land of Youth;
And the Boy sits there, and dreams
Till the spirit of youth within him
Goes forth on airy wings, a measureless way,
As he dreams—dreams.

X

Twilight comes, and the stars
Shyly peep through the purpling heavens
And the lone Evening Star,
Thridding the waning, withering clouds,
In gentle splendour, slowly,
Follows, dreaming, the steps of the Sun;
And she casts her silver spell
On the roaring waves, and their giant voices
Boom with a drowsier thunder.
Then, leaving the sea, the ghostly sea-gulls
Gleam, and fade, and suddenly vanish;
And high in air, unseen, the curlews
Pass with a desolate cry; and shyly
Sad-eyed seals, brown dogs of the ocean,
Sleek from the sea on the rocks come landing.

XI

And the Boy feels deep within him
Longings vague, like eerie harp-notes,
Wake at the curlew's whistle bleak,
And the soft bark of the seal; and with longing
Swells his heart, as he sits and gazes,
Alone with his dreams, and the murmuring sea,
And the beautiful, sad stars.

SONGS

MEETING

I

O come to me in the morning, white Swan of the thousand charms,
Or come to me in the passion of day, the rapture of noon,
Or come to me in the twilight hour, sweet Longing of my arms,
In the hush when day kisses night, our two hearts beating one tune!

II

Though Time on his owl-soft wings bring parting of our feet,
Oh! never my heart from yours will wander, come day, come night.
And never my lips forget your kiss that the world made sweet,
Or my heart the song of my love in that hour of its young delight!

PARTING

I

You come, and the little rhymes come singing in my heart,
And where you are their music wakes trembling in my breast;
When you go from me, O my sorrow! they spread their wings and depart,
Like birds from a lonely nest.

II

They fly to where you make summer, and leave me cold,
Their nest forsaking, they leave me cold and alone,
And my heart is a lonely sorrow, a sorrow not to be told,
Its music a weary moan!

A SONG OF THE RAIN

(A Girl stands at a window)

I

The rain, the rain, the rain upon the pane,
How it spirts and ceases,
As the spite of the gale increases,
Then pauses and dies again!

II

The rain-drops fallen out of the skies
Hang upon the pane,
Gather, and fall slowly, like tears from lovers' eyes
When they know their weeping is vain.

III

The rain, the rain, the rain from over the plain
Comes drenching, splashing
The pane, as the lightning flashing
Leaps out, and is gone again.

IV

The rain-drops pine for their home in the skies,
And vanish from the pane;
Yet still my tears are falling slow from these lonely eyes,
Though I know my weeping is vain.

VOICES

I

Oh! the voices of the wind, the soft sweet voices,
The melancholy voices of the wind,
Bear me gently to the peaks of ancient vision,
The lone and silent mountains of the mind;
And the spirit of old Ireland to my spirit
Speaks like solitude, and desolately fills
Their silence with the passion I inherit
From her valleys and her hills.

II

Pale Kings, and hoary Druids in procession
Pass me sighing, with old sorrow in their eyes;
While the wind, the passionate wind, with fitful wailing
In his airy tongue of mystery replies.
Grave Kings, and Bards, and Druids without number
Pass by me with the wind whereon they pass,
Sweeping o'er me like a terror felt in slumber,
As a windflaw sweeps the grass.

III

The Danann gods pass by, majestic phantoms,
Like shining clouds, bright children of the morn;
But the gods of gloom have dimmed their ancient splendour,
Where, like wizards, in their tombs they dwell forlorn;
Where their beauty they have hidden from derision,
Whence they wander, veiled in storm or twilight grey;
But their beauty still shines on the peaks of vision,
And shall never pass away.

IV

There the Daghda walks the wind, the great Mor Riga
Floats beside him to the hosting of their clan,
Angus Ōg is there, grey Lir, Bōv Derg, and Cleena,

VOICES.

The Danann gods and goddesses were the descendants of the Daghda (Father) and his wife Dana, The Mor Riga (great queen), who was the war goddess.

Angus Og, The Love-god, was the Irish Eros. Lir was a sea-god, like his son Manannan, and Cleena ruled over one of the three magic waves, which roared on the coast of Ireland when danger threatened.

Bov Derg was King of the Dananns.

Queen of the moaning wave, and Manannan;
Their voice is on the winds, their druid power
Enchants with youth and love the Land of Dreams,
Their beauty and their glamour are the dower
Of her mountains, vales and streams.

V

There is music on the winds and o'er the waters,
They are singing still, the wandering Swans of Lir,
Silver-pure the voice of love-inspired Fianola,
Through the long night of enchantment ringing clear;
Like the voice of Ireland's heart she makes the nightwind
Ache with wild hopes that in her breast are sore,
Till the red wind from the East, her spirit's blight wind,
Shall have power to blight to more.

VI

There are voices on the peaks of ancient vision,
They call the dreamers in the Land of Dreams;
The young men hear, and wake, and in the morning
Go singing through her vales and by her streams;
Making music that shall win the world hereafter,
Making songs that shall go ringing down the years
Of tears that weep within the house of laughter,
Of joys baptized in tears.

THE LIANAN SHEE

THE LIANAN SHEE. “The Lianan Shee” is an evil demon, half siren and half vampire, and is a type of jealousy in the poem that bears her name. She is said to have been originally a Nature Goddess.

(A Tragedy of Dreams)

I

She waits for me upon Death's gloomy shore,
Pale, in that pale and lonely grove where dwell
Those who have set for portress at Love's door
Jealousy, stern and unappeasable.

II

She sends me bitter and remorseful dreams,
That ice the wholesome rivers of my blood,
Crawling about my brain on their cold streams,
With endless memories in the sluggard flood.

III

I walk in dreams by a dark raging sea,
And she beside me with implacable face,
Dead, with wide lids where through gaze wistfully
The accusing eyes, and through my heart they gaze.

IV

I lie in dreams as in a living tomb,
And she, death-pale, her cheek with tears long marred,
Comes hovering like a vampire through the gloom,
Craving some comfort, but my heart is hard.

V

She hunts my soul in dreams; the hounds of thought
Chase me through dense thickets of tangling thorn,
The woods of old remorse—till I am caught,
And wake, still shuddering, in the ghastly morn.

THE NAMELESS ONES

I

Through the stately Mansions of Endeavour
Blow the winds, the sleepless winds of wild desire;

And the mansions in their fashion change for ever,
Replying to the sighing of the winds of wild desire.

II

All around the Mansions of Endeavour
Flow the waters, deep and strong, of wild desire;
And fair dreams out of their waves are born for ever,
The daughters of the waters, deep and strong, of wild desire.

III

Deep below the Mansions of Endeavour
Glow the flames, the passionate flames of wild desire;
And the building-stones, like opals, change for ever,
Their hues, while slow they fuse within the flames of wild desire.

IV

For the Nameless Ones come building and destroying,
In the winds, and rushing waters, and fierce flames of wild desire;
And their passion moulds that music, ever changing, never cloying,
Which is life in all the worlds, in man's heart a wild desire.

THE HOUR OF FATE

I

Things dead and things unborn are flying,
And thinly wail on the wind tonight,
Like hungry changelings I hear them crying
Round the Dark Moon's den in the wan starlight.

II

My Saint and Angel have hid their faces,
My dead sins daunt me with spells tonight,
And sins unborn tempt from unseen places,
Their glamour works in the wan starlight.

III

The past betrays me, the Future thralls me,
Fate's hour of power is my hour of blight;
My frail soul falters—the dread voice calls me,
The deed I hate I shall do tonight.

THE SUMMONS

O hosts without a name! O unappeasable powers!
O wandering forms of Love, and Beauty, and Heart's-ease!
Why is it ye disturb with dreams men's fading hours?
Why is it still the promise, never the gift, of peace?

