| there I forgot |
| How the fetlocks drip blood in the battle, when the fallen on fallen lie rolled; |
| How the falconer
follows the falcon in the weeds of the heron’s plot, |
| And the name of the demon whose hammer made
Conchubar’s sword-blade of old. |
|
|
|
|
| And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot |
| That
the spear-shaft is made out of ashwood, the shield out of osier and hide; |
| How the hammers spring on
the anvil, on the spearhead’s burning spot; |
| How the slow, blue-eyed oxen of Finn low sadly at evening
tide. |
|
|
|
|
| But in dreams, mild man of the croziers, driving the dust with their throngs, |
| Moved round me, of
seamen or landsmen, all who are winter tales; |
| Came by me the kings of the Red Branch, with roaring
of laughter and songs, |
| Or moved as they moved once, love-making or piercing the tempest with sails. |
|
|
|
|
| Came
Blanid, Mac Nessa, tall Fergus who feastward of old time slunk, |
| Cook Barach, the traitor; and
warward, the spittle on his beard never dry, |
| Dark Balor, as old as a forest, car-borne, his mighty head
sunk |
| Helpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death-making eye. |
|
|
|
|
| And by me, in soft red raiment,
the Fenians moved in loud streams, |
| And Grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone. |
| So
lived I and lived not, so wrought I and wrought not, with creatures of dreams, |
| In a long iron sleep,
as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone. |
|
|
|
|
| At times our slumber was lightened. When the sun was
on silver or gold; |
| When brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dimness they love going by; |
| When
a glow-worm was green on a grass-leaf, lured from his lair in the mould; |
| Half wakening, we lifted our
eyelids, and gazed on the grass with a sigh. |
|
|
|
|
| So watched I when, man of the croziers, at the heel of a
century fell, |
| Weak, in the midst of the meadow, from his miles in the midst of the air, |
| A starling like them
that forgathered ’neath a moon waking white as a shell |
| When the Fenians made foray at morning with
Bran, Sceolan, Lomair. |
|
|
|
|
| I awoke: the strange horse without summons out of the distance ran, |
| Thrusting
his nose to my shoulder; he knew in his bosom deep |
| That once more moved in my bosom the ancient
sadness of man, |
| And that I would leave the Immortals, their dimness, their dews dropping sleep. |
|
|
|
|
| O,
had you seen beautiful Niamh grow white as the waters are white, |
| Lord of the croziers, you even had
lifted your hands and wept: |
| But, the bird in my fingers, I mounted, remembering alone that delight |
| Of
twilight and slumber were gone, and that hoofs impatiently stept. |
|
|
|
|
| I cried, ‘O Niamh! O white one! if only
a twelve-houred day, |
| I must gaze on the beard of Finn, and move where the old men and young |
| In the
Fenians’ dwellings of wattle lean on the chess-boards and play, |
| Ah, sweet to me now were even bald
Conan’s slanderous tongue! |
|
|
|
|
| ‘Like me were some galley forsaken far off in Meridian isle, |
| Remembering
its long-oared companions, sails turning to threadbare rags; |
| No more to crawl on the seas with long
oars mile after mile, |
| But to be amid shooting of flies and flowering of rushes and flags.’ |
|
|
|
|
| Their motionless
eyeballs of spirits grown mild with mysterious thought, |
| Watched her those seamless faces from the valley’s
glimmering girth; |
| As she murmured, ‘O wandering Oisin, the strength of the bell-branch is naught, |
| For
there moves alive in your fingers the fluttering sadness of earth. |
|
|
|
|
| ‘Then go through the lands in the saddle
and see what the mortals do, |
| And softly come to your Niamh over the tops of the tide; |
| But weep for
your Niamh, O Oisin, weep; for if only your shoe |
| Brush lightly as haymouse earth’s pebbles, you will
come no more to my side. |
|
|
|
|
| ‘O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?’ |
| I saw from a
distant saddle; from the earth she made her moan: |
| ‘I would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn,
for breast unto breast |
| We shall mingle no more, nor our gazes empty their sweetness lone |
|
|
|
|
| ‘In the isles
of the farthest seas where only the spirits come. |
| Were the winds less soft than the breath of a pigeon
who sleeps on her nest, |
| Nor lost in the star-fires and odours the sound of the sea’s vague drum? |
| O
flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?’ |
|
|
|
|
| The wailing grew distant; I rode by the woods
of the wrinkling bark, |
| Where ever is murmurous dropping, old silence and that one sound; |
| For no live
creatures live there, no weasels move in the dark; |
| In a reverie forgetful of all things, over the bubbling
ground. |
|
|
|
|
| And I rode by the plains of the sea’s edge, where all is barren and grey, |
| Grey sand on the green
of the grasses and over the dripping trees, |
| Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten
away, |
| Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas. |
|
|
|
|
| And the winds made the
sands on the sea’s edge turning and turning go, |
| As my mind made the names of the Fenians. Far from
the hazel and oak, |
| I rode away on the surges, where, high as the saddle-bow, |
| Fled foam underneath
me, and round me, a wandering and milky smoke. |
|
|
|
|
| Long fled the foam-flakes around me, the winds fled
out of the vast, |
| Snatching the bird in secret; nor knew I, embosomed apart, |
| When they froze the cloth
on my body like armour riveted fast, |
| For Remembrance, lifting her leanness, keened in the gates of my
heart. |
|
|
|
|
| Till, fattening the winds of the morning, an odour of new-mown hay |
| Came, and my forehead fell
low, and my tears like berries fell down; |
| Later a sound came, half lost in the sound of a shore far away, |
