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Title: Deirdre wed and other poems

Author: Herbert Trench

Release date: March 4, 2025 [eBook #75529]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Methuen & Co, 1901

Credits: Richard Tonsing, Tim Lindell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEIRDRE WED AND OTHER POEMS ***

Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

DEIRDRE WED

AND OTHER POEMS

WILT THOU ADVENTURE ON THE GULFS OF MORNING?

COME, THEN, AND SUFFER THESE

SELF-MUTTERING CITIES THAT HAVE LOST HORIZONS

TO SINK BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS AND THE TREES.

DEIRDRE WED

AND OTHER POEMS

BY

HERBERT TRENCH

METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET, STRAND

LONDON

1901

Copyrighted in the United States of America

CONTENTS

D   EIRDRE WED—

PAGE

1. The Chanters

3

2. Fintan

5

3. Cir

16

4. Urmael

31

5. Fintan

53

Ode on a Silver Birch

59

A Charge

64

Song for the Funeral of a Boy

66

Come, let us make love deathless

69

Claviers at Night

70

The Man Digging

75

Schiehallion

76

The Shell

78

The Rock of Cloud

79

She comes not when Noon is on the roses

85

The Night

86

Maurya’s Song

88

Tired with the day’s monotony

90

You were stay’d in heart on heaven

91

The Bloom

92

In the Roman Amphitheatre, Verona

94

A Winter Song

95

The Nutter

97

Shakespeare

101

Notes

104

DEIRDRE WED

I

THE CHANTERS

I

I stood on the Hill of Time when the sun was fled

And my vision sought where to rest, till it knew the plains

Of my country, the Night’s harp, and the moonless bed

Of rivers and bristling forests and sea-board chains.

II

And from many a chanter’s mound—none is nameless there—

Could I hear, amid rumour eternal, the voice ascend:

With the bones of man endureth his floating hair

And the song of his spirit on earth is slow to end.

III

Speak to me, speak to me, Fintan, dark in the south,

From the west Urmael, and Cir, lying under the pole,

Some chant that ye made, who never spake mouth to mouth,

But over the ridge of ages from soul to soul.

IV

And a strain came out of Dun Tulcha, the yews’ shores,

From Fintan, the elder than yews, the too old for tears,

“Let us tell him of Deirdre wed, that his heart’s doors

Resound, as when kings arrive, with the trees of spears.”

II

VOICE OF FINTAN out of the First Century,

O Sightless and rare-singing brotherhood!

It was the night of marriage. Word had sped,

Tokens gone out to every rath and ring

And every pasture on the woody knolls

Green about Eman, of the slaughter blithe

Of sheep and boar, of badger and of stag,

Reddening the ways up to the kingly house—

Of sheep and goats and of the stintless food

That should be poured out to his beggary

By Connachar, that all time should remember

The night he wed the girl from the elf-mound.

Yonside of Assaroe the swineherd found her

Bred in a peaty hillock of the west

By some old crone. Though tribeless she and wild—

Barefoot, and in the red wool chasing cattle—

Connachar saw and took, biding his time,

And let queens give her skill the winter long

In webs and brews and dyes and broideries

Up to this night of marriage.

Fabulous,

O friends, and dark, and mighty, was his house,

The beam-work in its dome of forest trunks—

They that had been the chantries of the dawn

To blacken songless through a thousand years:—

But never since they sway’d buds in the glens

Or spun the silken-floating violet gleam

Had those spars groan’d above so fierce a breath

Rich with the vapour of the boar. For now

Hundreds with ruddy-glistening faces ran

Jostling round the nine shadows of the blaze

And spread with skins the lengthy beds of men

And soused warm spice of herbs in ale. Here—thither—

Was rousing of age-slumber’d horns, arranging

Smooth banks throughout the house, strawing of rushes,

And cauldrons humm’d before the empty throne

Set high in the shadow of the wall, and bubbled

Inaudible, impatient for the king.

But while outside the black roof on the mount

Outwafted was the gold divinity

On swooning wings, the Lake of Pearls far down

Curdled beneath the unseen seed of rain.

Ramparts run there that misty prisoners

Bore once in bags of slime up from the lake

For barriers of the house they most abhorr’d.

And on the hill-side, where that rampart old

Dips lowest to the lakeward, Deirdre stood,

Hearing from distant ridges the faint bleat

Of lambs perturb the dusk—bleats shivering out

Like wool from thorns—there the young Deirdre stood,

Even she whose climbing beauty pales the world,

Looking far off on hills whence she was come.

Mountains that lift the holiness of Fire!

Fortitudes, ye that take the brunt of fate!

Send her across the bog a little cloud

Full of the ancient savours, full of peace,

And for its drops she will hold up her heart,

O ye that stand in heaven, far removed!

She ask’d aloud, Wherefore were greens so bare

That but an hour ago shook with the thud

Of racers and of hurlers? Was it late?

The wrinkled nurse replied, Had the child eyes?

Back from a hosting and a desperate prey

For corn and mares and rustless brass and beeves

Naois, with the rest of Usnach’s sons,

Had come. She had seen him weary go but now

Heavily up the steep through the king’s hedge.

Now on the hill-top while the woman spoke

So chanced it. Hanging on the young man’s lips

The hosts sway’d round him, and above the press

Connachar, glittering all in torques of gold

And writhen armlets, listen’d from the mound

Of judgment, by the doom-oak at his door.

His beak’d helm took the sunset, but he held

His flint-red eyes in shadow and averse.

And when before him, dark as a young pine,

Unmoved the son of Usnach had told all;

How half his folk had perish’d in the task

By plague or battle, and how poor a spoil

Was driven home, the king cried, Paragon!

We must go griddle cakes in honey for him,

Bring lavers of pale gold to wash off blood

So precious to us; since for many moons

This champion had forsworn the face of softness

And stretch’d his hungers to the sleety rock,

Call in the smile of women to unlatch

From his grim ribs the iron:—Faugh! Away!

Let Usnach’s sons take out again that night

Their broken clans, their piteous cattle thence;

Defeated men should see his gates no more.

The son of Usnach turn’d and went. He ran

Down hill and to the loch to wash his wounds

Chanting—his dark curls waver’d in the wind—

Chanting he strode, tossing a brace of spears,

Lest we should think him humbled. Half-way down

The shapes of women loiter’d in the dusk

And one held backward out her arms to take

The latchets of a cloak. But as Naois

Pass’d by them, closely as is heard a sigh—

His vehement flood of soul fierce for the mere—

Glancing not right nor left, O then I saw

The foot of Deirdre stricken motionless—

I saw the stiff cloak many-colour’d sink

Slow to the grass, wrinkling its blazon’d skins

Behind her.

Gloom suck’d in the banqueters;

And from the warmth of drinking at his feast

Connachar sent forth to the women’s house;

And heralds bade bring also the gray seer

Cathva, though Cathva had not will’d to come.

But hardly had those erranders gone out

When rose the door-hide: the gray seer came in

Noiseless. He was of fog the night hath spun,

Earth in his hair and on his meagre cheek,

Consumed and shaking, ragged as seaweed,

And to the throne he cried: “Why hast thou called

Me to carousal? Is this bed my work?

Nay—too great clearness underneath the thunder

Shew’d insupportably the things to be.

Too long have I, with glamours, drops and runes,

Shook round her cabin low my skirts of storm

To shield thee from that devastating face.

My fault is only that I slew her not.

Know! it was I that, seeing those cradled limbs

Bright with disaster for the realm and thee,

Flung her away among sea-warding mountains.

But Muilréa to Ben Gorm said: What is this?

What glee is this disturbs our desolation?

I hear another than the wild duck sheering

Sidelong the wind. Tall as a rush is she,

Sweet as the glitter of the netted lakes!

And Ben Gorm answer’d: We are sick alone:

Let us distil the heavens into a child:

Yea, let our bones appear, the black goat starve

Upon our heads, yet shall this wafted seed

Superabound with ripeness we forego.

Dark space shall come to heart—silver of mists—

And thou, blue depth of gorges! Connachar,

I heard the plotters, but I let her live.”

And the king ask’d: “Hath any seen her there?”

And Cathva answer’d, “Till thy servant found her

She knew not that men were.” Then Connachar

Commanded yet again: “Bring us in Deirdre.”

