merry breath,
    For joy is God and God is joy.’
    With one long glance for girl and boy
    And the pale blossom of the moon,
    He fell into a Druid swoon.
    And in a wild and sudden dance
    We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
    And swept out of the wattled hall
    And came to where the dewdrops fall
    Among the foamdrops of the sea,
    And there we hushed the revelry;
    And, gathering on our brows a frown,
    Bent all our swaying bodies down,
    And to the waves that glimmer by
    That sloping green De Danaan sod
    Sang, ‘God is joy and joy is God,
    And things that have grown sad are wicked,
    And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
    Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.’
    We danced to where in the winding thicket
    The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
    Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom,
    And bending over them softly said,
    Bending over them in the dance,
    With a swift and friendly glance
    From dewy eyes: ‘Upon the dead
    Fall the leaves of other roses,
    On the dead dim earth encloses:
    But never, never on our graves,
    Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
    Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
    For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
    And all listless hours fear us,
    And we fear no dawning morrow,
    Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.’
    The dance wound through the windless woods;
    The ever-summered solitudes;
    Until the tossing arms grew still
    Upon the woody central hill;
    And, gathered in a panting band,
    We flung on high each waving hand,
    And sang unto the starry broods.
    In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
    Of milky brightness to and fro
    As thus our song arose: ‘You stars,
    Across your wandering ruby cars
    Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God,
    He rules you with an iron rod,
    He holds you with an iron bond,
    Each one woven to the other,
    Each one woven to his brother
    Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
    But we in a lonely land abide
    Unchainable as the dim tide,
    With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
    And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
    Folded in love that fears no morrow,
    Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.’
    O Patrick! for a hundred years
    I chased upon that woody shore
    The deer, the badger, and the boar.
    O Patrick! for a hundred years
    At evening on the glimmering sands,
    Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
    These now outworn and withered hands
    Wrestled among the island bands.
    O Patrick! for a hundred years
    We went a-fishing in long boats
    With bending sterns and bending bows,
    And carven figures on their prows
    Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
    O Patrick! for a hundred years
    The gentle Niamh was my wife;
    But now two things devour my life;
    The things that most of all I hate:
    Fasting and prayers.
S. Patrick.                     Tell on.
Oisin.                         Yes, yes,
    For these were ancient Oisin’s fate
    Loosed long ago from Heaven’s gate,
    For his last days to lie in wait.
    When one day by the tide I stood,
    I found in that forgetfulness
    Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
    From some dead warrior’s broken lance:
    I turned it in my hands; the stains
    Of war were on it, and I wept,
    Remembering how the Fenians stept
    Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
    Equal to good or grievous chance:
    Thereon young Niamh softly came
    And caught my hands, but spake no word
    Save only many times my name,
    In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
    We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
    And found the horse and bridled him,
    For we knew well the old was over.
    I heard one say, ‘His eyes grow dim
    With all the ancient sorrow of men’;
    And wrapped in dreams rode out again
    With hoofs of the pale findrinny
    Over the glimmering purple sea.
    Under the golden evening light,
    The Immortals moved among the fountains
    By rivers and the woods’ old night;
    Some danced like shadows on the mountains,
    Some wandered ever hand in hand;
    Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
    Each forehead like an obscure star
    Bent down above each hookèd knee,
    And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
    Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
    Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
    And, as they sang, the painted birds
    Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
    Like drops of honey came their words,
    But fainter than a young lamb’s bleat.
    ‘An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
    In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
    He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
    Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
    He hears the storm in the chimney above,
    And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
    While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
    And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.
    ‘But we are apart in the grassy places,
    Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
    Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
    Or love’s first tenderness die in our gaze.
    The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
    And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
    Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
    She limps along in an aged whiteness;
    A storm of birds in the Asian trees
    Like tulips in the air a-winging,
    And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
    That raise their heads and wander singing,
    Must murmur at last, “Unjust, unjust”;
    And “My speed is a weariness,” falters the mouse,
    And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
    And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
    But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
    When God shall come from the sea with a sigh
    And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
    And the moon like a pale rose wither away.’
BOOK II
    Now, man of croziers, shadows called our names
    And then away, away, like whirling flames;
    And now

  By PanEris using Melati.

Previous page Back Home Email this Search Discuss Bookmark Next chapter/page
Copyright: All texts on Bibliomania are © Bibliomania.com Ltd, and may not be reproduced in any form without our written permission. See our FAQ for more details.