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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES

The Writings of
"FIONA MACLEOD

> »

UNIFORM EDITION

ARRANGED BY

MRS. WILLIAM SHARP

Poems

and

Dramas

''FIONA MACLEOD"

(WILLIAM SHARP)

NEW YORK

DUFFIELD & COMPANY

igri

THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK

£3 SO

v.. 7

FROM THE HILLS OF
DREAM

THRENODIES, SONGS AND
OTHER POEMS

200457

'As Love on buried ecstasy huildeth his tower.'"

Robert Bridges.

TO A MEMORY

THE HILLS OF DREAM
St. John's Eve 1901

There has been twilight here, since one whom some
name Life and some Death slid between us the little
shadow that is the unfathomable dark and silence. In
a grave deeper than is hollowed under the windsweet
grass lies that which was so passing fair.

Who plays the Song of Songs upon the Hills of
Dream.? It is said Love is that reed-player, for
there is no song like his.

But to-day I saw one, on these dim garths of shadow
and silence, who put a reed to his lips and played a
white spell of beauty. Then I knew Love and Death
to be one, as in the old myth of Oengus of the White
Birds and the Grey Shadows.

Here are the broken airs that once you loved. . . .

' ' The fable- flowering land wherein they grew
Hath dreams for stars, and grey romance for dew."

They are but the breath of what has been: only are
they for this, that they do the will of beauty and regret.

"The great winding sheets that bury all things in
oblivion, are two: Love, that makes oblivious of Life;
and Death, that obliterates Love."

' ' Was it because I desired thee darkly, that thou
could'st not know the white spell? Or was it that the
white spell could not reach thy darkness? One god
debaieth this: and another god answereth this: but one
god knoweth it. With him be the issue."

AN LEABHAR bXn.

{The Book of White Magic.)

"My wisdom became pregnant on lonely mountains;
upon rugged stones she bore her young.

"Now she runneth strangely through the hard desert

and seeketh, and ever seeketh for soft grass, mine own

old wisdom."

Nietzsche.

CONTENTS

The signs ♦ and o relate to dates of publication. See
Bibliographical Note.

POEMS

PACE

From the Hills of Dream 17

White Star of Time 18

Eilidh my Fawn 0.19

Thy Dark Eyes to Mine 20

Green Branches 21

Shule, Shule, Shule, Agrah! . . . . 22

Lord of my Life . 24

The Lonely Hunter 26

° Cor Cordium 28

The Rose of Flame 29

Isla 31

An Immortal 32

The Vision 33

Pulse of my Heart 34

Mo-Lennav-a-Chree 36

Hushing Song 38

My Birdeen 39

Lullaby 4°

The Bugles of Dreamland 42

Morag of the Glen 44

The Hills of Ruel 45

Contents

Sheiling Song

° The Bandruidh

The Moon-Child . .

The Rune of the Four Winds

° Dream Fantasy ,

Mater Consolatrix

PAGE

49
50

52
54
56

CLOSING DOORS

At the Last 60

In the Shadow 61

The Star of Beauty 63

An Old Tale of Three 64

The Burthen of the Tide 66

When the Dew is Falling 68

° The Voice Among the Dunes .... 69

The Undersong ....... 70

Dead Love 71

The Soul's Armageddon 72

° Day and Night 73

The White Peace 74

° The Lost Star ....... 75

The Rune of Age 76

Miann 79

Desire 79

FROM THE HEART OF A WOMAN

The Prayer of Women .... 83

The Rune of the Passion of Woman . . 86

The Rune of the Sorrow of Women . . . 92

The Shepherd 97

Contents

FOAM OF THE PAST

Dedication

PAGE

Leaves, Shadows, and Dreams
The Lament of Ian the Proud

° Deirdre is Dead

Heart o' Beauty

The Monody of Isla the Singer .

White-Hands

° The Desire and the Lamentation of Coel

Dalua

The Song of Fionula ....
° The Song of Aeifa ....
The Sorrow of the House of Lir .

* The Chant of Ardan the Pict .
The Lamentation of Balva the Monk .
The Last Night of Artan the Culdee
Oona of the Dark Eyes and the Crying of
° The Love-Song of Drostan
The Cup ......

* The Love-Chant of Cormac Conhngas

* The Death-Dirge for Cathal

* The Death Dance

* The End of Aodh-of-the-Songs .
The Lament of Darthool
The Love- Kiss of Dermid and Grainne
The Tryst of Queen Hynde .
The Song of Ahez the Pale .
° * The War-Song of the Vikings
The Crimson ]\Ioon

* The Washer of the Ford .
Tiie Mourners ....

Wind

1 1

1 2
15

:i8
: 20

25
26

27
28

t30

■S3
^34
^36
^38
[39
i4i
^43
:45
^46
:48
ESI
54
:55
:56

59
[61

Contents

PAGE

* Milking Sian .....

. . i6s

* The Kye-Song of St. Bride

. i66

* St. Bride's Lullaby ....

. i68

° * The Bird of Christ ....