Your music, your wild singing, came to me out of the air,
Alluring, promising, in one mysterious word
Of the great Voice that thrilled old Silence in her lair,
Ere the stars for their first flight their mighty wings had stirred:

One summons from that realm where things unuttered sleep
With the unawakened Beauty hidden from desire,
Challenging, maddening me, mocking all things that weep,
Till my spirit was a wild wind, my heart a wind-blown fire.

My heart was an eddying flame, my spirit a rushing wind,
Fierce joy, fierce pain, seized me in that mysterious word;
My heart consumed my life, my spirit left me lonely,
Following your sweet alluring song—left me behind,
Knowing not where I was, or went; believing only
The vision that I saw, the music that I heard.

The sunset's dying glow was paling in the sky,
And twilight, from the visionary land where silence dwells,
Stole o'er the gleaming fields, shedding tranquillity
Like dew, o'er bawn and pasture, o'er woods and ferny dells;
But lingering day's farewell grew sad with all farewells.

Following the sun's footsteps through the heavens, where yet no star
Heralded Night, that now with all her hosts drew nigh,
Only the Planet of Love shone in the delicate sky,
Only the Planet of Love looked sad from heaven on me;
While through the deepening gloam, over the hills afar,
Throbbed a faint orange flame. The ancient mystery
Of day's decline entranced the earth. Light's quivering wand
Drew from the fields of air their tenderest newborn hues,
And made the earth divine.

There in the hallowing gleam,
Beside her cottage door I saw my Mother stand,
At peace with age. Numb woe for all things I must lose,
Following the airy music, following the flying dream,
Troubled my heart. The cows trooped to the milking shed,
Lowing; the grave poplars, and the sallies by the stream,
Felt the sad spell of the sky; but I was as one dead,
And all familiar things I loved phantoms did seem.

The old place knew me no more—the solitary ghost
Haunting the fields awhile. A robin from a tree
Warbled his last sweet rapturous litany. The host
Of airy singers calling troubled not him, I knew;
But only me. And there, in the sweet twilight hour,
My Love was waiting me; whom those wild voices drew
Away from home and her! And now their magic power
Made me but as a billow when the moon compels;

My heart grew drowsy—closed, when closed each innocent flower,
My chilling heart shut close. They called—called through Love's hour—
They called, and I must follow, lured by their wildering spells;
And the farewell of day shone sad with all fare-wells.

THE QUEST

I

The thin rain is falling,
With a sigh the reeds quiver,
And the cow-herds are calling
Beyond the dark river.

II

There is gloom in the sky,
In my heart desolation,
As the cold mist creeps by
With a dumb lamentation.

III

Like a bird to her nest
I came, weary of roaming,
With a fear unconfest
I sped on through the gloaming.

IV

From the ends of the earth
Oh! the longing that drew me
To the place of my birth,
To the fields that once knew me;

V

To my home! the bare walls
Of my dream have bereft me,
The chill spectre appals
The lone days that are left me.

VI

There is gloom in my heart,
In my home desolation,
Like a ghost I depart
With a dumb lamentation.

FAIRY GOLD

(A ballad of Forty-eight)

I

Buttercups and daisies in the meadow,
And the children pick them as they pass,
Weaving in the sunshine and the shadow
Garlands for each little lad and lass;
Weave with dreams their buttercups and daisies
As the children did in days of old;
Will the dreams, like sunlight in their faces,
Wither with their flowers, like Fairy Gold?

II

Once, when lonely in life's crowded highway,
Came a maiden sweet, and took my hand,
Led me down Love's green delightful byeway,
Led me wondering back to Fairyland.
Ah! Death's envious eyes that light on lovers
Looked upon her, and her breast grew cold;
Now my heart's delight the green sod covers,
Vanished from my arms like Fairy Gold.

III

Then to Ireland, my long-striving nation,
That poor hope life left me still I gave,
With her dreams I dreamed, her desolation
Found me, called me, desolate by that grave.
Once again she raised her head, contending
For her children's birthright, as of old,
Once again the old fight had the old ending,
All her hopes and dreams were Fairy Gold.

IV

Now my work is done, and I am dying,
Lone, an exile on a foreign shore,
But in dreams roam with my Love that's lying,
Lonely in the Old Land I'll see no more.
Buttercups and daisies in her meadows
When I'm gone will bloom; new hopes for old
Comfort her with sunshine after shadows,
Fade no more away like Fairy Gold!

A MAY MADRIGAL

I

May comes clad in gleaming gold,
The world grows young that was so old,
All so sweet, all so fair,
Birds are singing everywhere;
Come away!
Come sing and answer them again,
Answer, boys and girls again,
And welcome in the May!

II

Mary guard the woods from teen,
Donning now their virgin green!
All be fair, all be sweet,
Where in the woodlands lovers meet!
All who love true
Come and charm the woods with song,
Glad voices charm the woods with song,
And welcome Love in too!

MAUREEN

I

Oh! you plant the pain in my heart with your wistful eyes
Girl of my choice, Maureen!
Will you drive me mad for the kisses your shy sweet mouth denies,
Maureen!

II

Like a walking ghost I am when I come to woo,
White Rose of the West, Maureen;
For it's pale you are, and the fear that's on you is over me too,
Maureen!

III

Sure it's one complaint that's on us asthore, this day,
Bride of my dreams, Maureen!
The smart of the bee that stung us its honey must cure they say,
Maureen!

IV

I'll coax the light to your eyes, and the rose to your face,
Mavourneen, my own Maureen,
When I feel the warmth of your breast, and your nest is my arms' embrace,
Maureen!

V

Oh! who was the King of the World that day only me,
My one true love, Maureen?
And you the Queen with me there, and your throne in my heart, machree,
Maureen!

A DAY OF THE DAYS

I

Faint red the rowan-berries in the glen begin to turn,
The wind is whispering to the woods the rune of their decay,
Those woods where once upon my lips I felt your kisses burn,
Where we met, and where we parted—it seems but yesterday.

II

Through all their breathing branches the spirits of the trees
Whispered of love that day; and we, breathing their passionate breath,
Trembled before the flaming veil that hid love's mysteries—
Where now, alone, I bow before the mystery of death.

III

Martyrs of Love and Hope we stood, and in each other's eyes
Read the sweet secret of our love; and that transfiguring day,
Which crowned my spirit with grace to bear the sorrow that makes wise,
From that spirit's Holy-places will never pass away.

ATHLONE

I

Och wirrasthrue for Ireland, and ten times wirrasthrue
For the gallant deeds, and the black disgrace of the tale I'm tellin' you!
'Twill kindle fire inside your heart, then freeze it to a stone,
To hear the truth of that bad day, and the way we lost Athlone.

II

O where was then bold Colonel Grace, and Sarsfield, where was he,
When Ginkel came from Ballymore with his big artillery?
'Twas fifty battering guns he brought, and mortars half a score,
And our half-dozen six-pounders there to meet him, and no more.

III

They took from us the English town, yet fighting, breast to breast,
We held the drawbridge, one to ten; for we were sorely prest.
But we cheered and charged, and they gave us ground, and when their Colonel fell
A good half furlong from the bridge we drove them back pell-mell.

IV

We held them till to the Irish town our rearguard could retreat
Across the bridge o'er Shannon's arm, shrunk by the Summer's heat.
The fuse we lit, then back we sprang; behind, the drawbridge rose,
And the two arches of the bridge blew up among our foes.

V

We laughed at Ginkel's shot and shell; for St. Ruth came up next day,
And it raised the cockles of our hearts to see his grand array;
But black the hour when Sarsfield chafed under his high command,
For, in his pride and jealousy, he left him no free hand.