Straightway a woman like the claw of birds,

Decrepit, bright of eye, and innocent,

Stood up beyond the fire. Her fingers play’d—

Play’d with a red stone at her breast. He ask’d

“Who gave thee, hag, the jewel of thy bosom?”

Now every drinker from the darkest stalls

Perceived the brooch was Deirdre’s, and a gift

To her from Connachar. Aghast, the woman

Fumbled at her sere breast, and wept and said:

“It was a gift to me, O Connachar,

This night.” And he, consummate lord of fear,

Our never-counsell’d lord, the Forest-odour’d,

That kept about his heart a zone of chill,

Smiled, though within the gateway of his fort

A surmise crept, as ’neath a load of rushes

Creeps in the stabber. “Fix the pin, Levarcham,

For she that loses such a brooch will grieve.

Why comes not Deirdre?” “Sir, she is not yet

Duly array’d, and so is loth to come.”

O, then, believe me, all the floor was hush,

But a mad discordancy like fifes, drums, brasses,—

Bondmen of old wars on the winds released—

Shook every beam and pillar of the house;

And the king said—“Thou hear’st out of the marsh

Scream of my stallions mounting on the gale?”

And she said “Yea.” “Thou knowest round these walls

How many chariots now are tilted up?”

And she said “Yea.” “Then, woman, bring with haste

Deirdre, thy charge, into this presence now

Or limb from limb upon the pleasant grass

Those wheels shall parcel thee at dawn.” And she

Lifted her hands and closed her eyes and sang,

“She will come back, but I, I shall not bring her!

O rainbow breathed into the dreadful pine,

Why art thou gone from me? Dearer to me

Than the sobbing of the cuckoo to the shore

Why art thou gone from me?” She bow’d and wept.

And Connachar came from the throne, and grasping

As if he felt no heat, the cauldron’s brims

Lean’d through its steams, watching the nurse and said,

“Will these afflicting tears bring Deirdre in?”

But she look’d up and said: “How shall I bring her?

Look now outside thy door, O Connachar!

The black oak with the vision-dripping boughs

Whose foot is in thy fathers’ blood of pride

Stagger’d as I came up in the night-blast.

In vain it stretches angers to the sky:

It cannot keep the white moon from escape

To sail the tempest; nor, O king, canst thou!”

The cheek of him that listen’d grew thrice-pale

And his thick nostrils swell’d, his half-shut eyes

Fang’d sheen, and slow dilated; stubbornly

He clutch’d to steady his convulsive frame

The sea-full cauldron; quick, with efforts vast,

Upheaved and swung and pillar’d it on high—

And hoarsely bade “Take torches.” Every man

Kindled in silence at the hearth divine.

Then Connachar pour’d out upon the blaze

The flood within the vat. The roofs were fill’d

With darkness foul, with hissings and with smoke....

III

VOICE OF CIR out of a Century more remote, but unknown,

As a horseman breaks on a sea-gulf enwomb’d in the amber woods

Where tide is at ebb, and out on the airy brim

Glass’d upon cloud and azure stand multitudes

Of the flame-white people of gulls—to the sky-line dim

All breast to the sun,—and his hoofs expand the desolate strait

Into fevers of snows and ocean-wandering cries:

Even so, chanters divine, in some woman’s fate

At coming of him to be loved do her dreams arise.

And Deirdre the exquisite virgin pale as the coat of swans

Took the flame of love in her heart at the time of dew

And clad her in ragged wool from a coffer of bronze

And walked in the chill of night, for her soul was new.

“Why thick with the berries of sweetness, ye barren thorns of the spring?

I could drink up this tempest cold as a burning wine.

Why laugh, my grief, for art thou not bride of a king,

And the drinkers drink to a couch array’d to be thine?”

Where the wounded toss without sleep in the warrior’s hive of stones—

The house Bron Bhearg—she laid her cheek to the wall

And bless’d them by stealth, with no pang at the sound of groans

Having that in her rich heart which could heal them all.

To the fortress-gate on the steep that looketh toward Creeve Roe

She fled, and spied not a sling-cast off the flare

Of a torch, and the skull fixed over the gate. And lo,

To the right hand watchmen paced by the water there.

And the shag-hair’d guard, with a mock, laid spears in their passage house

Athwart, for who was this phantom over the grass

Like a filcher of food? And Deirdre uncover’d her brows

And cried: “I am Deirdre!” And sullen they gave her the pass.

And towards Creeve Roe the dip of the cuckoo’s vale was dark

To blindness. She pluck’d her steps on that miry road

Through copses alive with storm, till at length a spark

Shew’d the forge where the smith on the heroes’ way abode.

Now Culann the smith was wise; and leaping her spirit stirr’d

With the soft roar of his hide-wing’d fire as it soar’d:

“Has the son of Usnach pass’d?” “Yea, gone back!” With the word

He smote on a ribbon of iron to make him a sword.

And the argentine din of anvils behind her steadily dwindling

The woman fled to the wastes, till she came to a Thorn

Black, by the well of a God, with stars therein kindling

And over it rags fluttering from boughs forlorn.

And she knelt and shore with a knife a lock of her deathless hair,

And leash’d the black-shuddering branch with that tress, and pray’d:

“Sloe-tree, thou snow of the darkness, O hear my prayer,

And thou, black Depth, bubble-breather, vouchsafe thine aid;

“From Connachar’s eyes of love let me hide as a gray mole,

Sons of the earth’s profound, that no weeper spurn!

I have look’d on a face, and its kindness ravish’t my soul

But deliverance pass’d; unto you for escape I turn.”

And loud as the sloven starlings in winter whistle and swarm

Came the banish’d of Usnach nigh, thrice fifty strong

As they drove from Eman away on that night of storm

And Naois spoke with his brothers behind the throng:

“O, Aillean, O, Ardan, hark! What cry was that? For some cry

Rang on my soul’s shield; hark! hear ye it now?”

But they rein’d not their weary chariots, shouting reply

“It was fate,’twas the curs’t hag that is crouch’d on a bough!”

Tossing they drove out of sight, Naois the last, and his hood

Rain-dripping mantled the wind. One ran like a roe,

And call’d on that great name from the nightbound wood,

“Stay, long-awaited, stay! for with thee I go!”

And his brothers cried “Halt not! the host of the air makes moan

Or a gang of the wild geese going back to the lake.”

But Naois rear’d up the deep-ribb’d Srōn, “Good Srōn,

Thou and I needs must turn for our fame’s sake.”

And he heard a voice: “Son of Usnach, take me to be thy wife!”

He bent from the withers, the blaze of her trembling drew

The breath from his lips and the beat from his heart’s life;

And he said, “Who art thou, Queen?” But himself knew,

And mutter’d “Return, return, unto him that I hate. For know

Him least of all I rob, least of all that live.”

But she cried: “Am I then a colt, that ye snare from a foe

With a bridle’s shaking? I am mine own to give.”

“Thy beauty would crumble away in the spate of my wild nights,

And famine rake out thine embers, the lean paw

Of jeopardy find thee. He is not rich in delights

Whose harp is the gray fell in the winter’s flaw.”

And she laid her arm round the neck of Srōn: “Hast heard,

Horse swollen-vein’d from battle, insulter of death—

Whose back is only a perch for the desert bird—

Whose fore-hooves fight—whose passage is torn with teeth,

“And dost thou not shudder off the knees of a master deaf

To the grief of the weak?” And the lad, deeply-moved, rejoins

“Mount then, O woman, behind me,”—and light as a leaf

Drawing her up from his foot to the smoking loins

Shook loose the ox-hide bridle. Even as the great gull dives

From Muilréa’s moon-glittering peak when the sky is bare,

Scraped naked by nine days’ wind, and sweepingly drives

Overnight-blurr’d gulfs and the long glens of the air,

And feels up-tossing his breast an exhaustless breath bear on

Spouted from isleless ocean to aid his flight—

So fiercely, so steadily gallop’d the sinewy Srōn,

Braced by that double burden to more delight.

Though his mane wrapp’d a wounded bridle-hand, fast, fast

As giddy foam-weltering waters dash’d by the hoof

Flee away from the weirs of Callan, even so pass’d

Dark plains away to the world’s edge, behind and aloof.