. 170

** The Meditation of Colum ,

. 172

° St. Christopher of the Gael

. 174

° The Cross of the Dumb

. 189

Naoi Miannain

• 197

THROUGH THE IVORY GATE

The Secret Dews 201

The Enchanted Valleys 202

The Valley of White Poppies . . . .203

The Valley of Silence 204

Dream Meadows 205

Grey Pastures 207

Longing 208

The Singer in the Woods 209

By the Grey Stone 211

The Valley of Pale Blue Flowers . . .213

Remembrance 215

The Veiled Avenger 216

The Bells of Sorrow 218

The Unknown Wind 220

Cantilena Mundi 221

Little Children of the Wind . . . .222

In the Silences of the Woods . . . .223

° In the Night 224

The Lords of Shadow 225

Invocation of Peace 227

Contents
THE DIRGE OF THE FOUR CITIES

PAGE

The Dirge of the Four Cities . . . .231
Finias . . . . . . . . » 233

Falias 234

Gorias 236

Murias 238

THE HOUR OF BEAUTY

Dim Face of Beauty 243

Dreams within Dreams 244

A Cry on the Wind 245

Vale, Amor ! 248

Flame on the Wind 249

The Rose of the Night . . . . . .251

I-Brasil 252

Love and Sorrow 253

Song-in-My-Heart 254

Mo Bron! 256

Sorrow 257

The Founts of Song 259

On a Redbreast Singing at the Grave of Plato 262
The Bells of Youth ...... 265

Song of Apple -Trees 267

R6seen-Dhu . .• 269

The Shrewmouse 271

The Last Fay 272

The Dirge of "Clan Siubhail" . . . .274

The Exile ' . . .275

The Shadow 276

Oran-Bhroin 27 S

At the Coming of the Wild Swans . . .280
The Weaver of Snow 282

Contents

PAGE

A Song of Dreams . . ... 283

Easter ... 284

When There is Peace 285

Time 286

Invocation 287

The Secret Gate 289

The Mystic's Prayer 291

DRAMAS

Foreword 297

The Immortal Hour 3^5

The House of Usna 397

BibUographical Note by Mrs. William Sharp . 451
To "Fiona Macleod," Sonnet by Alfred Noyes. 457

POEMS

FROM THE HILLS OF DREAM

' / would not find;

For when I find, I know
I shall have claspt the wandering wind

And built a house of snow."

FROM THE HILLS OF DREAM

Across the silent stream

Where the sUimber-shadows go,
From the dim blue Hills of Dream

I have heard the west wind blow.

Who hath seen that fragrant land,
Who hath seen that unscanned west ?

Only the listless hand

And the unpulsing breast.

But when the west wind blows

I see moon-lances gleam
Where the Host of Faerie flows

Athwart the Hills of Dream.

And a strange song I have heard

By a shadowy stream,
And the singing of a snow-white bird

On the Hills of Dream.

WHITE STAR OF TIME

Each love-thought in thy mind doth rise
As some white cloud at even,

Till in sweet dews it falls on me
Athirst for thee, my Heaven!

My Heaven, my Heaven, thou art so far !

Stoop, since I cannot climb :
I would this wandering fire were lost

In thee, white Star of Time !

EILIDH MY FAWN

Far away upon the hills at the lighting of the

dawn
I saw a stirring in the fern and out there leapt

a fawn :
And O my heart was up at that and like the

wind it blew
Till its shadow hovered o'er the fawn as 'mid

the fern it flew.

And Eilidh ! Eilidh ! Eilidh ! was the wind song

on the hill,
And Eilidh ! Eilidh ! Eilidh ! did the echoing

corries fill :
My hunting heart was glad indeed, at the

lighting of the dawn,
For O it was the hunting then of my bonnie,

bonnie Fawn !

THY DARK EYES TO MINE

Thy dark eyes to mine, Eilidh,

Lamps of desire !
O how my soul leaps

Leaps to their fire !

Sure, now, if I in heaven.

Dreaming in bliss,
Heard but a whisper,
But the lost echo even

Of one such kiss —

All of the Soul of me

Would leap afar —
If that called me to thee
Aye, I would leap afar

A falling star !

GREEN BRANCHES

Wave, wave, green branches, wave me far
away

To where the forest deepens and the hill-
winds, sleeping, stay :

Where Peace doth fold her twilight wings, and
through the heart of day

There goes the rumour of passing hours grown
faint and grey.

Wave, wave, green branches, my heart like a

bird doth hover
Above the nesting-place your green-gloom

shadows cover :
O come to my nesting heart, come close, come

close, bend over,
Joy of my heart, my life, my prince, my lover !

SHULE, SHULE, SHULE, AGRAH!^

His face was glad as dawn to me,
His breath was sweet as dusk to me,
His eyes were burning flames to me,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah !

The broad noon-day was night to me,
The full-moon night was dark to me,
The stars whirled and the poles span
The hour God took him far from me.

Perhaps he dreams in heaven now.
Perhaps he doth in worship bow,
A white flame round his foam-white brow,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah!

I laugh to think of him like this.
Who once found all his joy and bliss
Against my heart, against my kiss,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah!

' I do not give the correct spelling of the Gaelic.
The line signifies "Move, move, move to me, my
Heart's Love."

Shiile, Shule, Shule, Agrah!

Star of my joy, art still the same
Now thou hast gotten a new name?
Pulse of my heart, my Blood, my Flame,
Shule, Shule, Shule, agrah !