VI

Small help we got from that French Chief, when there he just sat down
To guard the fords, and pitched his camp a mile outside the town.
Our guns dismounted, shot and shell thinned our undaunted ranks
And with our firelocks, four hard days, we kept the Shannon's banks.

VII

We made a breastwork on the bridge; but they burnt it on us soon
With their damned grenades. It blazed like thatch in the hot sun of June—
And beams they laid from arch to arch, nailed planks on every beam.
They thought to rush our last defence, and cross the Shannon stream.

VIII

But one we had, thank God!—a bold Dragoon, Custume by name,
Sergeant in Maxwell's troop; and now to that hectorin' Scot he came;
“Give me ten more to go with me, and by my soul,” says he,
“We'll try the job, and, live or die, we'll spoil their carpentry!”

IX

“Hoots!” Maxwell sneers, “wha volunteers?” Out stepped some two score men.
“Fall in then, boys, reserves an' all!” says Custume an' picked his ten.
They gave their souls to God, each man his breastplate buckled on,
In the hope he'd maybe keep his life till a plank or two was gone.

X

I'll see till death, as I see him now, Custume, as brave and cool,
He schemed for every man his place; for 'twas he was no French fool.
Then on the bridge before our eyes a glorious deed was wrought,
In vain with our best blood that day Athlone was dearly bought.

XI

Five plankers ripped the planks away, a sawyer at each beam;
We heard the steady teeth at work, saw axe and crowbar gleam;
But from the startled English lines arose a sudden yell,
From flank to flank the muskets flashed, and sent their hail of hell.

XII

We answered with our small-arms; but 'twas little we could do,
Minute by minute on the bridge they dropped by one and two;
But as each man fell a man as good ran out to take his place,
And the work went on—my God! 'twas hard they strove to win that race!

XIII

At last the planks were gone, one beam was loosened in its bed;
But man by man fell round it in that murtherin' rain of lead.
Custume came there, blood on his face, a crowbar in his hand—
O blessed Saints, keep the life in him to launch it from our land!

XIV

The heel gives—God be praised, it's down! We saw him stagger then:
“Work hearty, Boys, an' we'll keep Athlone!” he shouted to his men.
But his heart blood gushed with those brave words. The Shannon's waters bright
Were his last bed, and in their arms they took him from our sight.

XV

They worked the lustier for that shout, and the beams fell one by one,
But the place was just one slaughter-yard before the last was gone.
They shot the wounded where they crawled, to leave their comrades room,
Or struggling in the water grasped at the flaggers full in bloom.

XVI

Each man was killed twice over, and of two and twenty men
But two poor boys, as pale as ghosts came back to us again.
We scarce could rise a cheer for them; for 'twas like an awful dream;
But the last scantling, with our dead, went down the Shannon stream.

XVII

But what's the use of dauntless men, to make a gallant stand,
When all they've won is thrown away by fools in high command?
My curse be on St. Ruth, cold friend in our last extremity:
“'Tis hanging I'd deserve,” he bragged, “if they took the town on me.”

XVIII

But they crossed the Shannon's dwindled stream, that left us in their power,
And the town we held for ten long days, was lost in one slack half-hour,
St. Ruth died well on Aughrim field; but ten deaths could ne'er atone
For the shame and the blame of that bad day, and the way he lost Athlone.

THE FACE OF DREAMS

I

Where may I hide my loneliness and sorrow?
Where sings the bird that sang upon the tree,
When you and I were young, and feared no bleak to-morrow,
And trusted Love to lead us through the years that were to be?

II

The days, the years went by, the days we lived and loved,
When you and I were young, and sat beside the river,
Glad as all happy things that round us lived and moved,
And he heard the blackbird sing, saw the whispering aspens quiver.

III

The days, the years go by, like eddies in a stream,
That seem the same, yet glide from change to change for ever;
I feel them pass and change, and still I dream and dream
Of one sweet face, that save in dreams comes to me never.

A MOMENT

I

“Was that the wind?” she said,
And turned her head
To where, on a green bank, the primrose flowers
Seemed with new beauty suddenly endowed,
As though they gazed out of their mortal cloud
On things unseen, communing with strange powers.

II

Then upon that green place
Fell a new grace,
As when a sun-gleam visits drops of dew,
And every drop shines like a mystic gem,
Set in the front of morning's diadem,
With hues more tender than e'er diamond knew.

III

And something seemed to pass—
As through the grass
The presence of the gentlest wind will go—
Delicately through her bosom and her hair,
Till, with delight, she found herself more fair,
And her heart sang, unutterably low.

THE CHILDREN'S WARD

'Tis the Good Shepherd's fold, his holy ground:
With genial face, between a smile and tear,
Old Father Christmas, bustling on his round,
With presents for the children has been here.

The Children's Ward: there, in her little cot,
Her wasted face wise with long suffering,
A little patient girl, a hectic spot
Branding each cheek, her soul upon the wing.

Poor tiny child! A grave motherly light
Veils now her glittering eyes. In mother's pride
Clasped to her bosom, lovingly and tight,
With one thin arm, her doll sleeps at her side.

All sickness now, all pain, all weariness
Are lost in love. The dumb thing at her breast
Comforts her hungry heart: in that caress
Her suffering finds relief, her longing, rest.

MEMORIES

I

Whence, at what summons, what faint-whispered sigh
From life's fall'n leaves, what vanished voice's tone,
Come ye, the gentle train of Memory,

In that sweet hour when thought dreams on her throne?
Ye twilight elves who people solitude,
And are the undying children of dead hours,
My phanton self dwells with your glimmering host,
Charmed from night's envious brood;
Ye crown my days with amaranthine flowers,
And I live on, in ghostly lands a ghost.

II

I pass into the fairyland of dream,
As one might pass into the world we see
Deep in lone woodland pool or quiet stream,
With tenderer skies and mellower greenery.
I tread the mossy silence of dim ways
Where sunshine, through the leaves of long ago,
Haunts the still glades, and holds in solemn trance
Long aisles where bygone days
Whisper their tales, and memory's afterglow
Clothes my grey past in splendour of romance.

III

Ah! do ye live in me, or I in you,
Memories, that bring me in your phantom hands
A sound, a sense, an odour, or a hue;

As though the past, eternal in the sands
Fallen from Time's glass, and even as they fell,
Caught by Death's angel in his hallowing urn,
Were garnered there without decay or stain?
The day wherein we dwell,
Fled with life's pageant, never to return,
Is it a dream that may be dreamed again?

IV

The sweet remembered fragrance of a rose,
Long withered, in a garden ruined long,
Breathes round me—lo! the cloudy gates unclose!
I am there again, and hear the blackbird's song
In life's glad morn: a crushed geranium-leaf
Sheds balm, and through the old house that stands no more
I move, with beating heart, from room to room;
And where the eyes of grief
Looked in Death's eyes, meet those I loved of yore,
Truants from time and change, as from the tomb.

V

The self within us burns, a lonely star,
And knows not its own form, sees not its light,
Save mirrored in the shapes passing afar
From birth to death o'er the abyss of night,

Finding itself in that reflected beam
Which kindles in the House of Memory
Her pale phosphoric flame. And round that flame,
Moths in her lantern's gleam,
Appear the ghostly train of things that die,
Yet piteously awhile evade Death's claim.

VI

As feathers shaken from the wings of Time
Seem the pale memories whereby we live;
Lingering awhile, then melting like the rime.
The self we know as frail and fugitive.
But in God's House weaves Mother Memory
After Death's feet the web of life anew,
Creation's dream lives in her arras bright;
Where her swift shuttles fly
God shines eternal in each drop of dew,
All moments live immortal in His sight.