And the rider stoop’d and whisper’d amidst the thunder of weirs

Such sweetness of praise to his horse in the swirl of the flood

That Srōn twitch’d back for an instant his moonëd ears—

Strain’d forth like a hare’s,—as his haunches up to the wood

Wrested them. Beaks of magic, the wreckage of time, came out

And talon’d things of the forest would waft and sway

But Naois raised unforgotten that battle-shout

That scatters the thrilling wreath of all fears away.

So they measured the Plain of the Dreamers, the Brake of the Black Ram,

Till the Crag of the Dances before them did shape and loom.

And the Meads of the Faery Hurlers in silver swam

Then up to the Gap of the Winds, and the far-seen tomb

White on Slieve Fuad’s side. By many a marchland old

And cairn of princes—yea, to mine own bedside—

They adventured. Think ye, sweet bards, that I could lie cold

When my chamber of rock fore-knew that impassion’d stride?

Had I, too, not pluck’d the webs of rain-sweet drops from the harp

And torn from its wave of chords an imperishable love

To sleep on this breast? Here, through the mountain sharp

My grave-chamber tunnell’d is, and one door from above

Westward surveys green territories, gentle with flowers and charm,

But forth from the eastern face of the ridge is unquell’d

Wilderness, besown with boulders and grass of harm.

And even in my trance could I feel those riders approach and beheld

Naois assault the ridge, to the wilderness setting his face

Expectant, unconscious, as one whom his foes arouse;

His heart was a forge—his onset enkindled space—

He shook off the gusty leagues like locks from his brows.

What should he reck of Earth save that under his wounds he felt

Stolen round him, as dreamy water steals round a shore,

A girdle, the arms of Deirdre, clasp’d for a belt

That terror of main kings should unlock no more?

I was caught from the grave’s high gate as that spume-flaked ecstacy drew

Upward, and wing’d like the kiss of Aengus, strove

For utterance to greet them—encircling their heads that flew—

But who loops the whirlwind’s foot or out-dreameth love?

He wheel’d round Srōn on the crest. Abrupt he flung back a hand

And spoke, “Dost thou know the truth? Look where night is low!

Soon the ants of that mound shall shake the ledge where we stand:

Now the tribes are summon’d, the Night prepares his blow.

“Now wrath spurts, hot from the trumpet—the main beacon flares—

Now tackle the arrogant chariots—dogs in their glee

Hang on the leash-slaves, numb in the cockcrow airs.

Why, out of all that host, hast thou singled me?”

I heard her behind him breathe, “Because out of all that host

Aptest art thou in feats, held in honour more

Than any save bright Cuchullain.”[1] He turn’d as one lost,

“Is this time a time to mock? Are there not fourscore

“Better at feats than I, my masters, the noble teams,

The attemper’d knights of the Red Branch every one?

Nay, though I knead up the whole earth in my dreams,

Nought to such men am I, who have nothing done.”

I heard the blowings of Srōn, and then lasting words: “I choose

Thee—wherefore? Ah, how interpret? To-day on the slope

Where first by the wall I saw thee at gloam of dews

I knew it was fated. It was not some leaf of hope

Eddying. Thou wast the token—half of the potter’s shard—

That a chief beleaguer’d cons in his desperate camp

Pass’d in by some hand unseen to the outmost guard,

And fits to the other half by his wasted lamp.

“Seeing thee, I knew myself to be shaped of the self-same clay—

Half of the symbol—and broken, mayhap, to serve

As language to them of the night from powers of the day.”

By the Path of the throbbing Curlew no step may swerve

Where they rode through the Gap; and at last she murmur’d, “Dost grieve at me still?”

And he said, “Glorious is it to me that behind us pursuit

Shall be wide as the red of the morning, for thou art my will!

To the beach of the world of the dead, and beyond it to boot,

“Let me take and defend thee.” In silence the hearts of the twain were screen’d,—

But crossing the mires and the torrents I saw strange ease

Afloat, like a spark, on the woman’s eyes as she lean’d

Forth, and a shadow betwixt her lips like peace.

1. Pronounced Cuhoollin.

IV

VOICE OF URMAEL out of the Sixth Century

The slender Hazels ask’d the Yew like night

Beside the river-green of Lisnacaun

“Who is this woman beautiful as light

Sitting in dolour on thy branchéd lawn;

With sun-red hair, entangled as with flight,

Sheening the knees up to her bosom drawn?

What horses mud-besprent so thirstily

Bellying the hush pools with their nostrils wide?”

And the Yew old as the long mountain-side

Answer’d, “I saw her hither with Clan Usnach ride.”

“Come, love, and climb with me Findruim’s woods

Alone,” Naois pray’d. Through broom and bent

Strown with swift-travelling shadows of their moods,

Leaving below the camp’s thin cries, they went.

And never a tress, escaping from her snoods,

Made the brown river with a kiss content,

So safe he raised up Deirdre through the ford.

Thanks, piteous Gods, that no fore-boding gave,

He should so bear her after to the grave,

Breasting the druid ice, breasting the phantom wave.

“O, bear me on,” she breathed, “for ever so!”

And light as notes the Achill shepherd plays

On his twin pipes they wanton’d, light and slow,

Up the broad valley. Birds sail’d from the haze

Far up, where darkling copses over-grow

Scarps of the gray cliff from his river’d base.

Diaphaneity, the spirit’s beauty,

Along the dimnéd coombes did float and reign,

And many a mountain’s scarry flank was plain

Through nets of youngling gold betrimm’d with rain.

But when an upward space of grass—so free—

So endless—beckon’d to the realms of wind

Deirdre broke from his side, and airily

Fled up the slopes, flinging disdains behind,

And paused, and round a little vivid tree

The wolf-skins from her neck began to bind.

Naois watch’d below this incantation;

Then upward on his javelin’s length he swung

To catch some old crone’s ditty freshly sung,

Bidding that shoot be wise, for yet ’twas young.

With gaze in gaze, thus ever up and on

Roved they unwitting of the world out-roll’d,

Their ears dinn’d by the breeze’s clarion

That quicks the blood while yet the cheek is cold;

Great whitenesses rose past them—brooks ran down—

And step by step Findruim bare and bold

Uplifted. So a swimmer is uplifted

Horsed on a streaming shoulder of the Sea—

Our hasty master, who to such as we

Tosses some glittering hour of mastery.

They heard out of the zenith swoop and sting

Feathery voices, keen and soft and light:

“Mate ye as eagles mate, that on the wing

Grapple—heaven-high—hell-deep, for yours is flight!

Souls like the granite candles of a king

Flaming unshook amid the noise of night

What of pursuit, that you to-day shouldst fear it?”

Pursuit they reck’d not, save of wind that pours

Surging and urging on to other shores

Over the restless forest of a thousand doors.

“Deirdre,” he cried, “the blowing of thy hair

Is of the clouds that everlasting stream

Forth from the castles of those islands rare

Black in the ragged-misted ocean’s gleam

And glimpsed by Iceland galleys as they fare

Northward!” But in her bosom’s open seam

She set the powder’d yew-sprig silently;

“Speak not of me nor give my beauty praise,

Whose beauty is to follow in thy ways

So that my days be number’d with thy days.”

In the high pastures of that boundless place

Their feet wist not if they should soar or run

They turned, at earth astonish’d, face to face

Deeming unearthly blessedness begun.

And slow, mid nests of running larks, they pace

Drinking from the recesses of the sun

Tremble of those wings that beat light into music.

There the world’s ends lay open: open wide

The body’s windows. What shall them divide

Who have walk’d once that country side by side?

She mused, “O why doth happiness too much

Fountains of blood and spirit seem to fill?

The woods, over-flowing, cannot bear that such

An hour should be so sweet and yet be still:

Even the low-tangled bushes at a touch

Break into wars of gleemen, thrill on thrill.

O son of Usnach, bring me not thy glories!

Bring me defeats and shames and secret woe;

That where no brother goeth I may go

And kneel to wash thy wounds in caverns bleak and low!”

“Here, up in sight of the far shine of sea,

(He sang) once after hunting, by the fire

I knelt, and kindling brushwood raised up thee,

Deirdre, nor wist the star of my desire

Should ever walk Findruim’s head with me

Far from a king’s loud house and soft attire.

Fain would I thatch us here a booth of hazels,

Thatch it with drift and snow of sea-gulls’ wings:

And thy horn’d harp should wonder to its strings

What spoil is it to-night Naois brings?”