LORD OF MY LIFE

He laid his dear face next to mine,
His eyes aflame burned close to mine,
His heart to mine, his lips to mine,
O he was mine, all mine, all mine.

Drunk with old wine of love I was,
Drunk as the wild bee in the grass :
Yea, as the wild bee in the grass,
Drunk, drunk, with wine of love I was !

His lips of life to me were fief.
Beneath him I was but a leaf
Blown by the wind, a shaken leaf.
Yea, as the sickle reaps the sheaf,

My Grief!
He reaped me as a gathered sheaf !

His to be gathered, his the bliss.
But not a greater bliss than this !
All of the empty world to miss
For wild redemption of his kiss!

My Grief!

Lord of my Life

For hell was lost, though heaven was brief
Sphered in the universe of thy kiss —
So cries to thee thy fallen leaf,
Thy gathered sheaf,
Lord of my life, my Pride, my Chief,

My Grief!

THE LONELY HUNTER

Green branches, green branches, I see you

beckon ; I follow !
Sweet is the place you guard, there in the

rowan-tree hollow.
There he lies in the darkness, under the frail

white flowers.
Heedless at last, in the silence, of these sweet

midsummer hours.

But sweeter, it may be, the moss whereon he

is sleeping now.
And sweeter the fragrant flowers that may

crown his moon-white brow :
And sweeter the shady place deep in an Eden

hollow
Wherein he dreams I am with him — and,

dreaming, whispers, " Follow ! "

Green wind from the green-gold branches,

what is the song you bring?
What are all songs for me, now, who no more

care to sing?

The Lonely Hunter

Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is Hfe to

me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on

a lonely hill.

Green is that hill and lonely, set far in a
shadowy place;

White is the hunter's quarry, a lost-loved hu-
man face :

O hunting heart, shall you find it, with arrow
of failing breath.

Led o'er a green hill lonely by the shadowy
hound of Death?

Green branches, green branches, you sing of
a sorrow olden.

But now it is midsummer weather, earth-
young, sunripe, golden :

Here I stand and I wait, here in the rowan-
tree hollow,

But never a green leaf whispers, " Follow, oh.
Follow, Follow ! "

O never a green leaf whispers, where the

green-gold branches swing:
O never a song I hear now, where one was

wont to sing
Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to

me still.
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on

a lonely hill.

COR CORDIUM

Sweet Heart, true heart, strong heart, star of
my Hfe, oh, never

For thee the lowered banner, the lost en-
deavour !

The weapons are still unforged that thee and
me shall dissever,

For I in thy heart have dwelling, and thou
hast in mine for ever.

Can a silken cord strangle love, or a steel
sword sever?

Or be as a bruised reed, the flow'r of joy for
ever ?

Love is a beautiful dream, a deathless en-
deavour.

And for thee the lowered banner, O Sweet
Heart never!

THE ROSE OF FLAME

Oh, fair immaculate rose of the world, rose

of my dream, my Rose!
Beyond the ultimate gates of dream I have

heard thy mystical call :
It is where the rainbow of hope suspends and

the river of rapture flows —
And the cool sweet dews from the wells of

peace for ever fall.

And all my heart is aflame because of the rap-
ture and peace.

And I dream, in my waking dreams and deep
in the dreams of sleep,

Till the high sweet wonderful call that shall
be the call of release

Shall ring in my ears as I sink from gulf to
gulf and from deep to deep

Sink deep, sink deep beyond the ultimate
dreams of all desire —

Beyond the uttermost limit of all that the crav-
ing spirit knows:

The Rose of Flame

Then, then, oh then I shall be as the inner

flame of thy fire,
O fair immaculate rose of the world, Rose of

my dream, my Rose !

ISLA

Isla, Isia, heart of my heart, it is you alone I

am loving —
Pulse my life, my flame, my joy, love is a

bitter thing!
Love has its killing pain, they say — and you

alone I am loving —
Isla, Isla, my pride, my king, love is a bitter

thing !

Isla, Isla, in the underworld where the elfin

music is,
There we shall meet one day at last, as the

wave with the wind o' the south !
Then you shall cry, " My Dream, my Queen ! "

and crown me with your kiss.
And I to my Kingdom come, my king, my

mouth to thy mouth !

AN IMMORTAL

"For a mortal love an Immortal may be shapen."

Child of no mortal birth, that yet doth live,
Where loiterest thou, O blossom of our joy?
Unsummon'd hence, dost thou, knowing all,

forgive ?
Thy rainbow-rapture, doth it never cloy?
O exquisite dream, dear child of our desire,
On mounting wings flitt'st thou afar from

here?
We cannot reach thee who dost never tire,
Sweet phantom of delight, appear, appear!
How lovely thou must be, wrought in strange

fashion
From out the very breath and soul of pas-
sion . . .
With eyes as proud as his, my lover, thy sire,
When seeking through the twilight of my hair
He finds the suddenly secret flame deep hid-
den there.
Twin torches flashing into fire.

THE VISION

In a fair place

Of whin and grass,
I heard feet pass
Where no one was.

I saw a face

Bloom like a flower —

Nay, as the rain-bow shower
Of a tempestuous hour.

It was not man, nor woman :
It was not human :
But, beautiful and wild
Terribly undefiled,
I knew an unborn child.