VERSES FOR MUSIC

WAITING

I

Lone is my waiting here under the tree,
Under our tree of the woods, where I wait and wait;
Why loiter those white little feet that would bring you to me,
Where are the warm sweet arms that are leaving me desolate,
Oona, asthore mochree?

II

Oona, the woods are sighing—they sigh and say:
The wind of summer will pass like a lover's sigh,
And love's glad hour as lightly passes away;
Come to me then, ere my longing hope of despair shall die,
Oona, asthore mochree!

A SONG OF THE SPRING

I

The leaves are springing,
The woodlands ringing
With birds' love-words in Love's golden tongue;

The blue air winging,
Glad larks are singing,
For Spring is come, and my heart is young.

II

Oh! the mirth
Of the Spring's new birth,
The joy that never was told or sung,
As round the girth
Of the wakening earth
She flies, and laughing makes all things young!

A COMPLAINT

I

Like a stone on my heart grief's come to lie,
Sadly as phantoms my days go by,
Though shines the sun at our cottage door.
He gilds the corn with the year's first gold,
While through my veins the sick blood creeps cold:
My Heart's Beloved comes never more!

II

Grief my handmaid, I sit and spin,
With grief my comrade go out and in,
I lay the table, I sweep the floor;
But all I do is a senseless dream,
And here a stranger myself I seem;
For my Heart's Beloved comes never more!

III

Grief lies awake in my bed with me,
Like dim corpse-candles the stars I see,
When the moon shines in, as she did before;
O mother, mother! her face I dread,
'Tis like the face on my own death-bed,
Since my Heart's Beloved comes never more.

THE SALLY-TREE

I

There's a sally standing by the river,
Ah Mary! why is it standing there?
To make a garland for my hair,
For my lover is gone from me for ever;
And that's why it stands there!

II

There's a thrush that sits on that sally-tree,
Ah Mary! why is he sitting there?
He sings the song of my lonely care
For the lover that cares no more for me;
And that's why he sits there!

III

The wind comes keening in that sally-tree,
Ah Mary! why is it keening there?
It keenes the keene of my heart's despair,
For the lover that's gone, that's gone from me;
And that's why it's keening there!

DREAMS

How oft in this mad world we lose our way,
Dazed by the glamour of Love's romantic moon,
Or young Ambition's meteors, fading soon,
In the fierce light of disenchanting day!
And yet by dreams we live, our house of clay

Haunted by dead men's dreams. Dreamers have hewn
Columns for Wisdom's temple, where each June
Brings dewy flowers to crown her seers grown grey.
The gods reveal themselves in dreams. In dreams
We feel the unseen Spirit whose power impels
The labouring earth. To dream is still to hope,
Hope leads our upward feet. Our dreams are spells
To wake the god within. Dreaming we grope
After the splendour that before us gleams.

BARDIC TALES

THE WAVES' LEGEND ON THE STRAND OF BALA

I

The sea moans on the strand,
Moans over shingle and shell;
O moaning sea! what sorrowful story
Do thy wild waves tell?

II

Ever they moan on the strand,
And my ear, like a sounding shell,
Chants to me the sorrowful story
The moaning billows tell:

III

For Bala the Sweet-Voiced moan!
Here on the lonely strand
Fell Bala, Prince of the Race of Rury,
Slain by no foeman's hand.

IV

Sweet was your tongue, O Bala,
To win men's love; your voice
Made sigh for you the maids of Eman;
But nobler was your choice.

V

She gave for your heart her heart,
Warm in her swan-white breast,
Aillin of Laigen, Lugah's daughter,
The fairest bird of his nest.

VI

Their pledge was here by the shore
To meet, come joy or pain;
And swift in his war-car Bala from Eman
Sped o'er the sundering plain.

VII

He found her not by the shore,
Gloom was o'er sea and sky,
And a man of the Shee with dreadful face
On a blast from the south rushed by.

VIII

Said Bala: “Stay that man!
Ask him what word he brings?”
“A woe on the Dun of Lugah! A woe
On Eman of the Kings!

IX

“Wail for Aillin the Fair!
Wail for him her feet
Were swift to seek on the lonely strand
Where they shall never meet!

X

“Swift were her feet on the way,
Till me she meet on her track,
A hound of swiftness, a shape of fear,
A tiding to turn her back.

XI

“Swift are the lover's feet,
But swifter our malice flies!
I told her: Bala is dead; and dead
In her sunny house she lies.”

XII

He scowled on Bala and rose
A wrath of the mist, and fled
Like a wind-rent cloud; and suddenly Bala,
With a great cry, fell dead.

XIII

So moans the sea on the strand,
Moans over shingle and shell.
O moaning sea, of many a sorrow
These wild waves tell!

THE DEATH OF CONLAOCH

THE DEATH OF CONLAOCH.

This Tale belongs to the last cycle of Bardic Tales, the Ultonian Cycle of the Red-Branch, The Men of Ulster, whose King was Conchobar, “Hound of Help.” Con, or Cu, means a hound, and the great Irish wolfhound was regarded as the noblest of animals, and therefore the word forms a part of the names of many of the Red-Branch Champions. Cuchullain means Hound of Culan, the great smith, who forged armour and chariots for the Ulstermen. Cuchullain when a boy was named Setanta, and once, roving with his hurl and ball, he came to the workshop of Culan, where he was attacked by a fierce dog, who guarded the door. This dog he killed with his hurl; but on hearing the lamentation of Culan over his faithful guard, he promised to take the dog's place and defend the door. Hence his Champion's name.

The Champion's vow, laid upon Conlaoch by his mother, is an instance of the strange vows laid upon the Champions when their training in all manly exercises and feats of war was finished, and they “took their spears” from their teachers, or from the King's hand. These vows often produced fatal consequences, as they took precedence of all other obligations. The vow of Fergus, never to refuse a feast, led to the death of the sons of Usna, whom he had promised to accompany to Conchobar's court, and protect them there.

THE BARD'S PRELUDE

I

O Strand of the sorrowful waves! O Strand of Bala! Once more
The wind-swept grass of your dunes is my whispering bed, and I hear
The songs your sorrowful waves moan always along the shore,
The old stories your winds through the grass come whispering in my ear.

II

They whisper, and all the coast is a druid mist in my eyes,
And my heart is a glory of flame, like a dewdrop's heart, when the sun
Kindles its heavenly colours; and round me clear visions rise,
As the eye within me opens, and my Path of the Seers is won.

THE SON OF AIFÉ

Among the pines of Alba was the birth
Of Conlaoch; when the salt, sad winds of the sea,
On a wild night of storm, o'er Scatha's dun
Moaned in the branches; and around the house
The gulls and curlews cried, ere his first wail
Was answered by the bleak roar of the surf.

There, by her daughter's couch, with murmured spells
To stay his coming till the lucky hour
Of birth should look on Aifé and her babe,
Sat red-maned Scatha; while, without a groan,
The mother lay, hating her child unborn.
With loathing and contemptuous bitterness
She smelt the balmy fume of magic herbs
Cast by the old sorceress on the glowing turf,
And heard the birth-rune wrathfully; and thus
Storm on the sea, storm in his mother's heart,
He passed the gates of birth.

But magic herbs
And chanted spells are weak to stay the loom
Of those grey weavers, in whose gleaming web
Dark powers with fateful dyes the threads imbue;
And his good hour looked on the boy too late.

That Scatha knew; yet cried: “A child is born,

Beautiful in his form, and in his heart
The seed of valour. Conlaoch be his name—
A Hound of War!”