“Listen,” quoth he, when scarce those words were gone

(A neck of the bare down it was, a ledge

Of wind-sleek turf, the lovers roam’d upon

And sent young rabbits scuttling to the edge

Of underwoods beneath) “I think that yon

Some beast—haply a stag—takes harbourage.”

And Deirdre at a word come back from regions

Of bliss too close to pain, snatch’d with no fear

Out of his hand the battle-haunted spear

And, questing swiftly down the pasture sheer,

Enter’d the yew’s black vault: therein profound

Green-litten air, and there as seeking fresh

Enemies, one haunch crush’d against the ground

The grey boar slew’d, tusking the tender flesh

Of shoots, his ravage-whetted bulk around:

But when his ear across the straggling mesh

Of feather’d sticks report of Deirdre found

He quiver’d, snorted; from his jaws like wine

Foam dripp’d; along the horror of his spine

The bristles grew up like a ridge of pine.

Mortals, the maiden deem’d that guise a mask—

Believed that in that beast sate to ensnare

He of the red eye—little need to ask

The druid-wrinkled hide, the sluttish hair:

This was to escape—how vain poor passion’s task!—

Connachar of the illimitable lair!

He crash’d at her; she heaved the point embrown’d

In blood of dragons. Heavily the boar

Grazed by the iron, reel’d, leapt, charged once more

And thrice in passage her frail vesture tore.

As when a herd-boy lying on the scar

(Who pipes to flocks below him on the steep

Melodies like their neckbells, scattering far,

Cool as the running water, soft as sleep)

Hurls out a flint from peril to debar

And from the boulder’d chasm recall his sheep—

So with a knife Naois leapt and struck.

Strange, in the very fury of a stride

The grey beast like a phantom from his side

Plunged without scathe to thickets undescried.

Naois sheathed his iron with no stain

And laugh’d “This shall be praised in revels mad

Around Lug’s peak, when women scatter grain

Upon the warriors. Why shouldst thou be sad

Pale victory?” But she, “Ah, thus again

Ere night do I imperil thee, and add

Burden to burden.” And he strove to lead her

From grief, and said “What, bride! thy raiment torn?”

“Content thee, O content thee, man of scorn,

I’ll brooch it with no jewel but a thorn!”

They seek down through the Wood of Awe that hems

Findruim, like the throng about his grave,

Dusk with the swarth locks of ten thousand stems

In naked poise. These make no rustle save

Some pine-cone dropt, or murmur that condemns

Murmur; bedumb’d with moss that giant nave.

But let Findruim shake out overhead

His old sea-sigh, and when it doth arrive

At once their tawny boles become alive

With flames that come and go, and they revive

The north’s Fomorian roar.—“I am enthrall’d,”

He said, “as by the blueness of a ray

That, dropping through this presence sombre-wall’d

Burns low about the image of a spray—

Of some poor beech-spray witch’d to emerald.

Wilt thou not dance, daughter of heaven, to-day

Free, at last free? For here no moody raindrop

Can reach thee, nor betrayer overpeer;

And none the self-delightful measure hear

That thy soul moves to, quit of mortal ear.”

Full loth she pleads, yet cannot him resist

And on the enmosséd lights begins to dance.

Away, away, far-floating like a mist,

To fade into some leafy brilliance;

Then, smiling to the inward melodist,

Over the printless turf with slow advance

Of showery footsteps, makes she infinite

That crowded glen. But quick, possess’d by strange

Rapture, wider than dreams her motions range

Till to a span the forests shrink and change.

And in her eyes and glimmering arms she brings

Hither all promise,—all the unlook’d-for boon

Of rain-bow’d life—all rare and speechless things

That shine and swell under the brimming Moon.

Who shall pluck tympans? For what need of strings

To waft her blood who is herself the tune—

Herself the warm and breathing melody?

Art come from the Land of the Ever-Young? O stay!

For his heart, after thee rising away,

Falls dark and spirit-faint back to the clay.

Griefs, like the yellow leaves by winter curl’d,

Rise after her—long-buried pangs arouse—

About that bosom the grey forests whirl’d,

And tempests with her beauty might espouse,—

She rose with the green waters of the world

And the winds heaved with her their depth of boughs.

Then vague again as blows the beanfield’s odour

On the dark lap of air she chose to sink,

As, winnowing with plumes, to the river-brink

The pigeons from the cliff come down to drink.

Sudden distraught, shading her eyes, she ceased,

Listening, like bride whom cunning faery strain

Forth from the trumpet-bruited spousal feast

Steals. But she beckon’d soon, and quick with pain

He ran, he craved at those white feet the least

Pardon; nor, till he felt her hand again

Descend flake-soft, durst spy that she was weeping

Or kneel with burning murmurs to atone.

For sleep she wept. Long fasting had they gone

And ridden from the breaking of the dawn.

It chanced that waters, nigh to that selve grove,

From Sleep’s own lake as from a cauldron pass;

He led towards their sound his weary love

And lay before her in the fresh of grass

Resting—the white cirque of the cliffs above—

Against a sun-abandon’d stem there was.

Spray from the strings of water spilling over

The weir of rock, their fever’d cheeks bewet;

And to its sound a voiceless bread they ate,

And drank the troth that is unbroken yet.

Out in the mere—brown—unbesilver’d now

By finest skimming of the elfin breeze—

An isle was moor’d, with rushes at its prow

And fraught with haze of deeply-mirror’d trees;

And knowing Deirdre still was mindful how

The boar yet lived, that she might sleep at ease

Naois swore to harbour on that islet.

Nine strides he waded in, on footings nine

Deep, deeper yet, until his basnet’s shine

Sank to the cold lips of the lake divine.

Divine; for once the sunk stones of that way

Approach’d the pool-god, and the outermost

Had been the black slab whereon druids slay

With stoop and mutter to the water’s ghost,

Though since to glut some whim malign the fay

Had swell’d over the flags. Of all the host

Few save Naois, and at sore adventure

Had ta’en this pass. But who would not have press’d

Through straits by the chill-finger’d fiend possess’d

To bear unto that isle Deirdre to rest?

“Seal up thy sight; my shield of iron rims

Unhook; cast in this shatter’d helm for spoil.”

’Twas done, and then with rush of cleaving limbs

He swam and bore her out with happy toil

Secret and fierce as the flat otter swims

Out of the whistling reeds as if through oil.

And Deirdre, whiter than the wave-swan floating,

Smiled that he suffer’d her no stroke to urge.

At length they reach the gnarl’d and ivied verge

And from the shallows to the sun emerge.

She spreads her wolf-skins on the rock that glows

And sun-tears wrings out of the heavy strands

Of corded hair. He, watching to the close,

Sees not the white silk tissue as she stands

Clinging bedull’d to the clear limbs of rose.

She turn’d and to him stretch’d misdoubting hands:

“Tell me, ere thou dissolve, O wordless watcher,

Am I that Deirdre that would sit and spin

Beside Keshcorran? Dost thou love me? Then

I touch thee. For I, too, have love within.”

O sacred cry! Again, again the first

Love-cry! How the steep woods thirst for thy voice,

O never-dying one! That voice, like the outburst

And gush of a young spring’s delicious noise

Driven from the ancient heights whereon ’twas nursed!

Yet, as death’s heart is silent, so is joy’s.

His mouth spake not; for, as in dusk Glen Treithim

Smelters of bubbling gold brook not to breathe

Reek of the colour’d fumes whose hissings wreathe

The brim, he choked at his own spirit’s seethe.

Sternly he looked on her and strangely said

“What touch is thine? It hath unearthly powers.

I think thou art the woman Cairbre made

Out of the dazzle and the wind of flowers.

Behold, the flame-like children of the shade,

The buds, about thee rise like servitors!

It seems I had not lipp’d the cup of living

Till thou didst stretch it out. Vaguely I felt

Irreparable waste. Why hast thou dwell’d

Near me on earth so long, yet unbeheld?”

Chanters! The Night brings nigh the deeps far off,

But Twilight shows the distance of the Near;

And with a million dawns that pierce above

Mixes the soul of suns that disappear,

To make man’s eyes approach the eyes of love

In simpleness, in mystery and fear.

All blooms both bright and pale are in her gardens,

All chords both shrill and deep under her hand

Who, sounding forth the richness of the land,

Estrangeth all, that we may understand.