PULSE OF MY HEART

Are these your eyes, Isla,
That look into mine?

Is this smile, this laugh,
Thine ?

Heart of me, dear,

O pulse of my heart,
This is our child, our child —

And ... we apart !

Wrought of thy life, Isla,
Wrought in my womb,

Never to feel thy kiss ! —
Ah, bitter doom.

Hush, hush: within thine eyes

His eyes I see . . .
Soft as a bird's sighs
Thy breathings rise! . . .
If there be Paradise
For him and me

(Who hold it but a dream
Because of bitter fate)
The first supernal gleam

Pulse of my Heart

Beyond the flame-swept gate
Shall be thine eyes when thou drawest near-
None other shall it be
Who his lost hands, with mine, and thine
In love refound, shall intertwine . . .
But now, alas, alas, we are far apart,
My baby dear.

Pulse of my Heart!

MO-LENNAV-A-CHREE

Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, dear to me, dear and

sweet,
In dreams I am hearing the sound of your Ht-

tle running feet —
The sound of your running feet that Hke the

sea-hoofs beat
A music by day an' night, EiHdh, on the

sands of my heart, my Sweet !

Eilidh, bhie i' the eyes, flower-sweet as chil-
dren are,

And white as the canna that blows with the
hill-breast wind afar,

Whose is the light in thine eyes — the light of
a star? — a star

That sitteth supreme where the starry lights
of heaven a glory are !

Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, put off your wee hands

from the heart o' me.
It is pain they are making there, where no

more pain should be :

Mo-Lennav-a-Chree

For little running feet, an' wee white hands,

an' croodlin' as of the sea,
Bring tears to my eyes, Eilidh, tears, tears, out
of the heart o' me —

Mo-lennav-a-chree,
Mo-lennav-a-chree !

200457

HUSHING SONG

Eilidh, Eilidh,

My bonny wee lass :
The winds blow,

And the hours pass.

But never a wind
Can do thee wrong,

Brown Birdeen, singing
Thy bird-heart song.

And never an hour
But has for thee

Blue of the heaven
And green of the sea :

Blue for the hope of thee,

Eilidh, Eilidh ;
Green for the joy of thee,

EiHdh, Eilidh.

Swing in they nest, then,
Here on my heart,
Birdeen, Birdeen,
Here on my heart.
Here on my heart !

MY BIRDEEN

On bonnie birdeen,

Sweet-bird of my heart —
Tell me, my dear one,

How shall we part ?

He calls me, he cries
Who is father to thee :

O birdeen, his eyes

In these blue eyes I see.

Thou art wrought of our love,
Of our joy that was slain:

My birdeen, my dove,
My passion, my pain.

LULLABY
Lennavan-mo,
Lenna van-mo,

Who is it swinging you to and fro,
With a long low swing and a sweet low croon,
And the loving words of the mother's rune?

Lennavan-mo,

Who is it swinging you to and fro ?

I am thinking it is an angel fair,

The Angel that looks on the gulf from the

lowest stair
And swings the green world upward by its

leagues of sunshine hair.

Lennavan-mo,

Who swingeth you and the Angel to and fro ?

It is He whose faintest thought is a world afar,

It is He whose wish is a leaping seven-moon'd

star,
It is He, Lennavan-mo,
To whom you and I and all things flow.

Lullaby

Lennavan-mo,
Lennavan-mo,
It is only a little wee lass you are, Eilidh-mo-

chree,
But as this wee blossom has roots in the depths

of the sky,
So you are at one with the Lord of Eternity —
Bonnie wee lass that you are.
My morning-star,
Eilidh-mo-chree, Lennavan-mo,
Lennavan-mo.

THE BUGLES OF DREAMLAND

Swiftly the dews of the gloaming are falling:

Faintly the bugles of Dreamland are calling.

O hearken, my darling, the elf-flutes are

blowing
The shining-eyed folk from the hillside are

flowing,
r the moonshine the wild-apple blossoms are

, snowing,
And louder and louder where the white dews

are falling
The far-away bugles of Dreamland are call-
ing.

O what are the bugles of Dreamland calling
There where the dews of the gloaming are
falling?
Come away from the weary old world of

tears,
Come away, come away to where one never

hears
The slow weary drip of the slow weary
years,

The Bugles of Dreamland

But peace and deep rest till the white dews

are falling
And the blithe bugle-laughters through

Dreamland are calling.

Then bugle for us, where the cool dews are

falling,
O bugle for us, wild elf-flutes now calling —
For Heart's-love and I are too weary to wait
For the dim drowsy whisper that cometh

too late.
The dim muffled whisper of blind empty

fate—
O the world's well lost now the dream-dews

are falling.
And the bugles of Dreamland about us are

calling.

MORAG OF THE GLEN

When Morag of the Glen was fey

They took her where the Green Folk stray:

And there they left her, night and day,

A day and night they left her, fey.

And when they brought her home again,
Aye of the Green Folk was she fain :
They brought her leannan, Roy M'Lean,
She looked at him with proud disdain.

For I have killed a man, she said,
A better man than you to wed :
I slew him when he clasped my head.
And now he sleepeth with the dead.