So Conlaoch came, the flower
Of a noble tree; for when in Scatha's School
Cuchullain learnt the mystery of arms:
The seven feats of dexterity and strength,
The nine great feats of valour, of all there
He had the mastery, save of one alone,
Aifé, and her he strove with day by day,
A year's four seasons, and vanquished her at last;
For love had tamed her fierceness, and her proud heart
Turned to her conqueror. Short was the delight
She had with him. Soon the untarrying morn
She hid from in her lover's arms, yet knew
With every pulse's beat stole ever nearer,
A sorrow on the track of her glad hours
Not to be stayed, came swooping from the East
On silent wings. It chilled her bodeful heart,
And passing looked on her with its bleak eyes,
And left joy slain. Cuchullain must go forth
To take his champion's arms from Conchobar.

Sad was their parting; and there upon the strand
Cuchullain took from Aifé's hand a spear

Armed with an eastern dragon's venemous teeth
By Bolg, the Son of Buan. “Take it,” she said.
“I give thee here no spindle of a girl,
Wherewith she spins man's comfort in soft wool.
Round the red Queen of Carnage, when she weaves
The web of death, and spears, her shuttles, fly,
No spear so deadly sings above the slain.”

The ghastliest love-gift ever woman gave
She gave him then. Five were the battle-horns,
Stronger than steel and sharp in point and blade,
Arming its head, and in its raging breast
Lurked the slain dragon's malice.

With wistful eyes
She looked upon him, saying, “Remember me
By this, my gift—my last gift; for I know
That, parting now, we part for evermore.
No more may thou and I in happy days
Meet in these woods, or walk on this white strand.
Farewell! That spear will be thy last defence,
And keep thy life in many a dreadful hour.”

Cuchullain lightly wielded it, and smiled,
“The voice of all the rivers of my veins
Sings in my heart for this great gift my thanks!
A warrior's life, my love, is not his own;
But count me fooled by some forgetful spell,
Or some rash vow, if I come back no more;

Since here I hold death to my enemies
Life to myself.”

To her he gave a ring,
Saying: “Out of the mingling of our blood
A proud hope, Aifé, smiles upon us now,
A child of joy, in whom our love shall flower
In such a flame of valour as never yet
Shone where keen blades reap the red sheaves of war.
Thou hast taught me how to woo thee as men woo
Strong warrior queens; teach him all sleights of arms
We used against each other, when we played
The glorious game of war, the battle-glee
In our fierce hearts. And when the boy is grown,
If I live still, send him to me, this ring
Upon his hand, that we may meet in joy.”
“That will I do,” she said, “though false or true
His father prove himself.” She took the ring
And fiercely clasped her lover, with a kiss
That might have kindled love in a dead heart.

So parted they, and Aifé from the shore
Waved her sad last farewell, while the swift bark
Fled like a gull, vanishing o'er the sea.

THE SENDING OF CONLAOCH.

Before her child was born, from o'er the sea,
In a bad hour, this news to Aifé came:
“Cuchullain weds with Emer.” In her ear,
And in her jealous heart, that message dwelt,
Poisoning the sweet springs of her motherhood
While the child grew. Love battling with dark hate
Strove in the storms of her breast; yet the boy grew,
No blemish on him, beautiful and strong,
The child of love, not hate; blithe as a fawn,
And fearless as a hound of noble race;
Yet gently he endured his mother's moods,
And when she raged would coax her from her spleen
With some bright roguish answer, deftly shot
Athwart her bitter humour, like a ray
Of sunshine through the lowering of a storm.

As an oak sapling planted by a stream
He grew and throve under his mother's eyes—
Sad eyes too proud for tears; now soft awhile,
Surprised by love; now cold and fierce again,
Sternly she trained him in all games of war,
Till in the School of Scatha every feat
His father did no worse did he, the down
Of manhood on his face.

But when his thumb
Could hold his father's ring, grimly she set
That ring upon his hand, and laid upon him
Three champion's vows; the first: “Ne'er to go back
Before a living man, but sooner die”;
The second: “Never to avoid the proof
Of battle, though the champion of the world
Frowned in his face; but sooner die”; the third:
“For any man's fair word, or threat of death,
Never to tell his name.”

Bitter that day
Was Aifé's heart, where, through long waiting years,
While never back to her arms over the sea
Cuchullain came, the black witch jealousy
Sat like a carrion bird, with gloomy spell
Blighting the flowers of love, chanting for ever
In hoarse monotonous voice one baleful word,
“Revenge!” Now, as the mother kissed her son,
And sent him forth saying: “This ring will find
Thy father,” in her heart she heard that song;
And, even when on his hand she kissed the ring,
Her eyes hot with the memory of old tears,

Out of the dreary cave of her sick brain,
Where Love lay on his bier, crept a dark thought,
Whispering: “Now let the father slay the son,
The son his father, my false lover's wrong
Shall be avenged at last, and I can die.”

So did they part, and Aifé from the strand
Watched Conlaoch's bark over the heaving waves
Flee like a gull, and vanish in the sea.

CONLAOCH'S CHALLENGE

Over the Strand of Bala and the sea
A morning of great sunshine filled the sky,
Making the fathomless deep of tender air
One azure flame, and with soft inward light
Flooding the bosom of each sailing cloud
That slowly on its way voyaged serene,
High o'er the Strand of Bala and the sea.

On the broad Strand of Bala white-capt waves,
Tripping their ancient measure, up the shore
Danced gleefully, and paused, and turning drew
The lazy pebbles down with murmurous noise.
Green leagues of heaving billows, far away
Gleamed in the sunlight, darkened in the gloom
Where fell the shadow of a passing cloud.

The peace of morn reigned in the sunny sky,
Reigned o'er the Strand of Bala and the sea.

There on the lonely strand a Warrior Youth
Came, landing through the surf: the battle-dress
Upon him like the ransom of a King,
For splendour; like the glory of the looms
In a Queen's house the mantle that he wore.
The cathbarr on his head blazed like a star;
The beauty of his hair, flame of his youth,
Gleamed on his broad shoulders. Firmly he stood
On his well-planted feet as a tall pine
That grips with its tough root the wind-swept crag;
Or moved with springing step like the red buck
Who rules the mountain-glens, and keeps his realm
Against all foes. Valour and strength and grace
He wore upon him, as the rowan-tree,
Royal by ancient birthright, in the woods
Wears with blithe dignity her coral crown,
And knows not her own beauty. So that day
Came Conlaoch to the strand.

There by the ship
He left his crew, and, striding from the shore
Shone like a Danann god high on the ridge
Of sun-kist sand-hills, terrible as Lugh,
When in his eye kindles the battle-glee;
Beautiful as young Angus, when he stands
Upon on eastern hill, and wakes the day

With the far-sounding music of his harp.

O Spear of Lugh! for what strange combat now
Yearns the relentless fury of thy blade?
O sweet-voiced birds of Angus, bringing dreams,
What dream fires the Boy's heart, as on his arm
He lifts his death-defying shield, and waves
His spears aloft, and far before him sends
The joy of his voice in that clear challenging shout?

Beyond the sandy ridges by the Strand
Of Bala, in the lowlands where the cows
O'er the green meadows, by the wandering stream
Of gently-flowing Fane, pastured in peace,
The young men kept the ford for Conchobar;
Who, far from ruined Eman, burnt in wrath
By Fergus, for the death of Usna's Sons,
Reigned sadly in Dundalgan by the sea.

Clear to the young men's booth rang that stern shout,
And three came forth to meet upon the dunes
Young Conlaoch where he stood. Greeting him there,
They said: “O Warrior Youth, come you to us
This day in peace or war, out of the sea?
From what strange land fare you, on what strange quest,
Shining in arms against us, and your voice

Vexing the air with such a battle-cry?
If it be death you seek, these plains can yield
Stones for your cairn; if not, you have come astray,
Perchance to light on danger.”