So still it was, they heard in the evening skies

Creak as of eagles’ wing-feathers afar

Coasting the grey cliffs. On him slowly rise,

As to Cuchullain came his signal star,

Out of the sheeted rivers, Deirdre’s eyes.

And who look’d in them well was girt for war;

Seeing in that gaze all who for love had perish’d:

The queens calamitous unbow’d at last—

The supreme fighters that alone stood fast—

Fealties obscure, unwitness’d, and long past,

Cloud over cloud—the host that had attain’d

By love,—in very essence, force, heat, breath

Now, now arose in Deirdre’s eyes and deign’d

Summons to him—“Canst follow us?” it saith—

Till from that great contagion he hath gain’d

An outlook like to conquest over death.

Then he discerns the solemn-rafter’d world

By this frail brazier’s glowings, wherein blend

Coals that no man hath kindled, without end

Born and re-born, from ashes to ascend.

And face to face to him unbared she cleaves

Woman no more—scarce-breathing—infinite,

Grave as the fair-brow’d priestess Earth receives

In all her lochs and plains and invers bright

And shores wide-trembling where one image heaves,

Him that is lord of silence and of light.

Slow the God sigh’d himself from rocks and waters

But in his soft withdrawals from the air

No creature in the weightless world was there

Uttered its being’s secret round the pair.

Ah! them had Passion’s self-enshrouding arm

Taken, as a green fury of ocean takes,

Through the dense thickets smitten with alarm

To the islet’s trancéd core. And Deirdre wakes,

Lifting hot lids that shut against the storm,

Lying on a hillock, amid slender brakes

Of grey trees, to the babble of enchantments

From mouths of chill-born flowers. The place was new

To rapture. Branchéd sunbursts plashing through

After, had laid the mound with fire and dew.

Naois cuts down osiers. Now he seeks

A narrow grass-plot shorn as if with scythe

And over two great boulders’ wrinkled cheeks

Draws down and knots a hull of saplings lithe,

Well-staunch’d with earthy-odour’d moss and sticks

Known to the feet of birds. This darkness blithe

He frames against the stars for forest sleepers.

The living tide of stars aloft that crept

Compassion’d far below. No wavelet leapt;

And deep rest fell upon them there. They slept.

Long, long, the melancholy mountains lay

Aware; mute-rippling shades that isle enwound.

Naois fell through dreams, like the snapt spray

That drops from branch to branch,—that stillest sound!—

And while from headlands scarce a league away

The din of the sea-breakers come aground

Roll’d up the valley, he in vision govern’d

His ribbéd skiff under Dun Aengus sweeping,

Triumphing with his love, and leaping, leaping,

Drew past the ocean-shelves of seals a-sleeping.

But over starr’d peat-water, where the flag

Rustles, and listens for the scud of teal;

Over coast, forest, and bethunder’d crag

Night—mother of despairs, who proves the steel

In men, to see if they be dross and slag

Or fit with trusts and enemies to deal

Uneyed, alone—diffusing her wide veils

Bow’d from the heavens to his exultant ear:

A questioner awaits thee: rouse! The mere

Slept on, save for the twilight-footed deer.

“Those antler’d shadows of the forest-roof

Nigh to the shore must be assembled thick,”

He thought, “and bringing necks round to the hoof

Or being aslaked and couching, seek to lick

The fawns. Some heady bucks engage aloof,

So sharp across the water comes the click

Of sparring horns.” But was it a vain terror,

Son of the sword, or one for courage staunch,

That the herd, dismay’d, at a bound, with a quivering haunch

Murmur’d away into night at the crack of a branch?

And Deirdre woke. Reverberate from on high

Amongst the sullen hills, distinct there fell

A mournful keen, like to the broken cry

From the house of hostage in some citadel

Of hostages lifting up their agony

After the land they must remember well,

“Deirdre is gone! Gone is the little Deirdre!”

And she knowing not the voice as voice of man

Stood up. “Lie still, lest thee the spirit ban

O vein of life, lie still!” But Deirdre ran

Like the moon through brakes, and saw where nought had been

On the vague shore what seem’d a stone that stood;

Faceless, rough-hewn, it forward seem’d to lean

Like the worn pillar of Cenn Cruaich the God.

She cried across “If thou with things terrene

Be number’d, tell me why thy sorrowful blood

Mourneth, O Cathva, father!” But the stone

Shiver’d, and broke the staff it lean’d upon,

Shouting, “What! livst thou yet? Begone, begone!”

V

VOICE OF FINTAN again, out of the First Century,

Let my lips finish what my lips began.—

Then to the two beclouded in black boughs

The third across the water cried “Speak once!

Though the earth shake beneath you like a sieve

With wheels of Connachar, answer me this:

Naois, could she understand his hate

Whose arm requiteth—far as runs the wind—

By me, that blow away the gaze and smile

From women’s faces; O could Deirdre have guess’d—

Mourning all night the fading of her kingdoms

Fled like a song—what means, a banished man;

That he and I must hound thee to the death;

That thou shalt never see the deep-set eaves,

The lofty thatch familiar with the doves,

On thy sad mother Usnach’s house again;

But drift out like some sea-bird, far, far, hence,

Far from the red isle of the roes and berries,

Far from sun-galleries and pleasant dúns

And swards of lovers,—branded, nationless;

That none of all thy famous friends, with thee

Wrestlers on Eman in the summer evenings,

Shall think thee noble now; and that at last

I must upheave thy heart’s tough plank to crack it—

Knowing all this, would this fool follow thee?”

Then spoke Naois, keeping back his wrath,

“Strange is it one so old should threat with Death!

Are not both thou and I, are not we all,

By Death drawn from the wickets of the womb—

Seal’d with the thumb of Death when we are born?

As for friends lost (though I believe thee not),

A man is nourish’d by his enemies

No less than by his friends. But as for her,

Because no man shall deem me noble still,—

Because I like a sea-gull of the isles

May be driven forth—branded and nationless,—

Because I shall no more, perhaps, behold

The deep-set eaves on that all-sacred house,—

Because the gather’d battle of the powers

Controlling fortune, breaks upon my head,—

Yea! for that very cause, lack’d other cause,

In love the closer,—quenchless,—absolute,

Would Deirdre choose to follow me. Such pains,

Seër, the kingdoms are of souls like hers!”

He spoke; he felt her life-blood at his side

Sprung of the West, the last of human shores,

Throbbing, “Look forth on everlastingness!

Through the coil’d waters and the ebb of light

I’ll be thy sail!”

Over the mist like wool

No sound; the echo-trembling tarn grew mute.

But when through matted forest with uproar

The levy of pursuers, brazen, vast,

Gush’d like a river, and torch’d chariots drew

With thunder-footed horses on, and lash’d

Up to the sedge, and at the Druid’s shape

Their steamy bellies rose over the brink

Pawing the mist, and when a terrible voice

Ask’d of that shape if druid ken saw now

The twain,—advanced out of the shade of leaves

Nor Deirdre nor Naois heard reply;

And like a burning dream the host, dissolving,

Pass’d. On the pale bank not a torch remain’d.

They look’d on one another, left alone.

THE END

OTHER POEMS

ODE ON A SILVER BIRCH

in St James’ Park

1

Muse, I will show thee, on a grassy mound

Moving with tufted shadows, albeit bare

Herself, for yet young April primes the air

And bloom snow-laden boughs, the tree I love.

London doth compass it with shores of sound

And thrills the buds when there’s no breath above

To shake its fountain beauty. Thus I came

Along the courtly mere of thicket isles,

And Spring entoil’d me in a hundred wiles,

Bringing the heart content without a name.

Broods, russet-plumed and emerald, steer’d on

With arrowy wake adown the placid tide

And in that gloomy pool there rode enskied,

Aloof, the stately languor of a swan.

But now the lake sets hither with a breeze

And crooks the peel’d bole of its planes.—Ah, there

Thou shall find audience—yon’s my shadowy love!—

O’er head a rose-grey pigeon beat his wings

About his ’lighted mate, and wooed the bough

And passion born of sight of mortal things

In warmth of living, moved and moves me now

As from the careless height that sways above

Floateth his voice, the soul of greening trees.

2

Approaching ’twixt the herald saplings pale

Whose light arrayment is a whirl of green

Of flamelets dropping for a virgin veil,

I come. Though Hades’ crocus-jets are stayed,

Soft! for a golden troop instead upsprung

Gossips apart in yon unfooted glade.