And did you see that little wren?
My sister dear it was flew, then !
That skull her home, that eye her den,
Her song is Morag o' the Glen!

For when she went I did not go,
But washed my hands in blood-red woe ,*
O wren, trill out your sweet song's flow
Morag is white as the driven snow!

THE HILLS OF RUEL

" Over the hills and far away " —
That is the tune I heard one day
When heather-drowsy I lay and listened
And watched where the stealthy sea-tide glis-
tened.

Beside me there on the Hills of Ruel
An old man stooped and gathered fuel —
And I asked him this : if his son were dead,
As the folk in Glendaruel all said,
How could he still believe that never
Duncan had crossed the shadowy river.

Forth from his breast the old man drew
A lute that once on a rowan-tree grew :
And, speaking no words, began to play
" Over the hills and far away."

" But how do you know," I said, thereafter,
"That Duncan has heard the fairy laughter?
How do you know he has followed the cruel
Honey-sweet folk of the Hills of Ruel?"

The Hills of Ruel

" How do I know? " the old man said,
" Sure I know well my boy's not dead :
For late on the morrow they hid him, there
Where the black earth moistens his yellow hair,
I saw him alow on the moor close by,
I watched him low on the hillside lie,
An' I heard him laughin' wild up there.
An' talk, talk, talkin' beneath his hair —
For down o'er his face his long hair lay
But I saw it was cold and ashy grey.

Aye, laughin' and talkin' wild he was,
An' that to a Shadow out on the grass,
A Shadow that made my blood go chill,
For never its like have I seen on the hill.
An' the moon came up, and the stars grew

white,
An' the hills grew black in the bloom o' the

night,
An' I watched till the death-star sank in the

moon
And the moonmaid fled with her flittermice

shoon,
Then the Shadow that lay on the moorside

there
Rose up and shook its wildmoss hair.
And Duncan he laughed no more, but grey
As the rainy dust of a rainy day.
Went over the hills and far away."

The Hills of Ruel

" Over the hills and far away "
That is the tune I heard one day.
O that I too might hear the cruel
Honey-sweet folk of the Hills of Ruel.

SHEILING SONG

I go where the sheep go,
With the sheep are my feet :

I go where the kye go,
Their breath is so sweet :

O lover who loves me,

Art thou half so fleet?
Where the sheep climb, the kye go,

There shall we meet !

THE BANDRUIDH^

My robe is of green,

My crown is of stars —
The grass is the green

And the daisies the stars :
O'er lochan and streamlet

My breath moveth sweet . . .
Bonnie blue lochans,

Hillwaters fleet.

The song in my heart

Is the song of the birds,-
And the wind in my heart

Is the lowing of herds :
The light in my eyes,

And the breath of my mouth,
!Are the clouds of spring-skies

And the sound of the South.

(The Airs of Spring)

Grass-green from thy mouth
The sweet sound of the South !

' The Bandruidh — lit. the Druidess, i. e. the Sor-
ceress: poetically, the Green Lady, i.e. Spring.

THE MOON-CHILD

A little lonely child am I

That have not any soul :
God made me as the homeless wave,

That has no goal.

A seal my father was, a seal

That once was man :
My mother loved him tho' he was

'Neath mortal ban.

He took a wave and drowned her.
She took a wave and lifted him :

And I was born where shadows are
In sea-depths dim.

All through the sunny blue-sweet hours
I swim and glide in waters green :

Never by day the mournful shores
By me are seen.

But when the gloom is on the wave
A shell unto the shore I bring:

And then upon the rocks I sit
And plaintive sing.

The Moon-Child

I have no playmate but the tide
The seaweed loves with dark brown eyes

The night-waves have the stars for play,
For me but sighs.

THE RUNE OF THE FOUR WINDS

By the Voice in the corries
When the Polestar danceth :

By the Voice on the summits
The dead feet know :

By the soft wet cry

When the Heat-star troubleth :

By the plaining and moaning
Of the Sigh of the Rainbows :

By the four white winds of the world,
Whose father the golden Sun is,
Whose mother the wheeling Moon is.
The North and the South and the East and

the West:
By the four good winds of the world,
That Man knoweth.
That One dreadeth.
That God blesseth —

Be all well

On mountain and moorland and lea.
On loch-face and lochan and river.

On shore and shallow and sea !

The Rune of the Four Winds

By the Voice of the Hollow
Where the worm dwelleth :

By the Voice of the Hollow
Where the sea-wave stirs not:

By the Voice of the Hollow
That sun hath not seen yet:

By the three dark winds of the world ;
The chill dull breath of the Grave,
The breath from the depths of the Sea,
The breath of To-morrow :
By the white and dark winds of the world,
The four and the three that are seven,
That Man knoweth,
That One dreadeth.
That God blesseth —

Be all well

On mountain and moorland and lea,
On loch-face and lochan and river,

On shore and shallow and sea !

DREAM FANTASY

"7/ Death Sleep's brother be,
And souls bereft of sense have so sweet dreams.
How could I wish thus still to dream and die!

{Madrigal)
William Drummond of Hawthornden.

There is a land of Dream ;
I have trodden its golden ways :
I have seen its amber light
From the heart of its sun-swept days ;
I have seen its moonshine white
On its silent waters gleam —
Ah, the strange sweet lonely delight
Of the Valleys of Dream.