Cheerily
Sounded the northern music of his voice
In his bold answer: “Flower of the valorous host
Of Conchobar, from no chance-driven ship,
Ill-steered, or wandering from her course, I come
From oversea, to find my feet astray
In your long-famous Land. No fear of death
Dismays my heart; for here I come to seek
The proof of battle, and one to put me down;
And slain will I before him fall, or take
His glory from him in fair fight this day.”
Smiling in scorn they said: “Grandly must sound
Your name upon the tongues of men, fair youth,
If you can match the least whose shield adorns
Our House of Arms. But shame of ignorance
Reddens our cheeks, asking your name and kin.
What champion comes over the sea to tame
The pride of Connall Cearnach, or mayhap
Win glory from the Hound of Uladh now?”

And Conlaoch gravely answered: “Vows are on me

Never to tell my name, save to the man
Who conquers me. Set me before your best,
And I will strive with him until I take
My death from him, or he defeat from me.”

Wondering they heard, and said: “O stranger youth,
Great seems your folly, greater still your pride;
But welcome be the man whose courage soars
A hawkflight over both!”

They left the shore,
And to the booths beside the ford they came;
There gave him food, and water from the well;
For mead he would not drink. They staked the field
And built of sods cut from the sunny plain
The judge's throne; then bade him name his hour
And take his rest awhile. So passed the time
In courteous talk between them in the shade.

THE FIRST BATTLE BY THE FORD

The judge was set, the summoning trumpet blew,
And Conlaoch took his place. Then from the booth
Came Connall Cearnach armed into the field.

There courteously they met, and Connall said:
“Fair Youth, refuse not now to tell your name
To me—to Connall Cearnach.” Brightly shone
Young Conlaoch's eyes, hearing that name. He bent
His head in reverence ere he answered him;
“Great is your grace in meeting one unknown,
O Warrior King, whose fame lives on the tongue
Of mightiest bards; and for that grace my heart
Sings a proud song of thanks. But save to him
Who conquers me, I may not tell my name.
That is my vow.” “O Youth,” Connall replied,
“Your valiant words promise as noble deeds.”

Again the trumpet blew; and then was fought
Between the two a battle that gave joy
To every eye beholding. The swift spears
Flew like trained falcons from their hands; and fast
They raced like hounds over the field of arms;
Now here, now there, parrying with watchful shields,
Leaping aside, or catching in their flight
The darts of death, to hurl them hissing back.
Yet such fine craft they used in their defence
That neither took a wound.

They breathed awhile
And Connall cried, laughing: “This is the game

Of boys in Scatha's House, and better none
Could play with me than you, O nameless Youth!
But now our eager swords, hungry for work,
Begin to bite their scabbards. Let us prove
Their valour and their guile in combat now!”

They drew their swords, and closed upon the green
With feint and thrust, meeting with blade or shield
Many a fierce onset, many a deadly blow;
Until young Conlaoch, baffling with bold sleight
A thrust of Connall's closed, and lifting him
In his tough arms, flung him upon the ground,
Stunned by his fall.

Then from the Ulstermen
A cry of anger and amazement rose;
And Connall as he lay groaned with dull voice:
“Youth you have put such shame on me this day
As never man before. I am grown old.
My happy star pales like a sunset-cloud,
And victory flies to perch on younger crests.
Slay me then! Death is better than grey years
Among the old men, whose names die on the tongue
Of palsied age!”

But Conlaoch by his side
Knelt ruthfully, murmuring: “As soon would I

Slay thee as slay my father! Grudge me not
My first great hour, or deem thy honour dimmed
By one unlucky chance; thou, whose proud name
Shines glorious in the everlasting morn
Wherein great deeds live in undying song.
Where is the man who never felt the spite
Of Fortune's treachery? Who dare talk of shame
When on a noble head her malice falls?”

So Conlaoch strove to comfort him; and he
Smiled a sad smile: “Mock me not with vain words;
Better the dreams of youth,” he said, “than all
Grey memories of brave deeds! I am grown old,
My fame lies mouldering like an autumn leaf
In winter's fogs. The old fade with their fame.
Enjoy thy youth!”

Sadly the young men came
And bore him thence in silence to his booth.

THE SECOND BATTLE BY THE FORD

Meanwhile a message to the King was brought
By a fleet runner, with the bitter news
Of Connall's fall; and ere the day was old
Two chariots from Dundalgan to the ford
Came racing, swifter than two flames of war.

Far off they saw them blaze like angry stars,
As the wind-outspeeding stallions rushed like fire
Over the plain, and far behind the wheels
Long dust-clouds rose like smoke. In one the King
Rode with the Archdruid Cathvah, and in one
Cuchullain, driven by Laeg, stood like an oak,
Grasping his battle spears.

Conchobar now,
Throned on the seat of judgment, set by him
Grey Cathvah, venerable in magic robes.
There Conlaoch, lightly sinking on his knee,
Made his obeisance, and from the grave King
Great was the praise he heard, with flushing cheeks
And youthful joy of triumph in his heart;
But boldly still refused his name.

Once more
The trumpet blew. Cuchullain from the booth
Come shining to the field, and courteously
Greeted the Boy: “O Youth, in feats of war
Thou hast shamed us all this day! Tell me thy name,
And no dishonour on that name can fall.
I am Cuchullain.” Conlaoch answered him:
“O Champion of the World, better my death
From such a hand than breaking of my vow!

That were my black dishonour.” Cuchullain sighed:
“That face is like the face of one I knew—
Where did I see that face?” A cloud of gloom
Fell on him, as he muttered to himself:
“Dark is my mind, blind is my groping brain!”
Then looked once more on Conlaoch, and sadly said:
“Come! Wilt thou prove on me thy valour now?”

Fast flew their spears. The champion carelessly
Played with him as a master, testing him;
Conlaoch with careful heed of his defence
Watching his play, made answer with a sleight
Fine as his own; and soon Cuchullain saw
One worthy of his arms was in the field,
And shouted praise. And now, like two red stags
Unmatched before, they bounded o'er the grass
Fighting for mastery; till the sunny sky
Was overcast, and growling from the hills
The thunder swooped, as there furiously still
They fought, and in Cuchullain's breast the rage
Of battle flamed, and dreadful grew his face;
Then to the Boy, with wrathful shout, he cried:
“Tell me thy name, or die!” From some deep voice

In Conlaoch's heart came the revealing word:
“This is thy father!” “Know me then by this!”
He shouted back. A spear flew from his hand
Full at his father's head; but by his art
Swerved from its mark, and lightly grazed his brow,
And singing past him quivered in the earth.

Then on Cuchullain madness fell. The lust
Of slaughter darkly blazed in his fierce eyes,
And, grasping in his rage his ghastly spear,
Armed with the dragon's teeth, he cried again:
“Thy hour is come—take from my hand thy death!”
And rashly, in fatal madness, from his hand
He launched the grisliest horror of the world.

Sudden and grim the end its baleful teeth
Made of that noble game, superb in skill
Beyond all combats fought on Irish grass.

Not to be balked or stayed, inevitable,
The demon thing flew screaming o'er the plain,
Through shield and warcoat rending its fierce way,
And Conlaoch fell, pierced by five deadly wounds.

Fast following it Cuchullain cried to him:
“Tell me thy name!” He lifted his weak hand,
And showed the ring, read in the setting sun
That gleamed through clouds parted above the plain,

As o'er the sea the thunder died away.

Cuchullain saw, and knew it. His crime revealed
With a swift pang stabbed his remorseful heart.
In sudden vision rose the Alban shore,
And Aifé waving o'er the sundering sea
Her last farewell. Then with a bitter cry:
“My son! my son!” he knelt beside his boy,
And kissed his blanching lips, and his great voice
Tender with tears, and broken with wild sobs,
Groaned out: “Oh! why this horror? Why the guilt
Of thy dear blood—my own—upon this hand?
Did she—? Black fall my curse upon her head,
Aifé, thy mother, if she planned this guile!”