Broke we on earshot of that frolic tongue

Straightway would all be husht, they being afraid

To sing’t to simple ear of mutest maid.

3

But thou, still silver Spirit, unappall’d

Standest alone, and with thy senses dim

Feeling the first warmth fledge the unleaféd limb

Hearest not tread of mine, O Sun-enthrall’d!

What buried God conceived thee, and forestall’d

In the dull depth thy white and glistering graces—

That fume of netted drops and subtle laces

And listening statue-air, by men miscall’d?

Shower o’er the blue, and sister of blown surf!

Dream-daughter of the silences of turf!

Couldst thou but waken and recall the Mind

Lifts thee to image, then could I reveal

Wherefore thou seem’st remember’d and I feel

In thee mine own dream risen and divined!

4

Surely the hymn that charm’d thee from the grass

Fashion’d me also, and the selfsame lyre

Sounded accords that out of darkness pass

And in thy beauty and my song conspire?

The drum of streets, the fever of our homes,

Clangours and murk metallurgy of gnomes,

All are by thee unheard, who dost ignore

The wisdom of the wise, in dead pasts now

Dungeon’d as never to ascend; but thou

Whose being is for the light, and hath no care

To know itself nor root from whence it sprang,

Wouldst only murmur, in the heavenly air,

“The sun, the sun!” if but thy spirit sang!

5

O might I show thee by the lute’s devising

Man, from thy soft turf, flown with light, arising!

Him, too, doth hope, the boon without a pang,

Summon with thrilling finger forth to hang—

To cast a heaving soul to the wave of wind,

Sun-passion’d and earth-lodged. Ah, Tree serene

Dilating in the glow of the unseen,

We and our roofs and towers magnifical—

Our Fame’s heroic head against the sky—

Our loves—and all

That, with our briefness perfect, rise and die,—

Like thee must find

Beauty in a besieging of the dark;

Our glories on expectancy embark,

And the height of our ecstasy—

The touch of infinity—

Is blind.

A CHARGE

If thou hast squander’d years to grave a gem

Commission’d by thy absent Lord, and while

’Tis incomplete,

Others would bribe thy needy skill to them—

Dismiss them to the street!

Shouldst thou at last discover Beauty’s grove,

At last be panting on the fragrant verge,

But in the track,

Drunk with divine possession, thou meet Love—

Turn, at her bidding, back.

When round thy ship in tempest Hell appears,

And every spectre mutters up more dire

To snatch control

And loose to madness thy deep-kennell’d Fears—

Then, to the helm, O Soul!

Last; if upon the cold green-mantling sea

Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar,

Both castaway

And one must perish—let it not be he

Whom thou art sworn to obey!

SONG FOR THE FUNERAL OF A BOY

1

On stems from silver woods

Carry him, young companions, to the glen

Where white Olympus broods;

Flushes of rustlers shall precede you then

By bush and glade

Low-thrilling and afraid;

And as along its curve of shore ye pass

The dark tarn ruddied with the pine shall glass,

Moving to hymns out of its lonely ken,

The boy’s light bier, with beaded rushes laid.

2

In beeches shall the fawn

An hoof suspend, to learn from that clear sound

His eager mate withdrawn

For ever unto free and sylvan ground.

Up in her hold

The wide-wing’d Azure cold

Mantling in gyre on gyre shall mark him come

By root-paven paths borne, and great bee’s hum

Swing through your brief procession, winding round

The endless alleys up that Mountain old.

3

In some low space of green

Where fleecy mists, bright runnels newly rain’d,

And springing wands are seen

But nothing yet to gnarlëd eld attain’d

Let his head nigh

The chrisom violet lie;

And put at hand the sling to him most dear,

The sheaf of arrows light, the dauntless spear,

The lute untroubled on the heart unstain’d;

Then, taking hands around him, sing good-bye.

4

Praise limbs that robb’d the cloud

Of vengeful eagles, and for this rough nest,

This egg, embraced the loud

And everlasting sea-crag’s salty breast!

Praise to the face

That smiled on nothing base!

Hymn ye the laughter of his happy soul—

His secret kindness to your secret dole;

The heavenly-minded brook shall mourn him best

When ye have kiss’d his cheek, quitting the place.

5

This ditty from the brake,

This rainbow from the waters, fades; and Night

That little pyre shall take

In flame and cloud;—but O! when the bloom of light

With breathless glow

Along the tops of snow

Tells out to all the valleys Night is done,—

Think of the boy, ye young companions bright,

Not without joy; for he hath loved and gone

As dews that on the uplands shine and go!

COME, LET US MAKE LOVE DEATHLESS

Come, let us make love deathless, thou and I,

Seeing that our footing on the Earth is brief—

Seeing that her multitudes sweep out to die

Mocking at all that passes their belief.

For standard of our love not theirs we take:

If we go hence to-day

Fill the high cup that is so soon to break

With richer wine than they!

Ay, since beyond these walls no heavens there be

Joy to revive or wasted youth repair,

I’ll not bedim the lovely flame in thee

Nor sully the sad splendour that we wear.

Great be the love, if with the lover dies

Our greatness past recall,

And nobler for the fading of those eyes

The world seen once for all.

CLAVIERS AT NIGHT

I watch’d a white-hair’d Figure like a breeze

Pass, with a smile, down the bare galleries

And heard his ancient fingers, as he went,

Muse on the heart of each blind instrument.

SPINET

Shoaling through twilight to my silver tinglings

The great-ruff’d ladies beset with pearl

Come out with the gallants in gems of Cadiz

In lofty capriols with loud spur-jinglings

In Roman galliard and in blithe coranto

Learnt in far Otranto

Brought home in the galleys of the Earl—

Storm-riding galleys of the haughty Earl—

To English vallies.

They come

With reverences stately at meeting

In mockeries sedately retreating

And stomachers and buckles and rings

Shake a maze of jewels to the measured strings,

Of trembling jewels.

Ay, moonlight’s fair in yew-clipt alleys,

And young Love fledges

His shafts ’twixt cypress hedges.

Follow the rout, and watch in gentle wind

The springing moonbeam of the fountain sway’d

Like to a mountain maid

Who turns with poisëd jar

From bubbling hollow cool.

“Behold, how’t tosses rain of Pleiads hither

Into main blackness of the pool—

Rings ever shimmering out and sheen reborn;

So, thou and I, lady, must die

To wake, as echoes wake, of yonder horn

With voiceless over the hills of morn.

Ah, satin-quilted kirtle,

Ah, pearled bosom,

Let slip one flake of blossom,

Deign but a sprig of myrtle,

To the poor Fool, panting on his bended knee!”

But silent grow the long swards cedar-shaded

Where the young loves were sitting;

And lo, in the silver-candled hall

The bat is flitting, flitting.

The tapestries are dusk upon the wall

And the ladies bright, brocaded,

All, with their blushes, faded.

HARPSICHORD

Now ye, the delicate patterers of the hush,

Wings, hither!

Scarce-rustlers of the sere involvéd leaf

Who mourn for summers past with elfin grief,

Ye who can hear along the inmost lawn

Ebbings and flowings shrill

When subtle ballads net the rime-cold daffodil

And drift over the blue turf so nigh dumb

They startle not from’s gloom e’en the airy fawn.

Old Antony on his Nile-barge at dawn

Caught your deck-walkings countless overhead

And eased with ye a heart eclipsed and dead.

Come swift, come soon

Drift, like a veil over the moon,

And rising round this crumbling Keep

Shed ye, upon the sleepless, sleep.

CLAVICHORD

Wherefore, poor Fool, dost lie—

Love, cap and bells put by—

On thy pallet-bed so stark?

“I am girt, soul and limb,

Gainst horror dim.

Ear tense to hark

Mine eyeballs strain and swim

Drowning in foamy dark.

Comes no shock

Nor earthly feet

But the heart’s blood, ebb’d with the chill tower-clock

To a single beat,

Clots to a fear

That God may appear—

None other eye being near—

And bare of his mantle of law

Stand, a giant Spirit beautiful

Sombre, pale, in avenging mail,

Wings folded, on this planet’s skull;

And before Him dropping like fine rain,

A veil o’ the cloud o’ the dust of kings

Noiseless descending the old Abyss ...