Ah, in that Land of Dream,
The mystical moon-white land,
Comes from what unknown sea —
Adream on what unknown strand —
A sound as of feet that flee,
As of multitudes that stream
From the shores of that shadowy sea
Through the Valleys of Dream.

Dream Fantasy

It is dark in the Land of Dream.

There is silence in all the Land.

Are the dead all gathered there —

In havens, by no breath fanned?

This stir i' the dawn, this chill wan air —

This faint dim yellow of morning-gleam-

O is this sleep, or waking where

Lie hush'd the Valleys of Dream?

MATER CONSOLATRIX

Heart's-joy must fade . . . though it borrow

Heaven's azure for its clay :
But the Joy that is one with Sorrow,

Treads an immortal way:
For each, is born To-morrow,

For each, is Yesterday.

Joy that is clothed with shadow

Shall arise from the dead :
But Joy that is clothed with the rainbow

Shall with the bow be sped : . . .
Where the Sun spends his fires is she,

And where the Stars are led.

CLOSING DOORS

O sands of my heart, what wind moans low
along thy shadowy shore?

Is that the deep sea-heart I hear with the dying
sob at its core?

Each dim lost wave that lapses is like a clos-
ing door :

'Tis closing doors they hear at last who soon
shall hear no more.

Who soon shall hear no more.

Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, call low, come back, call
low to me :

My heart you have broken, your troth for-
saken, but love even yet can be :

Come near, call low, for closing doors are as
the waves o' the sea,

Once closed they are closed for ever, Eilidh,
lost, lost, for thee and me.

Lost, lost, for thee and me.

AT THE LAST

She Cometh no more :
Time, too, is dead.
The last tide is led
From the last shore.
Eternity . . .
What is Eternity?
But the sea coming.
The sea going,
For evermore.

IN THE SHADOW

O she will have the deep dark heart, for all

her face is fair ;
As deep and dark as though beneath the

shadow of her hair:
For in her hair a spirit dwells that no white

spirit is,
And hell is in the hopeless heaven of that lost

spirit's kiss.

She has two men within the palm, the hollow

of her hand :
She takes their souls and blows them forth

as idle drifted sand :
And one falls back upon her breast that is his

quiet home,
And one goes out into the night and is as

wind-blown foam.

And when she sees the sleep of one, ofttimes

she rises there
And looks into the outer dark and calleth soft

and fair:

. 6i

In the Shadozv

And then the lost soul that afar within the
dark doth roam

Comes laughing, laughing, laughing, and cry-
ing, Home ! Home !

There is no home in faithless love, O fool that

deems her fair:
Bitter and drear that home you seek, the name

of it, Despair:
Drown, drown beneath the sterile kiss of the

engulfing wave,
A heaven of peace it is beside this mockery

of a grave.

THE STAR OF BEAUTY

It dwells not in the skies,
My Star of Beauty !

'Twas made of her sighs,

Her tears and agonies.

The fire in her eyes,

My Star of Beauty !

Lovely and delicate,

My Star of Beauty !
How could she master Fate,
Although she gave back hate
Great as my love was great.
My Star of Beauty !

I loved, she hated, well:
My Star of Beauty !

Soon, soon the passing bell:

She rose, and I fell :

Soft shines in deeps of hell
My Star of Beauty !

AN OLD TALE OF THREE

Ah, bonnie darling, lift your dark eyes dream-
ing!

See, the firelight fills the gloaming, though
deep darkness grows without —

[Hush, dear, hush, I hear the sea-birds

screaming.
And down beyond the haven the tide comes

with a shout!]

Ah, birdeen, sweetheart, sure he is not coming,
He who has your hand in his, while I have
all your heart —

[Hush, dear, hush, I hear the wild bees hum-
ming

Far away in the underworld where true love
shall not part 1]

Darling, darling, darling, all the world is sing-
ing,
Singing, singing, singing a song of joy for me !

An Old Tale of Three

[Hush, dear, hush, what wild sea-wind is

bringing
Gloom o' the sea about thy brow, athwart the

eyes of thee?]

Ah, heart o' me, darling, darling, all my heart's
' aflame !

Sure, at the last we are all in all, all in all we
two!

At the Door
A Voice

This is the way I take my own, this is the boon

I claim !
Sure at the last, ye are all in all, all in all, ye

two —

(Later, in the dark, the living brooding
beside the dead: — )

Ah, hell of my heart! Ye are dust to me —
and dust with dust may woo !

THE BURTHEN OF THE TIDE

The tide was dark an' heavy with the burden

that it bore,
I heard it talkin', whisperin', upon the weedy

shore :
Each wave that stirred the sea-weed was like

a closing door,
'Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear

no more, no more,

My Grief,
No more !

The tide was in the salt sea-weed, and like a

knife it tore.
The hoarse sea-wind went moaning, sooing,

moaning o'er and o'er,
The wild sea-heart was brooding deep upon

its ancient lore,
I heard the sob, the sooing sob, the dying sob

at its core.

My Grief,
Its core !

The Burthen of the Tide

The white sea-waves were wan and grey its
ashy Hps before ;

The whirled spume between its jaws in floods
did seaward pour —

O whisperin' weed, O wild sea-waves, O hol-
low baffled roar,

Since one thou hast, O dark dim Sea, why
callest thou for more.