And Conlaoch, pale with agony, panted slow:
“Curse not my mother—though she laid on me
The vow that slays me! Curse this worm of pain
Your blind desire of victory loosed on me—
Base weapon for a champion! Curse the false heart
That held my father's eyes from knowing me!
Wonder is in my mind you knew me not,
When my spear turned from you. Not mine the shame

This day, falling before you, magic arms
Against me. Never had you put me down
Without this plague whose fangs burn in me now.”

His tortured eyes looked in his father's face,
And saw such love and anguish of remorse,
It touched his heart. Faintly he smiled, and said:
“The pity and the sorrow of the world
Wail in my breast for you, seeing your grief.
Take my forgiveness, father—and give me now
The mercy of your sword!”

Cuchullain groaned
And pierced his heart with ruthful steel. The light
Fled from his eyes, as his young life gushed forth,
Following the blade withdrawn. From his marred flesh
His father drew the spear, and shuddering
Flung it away; then crouched upon the ground,
Pale as the dead, and weak with wild remorse,
Moaned o'er his murdered son: “Ochone for thee,
Son of my youth! Madness was in my brain,
Base wrath in my heart, slaying thee! In thy fall
I am fallen below the beasts; the championship
Flies these red hands of shame! Curst be the spear

That slew thee! Curst am I who gave thee death,
And knew not him I slew! I am grown grey
In aging grief! An outcast o'er the earth
Now must I wander, black upon my brow,
Where honour shone, the brand of infamy!”

Meanwhile the men who stood by Conchobar,
Watching the end in horror and strange fear,
Had heard that anguished cry: “My son! my son!”
But Conchobar to Cathvah whispered low:
“Let us be gone—leave him to mourn his boy
While sorrow tames his heart and makes his limbs
Weaker than rushes bent before the blast.
But when the hour of tears goes by, his grief
Eased, as he chants with music of sad words
Keening above the dead, madness may fall
Again upon him; the raging of his mind
Urge him to turn his fury on ourselves,
And many deaths may hap, ere he be slain
By us or his own sword. Lay thou a spell
Upon him. Let him quench his agony
Fighting the woundless waves on Bala's Strand.”

They left him there with his dead son alone,
And sought the booths; while he with many a moan
Closed the dim eyes, straightened the cramp-wrung limbs;
And from afar they heard him raise the keene.

CUCHULLAIN'S LAMENTATION

I

Ochone, bad are the days
Without my son, without my son!
Ochone for the days before me,
And the love slain in my heart!

II

My curse on thy Mother, my curse
I lay, because in her fury
The Kings of my race she slew
When she drank the blood of thy body.

III

My lap sad rest for the head,
My arms round the body's beauty,
My hands red with the blood
Of him I slew in my madness!

IV

The father that slew his son,
I lay my curse on that father,
May every spear from his hand
Come back, my torture and wounding!

V

In a bad field I planted
This valiant slip of my body,
In a bitter field it was nourished,
To bring this curse upon me!

VI

A man's wrath is a flame
That burns and is quenched in sorrow;
But like venom never cured
Is the jealousy of a woman!

VII

If thou and I, O my son,
Were playing war-feats together
O Conlaoch, boy of my heart,
We would ride on the waves of battle!

VIII

But now death-pale are thy cheeks,
Death-cold is thy fair white body,
And the agony of my love
Devours my heart like death!

IX

My grief will go from me never
Till my bones in the cairn shall crumble;
It feeds upon my heartstrings
Like fire in the hoar hill-grasses!

X

Ochone, bad are my days
Without my son, without my son!
Ochone for the days before me
And the love slain in my heart!

He rose, and his red eyes were shot with blood,
Ghastly his working face; and dreadful thoughts
Raged in his brain. And now he might have turned
His sword against himself; save that he found
The fatal spear clotted with Conlaoch's gore,
And fury seized him. But Cathvah's druid spells
Against him sent a cloud of magic smoke,
And rushing o'er the sandhills to the Strand
Of Bala, there he fought against the waves
All the night long, till far into the sea
He cast the baleful spear, and the sane mind
Came to him once more. Then slow, back o'er the hills
He paced in the cool dawn.

Three days they kept
Young Conlaoch's funeral feast, and where he fell
They raised his cairn. Not long Cuchullain lived;
But on Murthemny heath, wanting that spear,
With spear and sword was basely slain, unarmed,
By Lugaid's hand; and Aifé died avenged.

THE CURSE OF THE BARD

Princess Enna:
Truth is not in thee, Brian the Bard,
Thy tongue is bitter, thy heart is hard!
Because my Father will not strip off
From his breast the brooch of sovereignty,
Wilt thou dare to curse, wilt thou dare to scoff
At the golden gifts he has proffered thee?

Brian:
Let him keep the pledge that he made to me!

Enna:
No pledge he has given thee, thou Tongue of Blight!
Hence with thy Pot of Avarice—hence!
Begone from his threshold; for at his door,
Brian the Bard, thou shalt crouch no more,
Starving for pride, and cursing for spite.
Thy pride and thy wrongs are a vain pretence,
Thy curses fall on thy head this night,
If now thou drink not, for love of me,
The Peace of the Bards, and the end of hate,
In this cup of mead I bear to thee,
Brian the Bard, is my word too late?

Brian:
I drink derision for love of thee!
King's Daughter, for thee I have borne the spite,
While in my heart is a quenchless flame,
As here I starve on ye day and night.
I crave not gifts, I crave not gold,
I crave not the brooch of sovereignty.
I crave that here I may die consoled,
When here I lie dying for love of thee.

Enna:
Brian the Bard, thy pride is great!

Brian:
Kiss then the cup in thy white hand,
And kiss my lips ere it be too late,
And rove with me, as I rove the land,
And I'll pledge in that cup an end of hate.

Enna:
Brian the Bard, thou art mad with pride!
Shall I, a King's Daughter, fly with thee?
Shall I wander the world by a greybeard's side?
A shameful thing thou hast asked of me!

Brian:
I tear this beard from off my chin,
Fling this patched cloak from off my back;

And if thy love I may not win
Laugh in my face, and bid me pack!
Not Brian the Bard in sooth am I,
But Brian, the King of Munster's son,
And as thine own is my dignity.
As children our fathers pledged our hands,
And now thy father his pledge would break,
Would kindle strife between friendly lands;
But here I lie starving for thy sake,
And here I starve till thy heart be won!

Enna:
A starveling at my father's door
Might move my pity, not win my heart;
But never a royal suitor before
Played with such cunning a madman's part.
If thou canst play the prince as well,
Thou might'st scape laughter—I cannot tell.
Stand up, and look me in the face!
In sooth thou seemest in woeful case.

Brian:
In woeful case for love of thee,
And the curse of our fathers' enmity.
I dreamed of thee in my father's land;
Yet what form was on thee I could not tell,
What heart, what mind might in thee dwell,
What fate for me was in that white hand.

But, now I have seen thee, well I know
The Beauty of the World thou art!
I have come through foes for the love of thee,
I would pass through fire to win thy heart,
Rose of the World, wilt thou come with me?

Enna:
A hostage wouldst thou have me be?

Brian:
No hostage; but my chosen bride!
And if thou wilt not come with me,
Here as a hostage will I bide,
Whatever my fate I will bide with thee.
Take me then to thy father's hall,
And let me stand before his face,
Whether he free me or hold me in thrall,
Whether he slay me or grant me grace:
Or kiss the cup in thy white hand,
Let me kiss thy lips ere it be too late,
And pledge we now an end of hate!
Choose now, I bow to thy heart's decree.