Ah then, after this

How gentle through the dark paths of the brain

Comes the faint noise of outer things;

The whirr and shower of wings—

Satin shufflings of ivy leaves

Ranging like bees the leaden pane—

Jolting of carters, cries of falconers—

The blessed courtyard stirs

That do in mercy say

Thou hast another day.”

THE MAN DIGGING

The isle was barren. Far as hawk may scan

In moors it roll’d up to a headland bare

Save for one narrow patch, by ceaseless care

Sumptuous with corn. Against the sky a Man

Digging the waste I saw,—bow’d veteran

A stubborn spade he drave in stubborn ground

And root and rock flung sheer without a sound

Over the bleak edge.... Then anew began.

“You, who have lodged in the teeth of the abyss

Your cabin low, and triumph rich as this

Wrung from the ocean-bitter mountain side,

What help’d you most to bring such treasure out?”

He stood, and after scrutiny replied,

“The thing on which I lean, the Spade of Doubt.”

SCHIEHALLION

Far the grey loch runs

Up to Schiehallion.

Lap, lap the water flows

Where my wee boatie rows;

Greenly a star shows

Over Schiehallion.

She that I wander’d wi’

Over Schiehallion,—

How far ayont your ken,

Crags of the merry glen,

Stray’d she, that wander’d then

Down fra Schiehallion!

Sail of the wild swan

Turn to Schiehallion!

Here where the rushes rise

Low the black hunter lies;

Beat thou the pure skies

Back to Schiehallion!

THE SHELL

I am a Shell out of the Asian sea,

But my sad Pearl is gone,

Risen to be Goddess—Venus green is she

And I cast up alone.

Yet some night shall her brilliance stoop and take

Unto her ear this shell,

And hear the whisper of her own heart-break ...

All that I serve to tell.

THE ROCK OF CLOUD

We heard a chanting in the fog

On the frore face of the sea,

And stay’d the galley like a log

To sound that mystery.

And men throng’d up into the bow

And hail’d the curling rack,

“What demon or what spirit thou?”

And the lone voice came back,

Came as of one so evil-starr’d

That he hath done with grief,

In monotone as keen and hard

As the bell swung from a reef:

“Human I am—would I were foam—

Row hither; ye may hear

Yet shall not save nor bring me home

Seek ye a thousand year.”

“Keep a stout hope.” “I keep no hope.”

“Man alive” “Spare your toil—”

“We are upon thee!” “Nay, no rope

Over the gap shall coil.”

“Who art thou?” “I was Pilot once

On many a ship of mark:

Went aboard—spoke to none—but steer’d;

And dropt off in the dark.

“But one night—Christ!—we struck—we sank.

I reach’d this rock of wings

Whereby from every boulder’s flank

The brown sea-ribbon swings.

“Here, where the sole eye of the Sun

Did scorch my body bare,

A great Sea-Spirit rose, and shone

In the water thrill’d with hair....

“She lay back on the green abyss

Beautiful; her spread arms

Soothed to a poise—a sob—of bliss

Huge thunders and alarms.

“Her breasts as pearl were dull and pure,

Her body’s chasted light

Swam like a cloud; her eyes unsure

From the great depths were bright.

“There was no thing of bitterness

In aught that she could say;

She call’d my soul, as down a coast

The Moon calls bay beyond bay

And they rise—back o’ the uttermost—

Away, and yet away:—

“‘I chose thee from the sinking crews—

I bore thee up alive—

Now durst thou follow me and choose

Under the world to dive?

“‘Come! we will catch when stars are out

The black wave’s spitting crest

And still, when the Bull of Dawn shall spout,

Be washing on abreast;

“‘Or thee a flame under the seas

Paven with suns I’ll hide,

Deathless and boundless and at ease

In any shape to glide.

“‘All waters that on Earth have well’d

At last to me repair,—

All mountains starr’d with cities melt

Into my dreamy air.

“‘Set on thy peak under the brink

I’ll shew thee Storms above,

The stuff of kingdoms:—they shall sink

While thou dost teach me love;

On beaches white as the young Moons

I’ll sit, and fathom love.’”...

·       ·       ·       ·       ·

“And what saidst thou?” “From over sea

I felt a sighing burn

That made this jagg’d rock seem to me

More delicate than fern;

“And faint as moth-wings I could hear

Tops of the pine-tree sway

And the last words spoken in mine ear

Before the break of day.

“And I cried out agonied at heart

For her that sleeps at home,

‘Brightness, I will not know thine art,

Nor to thy country come!’

“Straightway she sank—smiling so pale—

But from the seethe up-broke—

Never thrash’d off by gust or gale—

White, everlasting smoke.

“It feels all over me with stealth

Of languor that appals;

It laps my fierce heart in a wealth

Of soft and rolling walls;

“This mist no life may pass, save these

Wave-wing’d, with shrieking voice;

Stars I discern not, nor the seas—”

“O, dost not rue thy choice?”

“Rue it? Now get back to the Deep,

For I doubt if men ye be:

No;—I must keep a steady helm

By the star I cannot see.”

Passion o’ man! we sprang to oars,

And sought on, weeping loud,

All night in earshot of the shores

But never through the cloud.

SHE COMES NOT WHEN NOON IS ON THE ROSES

She comes not when Noon is on the roses—

Too bright is Day.

She comes not to the Soul till it reposes

From work and play.

But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices

Roll in from Sea,

By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlight

She comes to me.

THE NIGHT

I put aside the branches

That clothe the Door in gloom;

A glow-worm lit the pathway

And a lamp out of her room

Shook down a stifled greeting:

How could it greet aright

The thirst of years like deserts

That led up to this night?

But she, like sighing forests,

Stole on me—full of rest,

Her hair was like the sea’s wave,

Whiteness was in her breast,—

(So does one come, at night, upon a wall of roses.)

As in a stone of crystal

The cloudy web and flaw

Turns, at a flash, to rainbows,

Wing’d I became—I saw

I sang;—but human singing

Ceased, in a burning awe.

Slow, amid leaves, in silence—

Rapt as the holy pray—

Flame into flame we trembled

And the world sank away.

MAURYA’S SONG

Rushes that grow by the black water

When will I see you more?

When will the sorrowful heart forget you,

Land of the green, green shore?

When will the field and the small cabin

See us more

In the old country?

What is to me all the gold yonder?

She that bore me is gone.

Knees that dandled and hands that blessed me

Colder than any stone;

Stranger to me than the face of strangers

Are my own

In the old country.

Vein o’ my heart, from the lone mountain

The smoke of the turf will die

And the stream that sang to the young childer

Run down alone from the sky:

On the door-stone, grass,—and the cloud lying

Where they lie

In the old country.

Tired with the day’s monotony of dreaméd joys

I turn to a requickening voice,

A voice whose low tone devastates with nightly thrill

The cities I have wrought at will:

Stone forts depart, and armies heroic flee away

Like the wild snow of spray.

Deep down the green Broceliande’s branch’d corridors

That voice of April pours;

Light as a bird’s light shadow fled across my pages

A touch disturbs the ages,

And the crags and spears of Troy and the courts of Charlemain,

Odin, and the splendid strain

Of Cuchullain’s self, that with his heart’s high brother strove,—

Fade, at the low voice I love.

YOU WERE STAY’D

You were stay’d in heart on heaven,

I by none but you forgiven,—

You unto your Light are taken,

I of all, in you, forsaken.

Where the night is never broken

Where for long no speech hath spoken,

There the ears no longer hearken,

There the eyeballs wane and darken.

Yet at hours my soul—so bounded—

By that gloom like blood surrounded—

Sees in ancient daylight burning—

Hears departed feet returning.

THE BLOOM

Who are these ancients, gnarl’d and moss’d and weigh’d

This way and that, under the sluggard blue

And shine of morning—these whose arms are laid

Low to the grasses and the sheets of dew—

These bowers ruggëd within and thickly knit

But feather’d over with a roseate white

So frail that the breeze’s touch dismantles it

And brings from cradled nurseries in flight—

Snow-soft—the petals down

In shadows green to drown?

We are the matrons. Bent are we and riven

Under such years of ripeness manifold

That unto us a special grace is given,—

To wear a virgin’s beauty being old.