My Grief,
For more.

WHEN THE DEW IS FALLING

When the dew is falling
I have heard a calling

Of aerial sweet voices o'er the low green hill;
And when the noon is dying
I have heard a crying

Where the brown burn slippeth thro' the hol-
lows green and still. ■"

And O the sorrow upon me,

The grey grief upon me,

For a voice that whispered once, and now for

aye is still :
O heart forsaken, calling
When the dew is falling,
To the one that comes not ever o'er the low

green hill.

THE VOICE AMONG THE DUNES

I have heard the sea-wind sighing
Where the dune-grasses grow,

The sighing of the dying
Where the salt tides flow.

For where the salt tides flow
The sullen dead are lifting

Tired arms, and to and fro
Are idly drifting.

So through the grey dune-grasses

Not the wind only cries,
But a dim sea-wrought Shadow

Breathes drowned sighs.

THE UNDERSONG

I hear the sea-song of the blood in my heart,
I hear the sea-song of the blood in my ears:
And I am far apart,
And lost in the years.

But when I lie and dream of that which was
Before the first man's shadow flitted on the

grass,
I am stricken dumb
With sense of that to come.

Is then this wildering sea-song but a part
Of the old song of the mystery of the years —
Or only the echo of the tired heart
And of tears?

DEAD LOVE

FROM THE GAELIC

{Heard sung by an old woman of the
Island of Tiree.)

It is the grey rock I am,
And grey rain on the rock:
It is the grey wave ...
That grey hound.

What (is it) to be old:

(It is to be as) the grey moss in winter:

Alasdair-mo-ghaol ,

It is long since my laughter.

Alasdair-mo-ghaol,
The breast is shrivelled
That you said was white
As canna in wind.

THE SOUL'S ARMAGEDDON

I know not where I go,
O Wind that calls afar:

0 Wind that calls for war,
Where the Death-Moon doth glow
In a darkness without star.

Nor do I know the blare
Of the bugles that call :
Nor who rise, nor who fall :
Nor if the torches flare
Where the gods laugh, or crawL

But I hear, I hear the hum,
The multitudinous cry.
Where myriads fly.
And I hear a voice say, Come:
And the same voice say. Die !

What is the war, O Wind?
Lo, without shield or spear
How can I draw it near?

1 am deaf and dumb and blind
With immeasurable fear.

DAY AND NIGHT

From grey of dusk, the veils unfold
To pearl and amethyst and gold —

Thus is the new day woven and spun :

From glory of blue to rainbow-spray,
From sunset-gold to violet-grey —
Thus is the restful night re-won.

THE WHITE PEACE

It lies not on the sunlit hill

Nor on the sunlit plain :
Nor ever on any running stream

Nor on the unclouded main —

But sometimes, through the Soul of Man,

Slow moving o'er his pain.
The moonlight of a perfect peace

Floods heart and brain.

THE LOST STAR

A star was loosed from heaven ;

All saw it fall, in wonder,
Where universe clashed universe

With solar thunder.

The angels praised God's glory,
To send this beacon-flare

To show the terror of darkness
Beneath the Golden Stair.

But God was brooding only
Upon new births of light ;

The star was a drop of water
On the hps of Eternal Light.

THE RUNE OF AGE

O thou that on the hills and wastes of Night

art Shepherd,
Whose folds are flameless moons and icy

planets,
Whose darkling way is gloomed with ancient

sorrows :
Whose breath lies white as snow upon the

olden,
Whose sigh it is that furrows breasts grown

milkless,
Whose weariness is in the loins of man
And is the barren stillness of the woman :
O thou whom all would flee, and all must

meet,
Thou that the Shadow art of Youth Eter-
nal,
The gloom that is the hush'd air of the

Grave,
The sigh that is between last parted love.
The light for aye withdrawing from weary

eyes,
The tide from stricken hearts for ever

ebbing !

The Rune of Age

O thou the Elder Brother whom none loveth,
Whom all men hail with reverence or mocking,
Who broodcst on the brows of frozen summits
Yet (Ireamcst in the eyes of babes and chil-
dren :
Thou, Shadow of the Heart, the Mind, the

Life,
Who art that dusk What-is that is already

Has-Been,
To thee this rune of the fathers to the sons
And of the sons to the sons, and mothers to

new mothers —
To thee who art Aois,
To thee who art Age !

Breathe thy frosty breath upon my hair, for
I am weary !

Lay thy frozen hand upon my bones that they
support not,

Put thy chill upon the blood that it sustain
not;

Place the crown of thy fulfilling on my fore-
head;

Throw the silence of thy spirit on my spirit ;

Lay the balm and benediction of thy mercy

On the brain-throb and the heart-pulse and the
life-spring —

For thy child that bows his head is weary.

The Rune of Age

I the shadow am that seeks the Darkness.
Age, that hath the face of Night unstarr'd

and moonless,
Age, that doth extinguish star and planet,
Moon and sun and all the fiery worlds,
Give me now thy darkness and thy silence !

MIANN

Miann ghaol, Sonas:

Miami hhithe, Sith:

Miann anama, Flathas:

Miann Dhe . . . gile run gu brath.