Enna:
Brian the Bold, I will go with thee!

NINETY-EIGHT

Written 1898

I

A hundred years are gone
Since Ninety-eight.
What has our Nation done
Since Ninety-eight?
Shines brighter now the sun?
What progress, small or great?
What victories have we won
Since Ninety-eight?

II

Nine hundred years, upon
The waters, desolate,
Wept Lir's enchanted Swan,
Driven by the Witch's hate.
Like that enchanted Swan
Driven by the Witch's hate
Has Ireland drifted on,
Tossed by the storms of fate.

III

Now brighter shines her sun,
Her day of sorrow past,
Her long enchantment done,
She spreads her wings at last.

100

UNDER THE WHITEBOY ACTS, 1800

An Old Rector's Story

Ay, I was once a soldier, as you've heard,
A cornet in the Irish Yeomanry.
To say what that meant fifty years ago
Would seem, thank God! to young fellows like you,
Like telling tales about some foreign land
In the dark ages. Yes, my memory
Has its black chamber, where, whene'er I look,
There flicker out, shining with ghastly fire,
Some ugly pictures painted on the wall—
Bad sights!

Now here's a sample: I was once
Riding at night along a country road,
Patrolling with my troop—one August night.
The moon was full, and surely bright and fair
As when she rose on Eden's innocence
The night before the Fall. What brought us there,
Out of our beds? Well, in the peasants' phrase,
“The Boys was out.” The Whiteboy scare, in fact,
Was in full cry, and Ireland in the grip,
Under the Whiteboy Acts, of martial law:
Nothing new, mind; the district was proclaimed,

101

And we patrolled it, to repress the crime
Of being out of doors between the hours
Of sunset and sunrise.

Well, there I sat,
Loose in my saddle, in a kind of dream,
Thinking, I fancy, of the County Ball,
A pretty face—I was a youngster then—
Had made for me a chapter of romance,
To be re-read by that romantic moon.
Oh! but 'twas wonderful, that moonlight, mixed
With woodbine scents, and gusts of meadowsweet.
An Irish boy's first love, a cornet's pride
In his new soldiership and uniform!
Why, 'twas sheer ecstasy—I feel it still,
As I remember how, athwart my mood,
The martial noise of our accoutrements,
Clanking and jingling to the chargers' tramp,
Chimed in a sort of music.

The road turned,
And a stream crossed it. On the further side
There was a man, a scared look in his face,
White in that great moonlight. And there he stood,
And never ran—the creature never ran,
But quavered out some question: 'tis my guess
He said: “Is that the sogers?” Then I saw,
Like a bad dream, the captain of our troop,

102

(Whom I'll here name “Lord Blank”) ride at him straight,
And cut him down. You, maybe, never saw
A man cut down? Nor I, till that bad hour.
Well, 'twas an ugly sight—a brutal sight.
The strangest thing was that the man seemed dazed,
Made no attempt to run, or dodge the sword,
Shrank rather from the wind of the horse, I thought,
His hands held out in a groping sort of way;
But never raised, I saw, to guard his head,
Till the blow sent him reeling, with a shriek:
“O Lord have mercy!” Then he plunged, face down,
Clutching and wallowing in a pool of blood.
He spoke no more—just moaned. 'Twas horrible,
And all the more for something half grotesque;
You'd never think a man's last agony
Could look so like a joker's antics, played
To raise a laugh. Yet no one laughed, I think.
We had pushed across the stream. I saw them lift
His head, with long grey hair dabbled with blood.
The sword had caught him under the right ear,
And through the gash his poor, scared, struggling heart

103

Simply pumped out his life. 'Twas over soon.
They laid him down, stone dead, with staring eyes;
And then I saw it all—the man was blind.
Then someone said: “Lord save us! Sure it's Tom—
It's ould blind Tom, the fiddler! Sure enough,
He lives just here in the boreen beyant.”
Another said: “He's due to play to-day
In Ballintogher Fair. He must ha' thought
'Twas mornin', an' come here to clane himself,
Here in the sthrame. Poor Tom! 'Twas just your luck,
Misfort'nate craythur that ye always wor!
Well, you'll chune up no more; God rest your sowl!”
We found his stick, indeed, beside the stream.
Then we rode on and left him lying there
Upon a grassy tussock by the road.
An ugly business that. I never knew
How My Lord felt about that sad mistake:
Such things will happen under martial law,
And ill-judged deeds, done through excess of zeal,
The King's Commission covers in such times.
We heard no more of it. But all that night
I felt myself next door to a murderer,
And rode with a sick chill about my heart.

104

No more pride in my uniform; No more
Delight under that ghastly, glaring moon
That showed me Tom's dead face.

Perhaps you'll think
This made me sick of soldiering? Well, not quite.
The young mistrust their instinct, sir, when first
Thrust forth new fledged into the great rough world.
I was shocked, surely; but was half ashamed
To be so shocked.

Then I saw other things
My conscience quite convinced me went beyond
The necessary horrors of this life. For me I felt
From that time forth the uniform I wore
Smother my soul in shame. I changed it soon
For this poor cassock, which, though not so smart,
I find more comfortable every way.

113

THE SUNBURST

I

Through the midnight of despair I heard one making moan
For her dead, her victors fallen to gain all battles but her own;
I heard the voice of Ireland, wailing for her dead
With wailing unavailing, and sighing as she said:
“In vain in many a battle have my heroes fought and bled,
Like water, in vain slaughter, my sons' best blood been shed;
For my house is desolate, discrowned my head!

II

In vain my daughters bear their babes, babes with the mournful eyes
Of children without father, soothed by strange lullabies,
Rocked in their lonely cradles by mothers crooning low,

114

And weeping o'er their sleeping sad songs of long ago;
Whose eyes, when they remember, as the wailing nightwinds blow,
Their Nation's desolation in their singing overflow
With the overflowing of an ancient woe.”

III

O Mother, mournful Mother, turn from wailing for thy dead,
Grey Sibyl, yet unvanquished, lift up thy dauntless head!
O Swan among the nations, enchanted long, so long
That the story of thy glory is a half-forgotten song,
Lift thine eyes, and bless the living, thy sons who round thee throng,
In the hour of their power they shall right thine ancient wrong;
For their love is deathless, and their faith is strong.

IV

Thy leaf of many sorrows, wet with thy tears for dew,
Emblem of thy long patience, thy champions brave and true,

115

Knights of the threefold Heart of Green, like saints the Cross, have worn
Through their nation's tribulation, through infamy and scorn,
We'll blazon with the Sunburst, star of thy destined morn,
On our azure's ancient blazure in royal banners borne,
To lead for ever the World's Hope Forlorn.

University of Virginia Library

DEDICATION

I

II

III

LYRICS AND BALLADS

AN INVOCATION

DREAMS IN EXILE

I LONGING

I

II

III

IV

V

II SPRING

I

II

III

IV

III SUMMER

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

IV AUTUMN

I

II

III

IV

V WINTER

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VI A FENIAN'S RETURN

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

SONGS

MEETING

I

II

PARTING

I

II

A SONG OF THE RAIN

(A Girl stands at a window)

I

II

III

IV

VOICES

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

THE LIANAN SHEE THE LIANAN SHEE. “The Lianan Shee” is an evil demon, half siren and half vampire, and is a type of jealousy in the poem that bears her name. She is said to have been originally a Nature Goddess.

I
LONGING

II
SPRING

III
SUMMER

IV
AUTUMN

V
WINTER

VI
A FENIAN'S RETURN

THE LIANAN SHEE

THE LIANAN SHEE. “The Lianan Shee” is an evil demon, half siren and half vampire, and is a type of jealousy in the poem that bears her name. She is said to have been originally a Nature Goddess.