Noiseless we wear it; round us in the croft

These whisperers are leaves of other trees,

Babblers that have not learn’d by fruitage oft

To shade the heart with wide serenities

On tendons knit to bear

Sweetness in stormy air.

IN THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE, VERONA

Two architects of Italy—austere

Men who could fashion nothing small—refused

To die with life, and for their purpose used

This dim and topless Amphitheatre.

Some Cæsar trench’d the orb of its ellipse

And call’d on distant provinces to swell

Resonant arches whence his World could scan,

Tier above tier, the fighters and the ships.

But Dante—having raised, as dreamer can,

Higher tenfold these walls immutable—

Sole in the night arena, grew aware

He was himself the thing spectacular

Seized by the ever-thirsting gaze of Hell,—

Here, on the empty sand, a banish’d man.

A WINTER SONG

To Alice Meynell

Lady, through grasses stiff with rime

And wraith-hung trees I wander

Where the red sun at pitch of prime

Half of his might must squander;

Narrow the track

As I look back

On traces green behind me,—

I go alone

To think upon

A face, where none

Shall find me.

Birds peal; but each grim grove its shroud

Retains, as to betoken

Though the young lawn should wave off cloud

These would have Night unbroken,—

Desire no plash

Of the Lake awash—

No gold but gold that’s glinted

In still device

From the breast of ice

Whose summer cries

Have stinted.

But in a great and glittering space

The black Elm doth restore me

To you. Empower’d with patient grace

Musing she stands before me,—

Her webs divine

Ghosted with fine

Remembrance few can capture;

Her very shade

On greenness laid

Is white,—is made

Of rapture!

THE NUTTER

1

I am the Autumn. Rising from the throne

I watch the pageant of my courtiers pass;

Chestnuts’ canary-feather’d beauty strown—

The lime’s gold tribute at his foot amass—

Then fragile jewels from the larches blown

Enrich with disarray the trembling grass,

Until the beggar’d elms, too proud to bend,

Emblaze a hundred winds with my rash kingdom’s end.

2

But look! within the beech’s burning house

Some Nutter, deaf to shouts of fellow-thieves,

Hath flung him with his crook to dream and drowse

Flush-cheek’d, alone, upon the mounded leaves.

The curious squirrel headlong from his eaves

Creeps down to mark: then drops with sudden souse;

The still-come culvers burst away—and flits

The beechmast-feasting multitude of shadowy tits.

3

Where are thy friends? Gone on to sack the glades,

My rooms of tatter’d state, not to return.

No moth-bright brambles and no rainy braids

Of ivy, mid the sheen and smoke of fern,

Could trammel-up the tempest of their raids.

Up, boy! pursue them down the misty burn!

But on his bosom tann’d, in slumber fast,

Patter’d the mimic shower of ever-dropping mast.

4

What, lad? The last of my poor banquet lose

To thy wild kin of air? For them the dell

O’er-briar’d hath lean rose-berries and yews

And scarlet fruits of ash, that ere they swell

The missel-thrushes, fluttering, poise to choose,—

Privet is theirs and briony as well,

And redwings wait for the frost-mellow’d sloe,

Their orchard is the spinney-side—Awake, and go!

5

Leaf-driven, my young October in a while

Awoke bemazed—on ragged knee arose

Snatch’d at his crook, and hid a shaméd smile

Vaulting the ruddy brambles. As he goes

Far off I hear his voice; so freshet flows

Warbling to wander many a forest mile—

So Dryad may her rooty pool forsake

Afraid, or antler’d shadow melt into the brake.

6

And I go too,—ah! not with mortal things

Naked of riches here to flutter down—

But soar and tremble in a million wings

Above the fen, the coastland, and the town

Forth by the dark sea’s sunken islands boune

Sweeping to choir Apollo where he sings

Unslain! The midsea lamp, that hears the sky

Roaring all night with passage, knows that it is I.

SHAKESPEARE

If many a daring spirit must discover

The chartless world, why should they glory lack?

Because athwart the skyline they sank over

Few, few, the shipmen be that have come back.

Yet one, wreck’d oft, hath by a giddy cord

The rugged head of Destiny regain’d—

One from the maelstrom’s lap hath swum aboard—

One from the polar sleep himself unchain’d.

But he, acquainted well with every tone

Of madness whining in his shroudage slender,

From storm and mutiny emerged alone

Self-righted from the dreadful self-surrender:

Rich from the isles where sojourn long is death

Won back to cool Thames and Elizabeth,

Sea-weary, yes, but human still, and whole,—

A circumnavigator of the soul.

NOTES

Deirdre Wed. This episode of thirty hours, delivered by the Three Voices, does not occur in any of the versions of the famous “Tragical tale of the Sons of Usnach.” But the manner of Deirdre’s wooing of Naois is based on an incident in a Gaelic version of that tale, in which, on a day (not her marriage day) Deirdre and her women companions “were out on the hillock behind the house enjoying the scene and drinking in the sun’s heat. What did they see coming but three men a-journeying. Deirdre was looking at the men that were coming, and wondering at them. When the men neared them, Deirdre remembered the language of the huntsmen and she said to herself that these were the three sons of Usnach, and that this was Naois, he having what was above the bend of his two shoulders above the men of Erin all.” The three brothers went past without taking any notice of them, and without even glancing at the young girls on the hillock. “What happened but that love for Naois struck the heart of Deirdre, so that she could not but follow after him. She trussed her raiment and went after the three men that went past the base of the knoll, leaving her women attendants there. Aillean and Ardan had heard of the women that Connachar, King of Ulster, had with him, and they thought that if Naois their brother saw her he would have her himself, more especially as she was not married to the king.” They perceived the woman coming and called on one another to hasten their steps as they had a long distance to travel and the dusk of night was coming on. They did so. She cried three times “Naois, son of Usnach, wilt thou leave me?” “What cry is that which it is not well for me to answer, and not easy for me to refuse?” Twice the brothers put him off with excuses. “But the third time Naois and Deirdre met, and Deirdre kissed Naois three times and a kiss to each of his brothers.” All other incidents in the episodic poem Deirdre Wed are new.

Fintan; Urmael; Cir. These were old bards. I have myself found and explored a tomb like that of Cir, caverned through a hill-ridge, not far from Eman and Armagh, just as it is described in the poem. But the curious may rediscover it for themselves.

Connachar. This king, or terrestrial divinity, is generally known as Conchobar, or Conor, King of Ulster (Uladh) and Arch-King of Ireland. He is chronicled as reigning about the time of the Incarnation of Christ.

Eman, or Emain Macha, was the chief palace of Connachar. It is still seen and named in the “Navan Ring”—enormous earthworks on a hill about two miles west of Armagh. The people from the town and country side still go up to dance there on holidays. Traces of the Lake of Pearls—where jewels were cast in on a sudden flight, lie in a marsh under Eman. The Callan, or “loud-sounding” river, runs not very far off.

Dun Aengus. A prehistoric stone fortress—singularly vast—on the edge of the cliffs of Arran Môr, an island in the Atlantic, west of Galway. The walls are very massive, and lie half-circle-wise, as if half had broken off and fallen into the sea.

PRINTED BY

TURNBULL AND SPEARS,

EDINBURGH

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page

Changed from

Changed to

71

With volcelest over the hills of morn

With voiceless over the hills of morn

- Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEIRDRE WED AND OTHER POEMS ***

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Table of Contents

DEIRDRE WED AND OTHER POEMS

CONTENTS

DEIRDRE WED

I THE CHANTERS

II VOICE OF FINTAN out of the First Century,

III VOICE OF CIR out of a Century more remote, but unknown,

IV VOICE OF URMAEL out of the Sixth Century

V VOICE OF FINTAN again, out of the First Century,

OTHER POEMS

ODE ON A SILVER BIRCH in St James’ Park

A CHARGE

SONG FOR THE FUNERAL OF A BOY

COME, LET US MAKE LOVE DEATHLESS

CLAVIERS AT NIGHT

SPINET

HARPSICHORD

CLAVICHORD

THE MAN DIGGING

SCHIEHALLION

THE SHELL

THE ROCK OF CLOUD

SHE COMES NOT WHEN NOON IS ON THE ROSES

THE NIGHT

MAURYA’S SONG

YOU WERE STAY’D

THE BLOOM

IN THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE, VERONA

A WINTER SONG

THE NUTTER

SHAKESPEARE

NOTES

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