DESIRE

The desire of love, Joy:
The desire of Hfe, Peace :
The desire of the soul, Heaven :
The desire of God ... a fiame-white secret
for ever.

FROM THE HEART OF A
WOMAN

THE PRAYER OF WOMEN

O spirit that broods upon the hills

And moves upon the face of the deep,

And is heard in the wind,

Save us from the desire of men's eyes,

And the cruel lust of them.

Save us from the springing of the cruel seed

In that narrow house which is as the grave

For darkness and loneliness . . .

That women carry with them with shame, and

weariness, and long pain,
Only for the laughter of man's heart,
And for the joy that triumphs therein,
And the sport that is in his heart.
Wherewith he mocketh us,
Wherewith he playeth with us.
Wherewith he trampleth upon us . . .
Us, who conceive and bear him ;
Us, who bring him forth ;
Who feed him in the womb, and at the breast,

and at the knee :
Whom he calleth mother and wife.
And mother again of his children and his

children's children.

The Prayer of Women

Ah, hour of the hours,

When he looks at our hair and sees it is

grey ;
And at our eyes and sees they are dim ;
And at our Hps straightened out with long

pain ;
And at our breasts, fallen and seared as a

barren hill ;
And at our hands, worn with toil !
Ah, hour of the hours,
When, seeing, he seeth all the bitter ruin and

wreck of us —
All save the violated womb that curses

him —
All save the heart that forbeareth . . . for

pity-
All save the living brain that condemneth

him —
All save the spirit that shall not mate with

him —
All save the soul he shall never see
Till he be one with it, and equal ;
He who hath the bridle, but guideth not;'
He who hath the whip, yet is driven ;
He who as a shepherd calleth upon us.
But is himself a lost sheep, crying among the

hills!
O Spirit, and the Nine Angels who watch

us,

The Prayer of Women

And Thou, White Christ, and Mary Mother

of Sorrow,
Heal us of the wrong of man :
We whose breasts are weary with milk,
Cry, cry to Thee, O Compassionate!

THE RUNE OF THE PASSION OF
WOMAN

We who love are those who suffer,

We who suffer most are the those who most

do love.
O the heartbreak come of longing love,
O the heartbreak come of love deferred,
O the heartbreak come of love grown listless.
Far upon the lonely hills I have heard the

crying,
The lamentable crying of the ewes.
And dreamed I heard the sorrow of poor

mothers
Made lambless too and weary with that sor-
row:
And far upon the waves I have heard the

crying,
The lamentable crying of the seamews.
And dreamed I heard the wailing of the

women
Whose hearts are flamed with love above the

gravestone.
Whose hearts beat fast but hear no fellow-
beating.

The Rune of the Passion of IVonian

Bitter, alas, the sorrow of lonely women,
When no man by the ingle sits, and in the

cradle
No little flower-like faces flush with slumber:
Bitter the loss of these, the lonely silence,
The void bed, the hearthside void,
The void heart, and only the grave not void :
But bitterer, oh more bitter still, the longing
Of women who have known no love at all,

who never.
Never, never, have grown hot and cold with

rapture
'Neath the lips or 'neath the clasp of longing,
Who have never opened eyes of heaven to

man's devotion,
Who have never heard a husband whisper

" wife,"
Who have lost their youth, their dreams, their

fairness.
In a vain upgrowing to a light that comes not.
Bitter these : but bitterer than either,
O most bitter for the heart of woman
To have loved and been beloved with passion.
To have known the height and depth, the

vision
Of triple-flaming love — and in the heart-self
Sung a song of deathless love, immortal.
Sunrise-haired, and starry-eyed and wondrous :
To have felt the brain sustain the mighty

The Rune of the Passion of Woman

Weight and reach of thought unspanned and

spanless,
To have felt the soul grow large and noble,
To have felt the spirit dauntless, eager, sv^ift

in hope and daring,
To have felt the body grov^^ in fairness,
All the glory and the beauty of the body
Thrill with joy of living, feel the bosom
Rise and fall with sudden tides of passion.
Feel the lift of soul to soul, and know the

rapture
Of the rising triumph of the ultimate dream
Beyond the pale place of defeated dreams :
To know all this, to feel all this, to be a

woman
Crowned with the double crown of lily and

rose
And have the morning star to rule the golden

hours
And have the evening star thro' hours of

dream.
To live, to do, to act, to dream, to hope.
To be a perfect woman with the full
Sweet, wondrous, and consummate joy
Of womanhood fulfilled to all desire —
And then ... oh then, to know the waning of

the vision.
To go through days and nights of starless

longing,

The Rime of the Passion of Woman

Through nights and days of gloom and bitter

sorrow :
To see the fairness of the body passing,
To see the beauty wither, the sweet colour
Fade, the coming of the wintry lines
Upon pale faces chilled with idle loving.
The slow subsidence of the tides of living.
To feel all this, and know the desolate sorrow
Of the pale place of all defeated dreams,
And to cry out with aching lips, and vainly;
And to cry out with aching heart, and vainly ;
And to cry out with aching brain, and vainly ;
And to cry out with aching soul, and

vainly ;
To cry, cry, cry with passionate heartbreak,

sobbing.
To the dim wondrous shape of Love Retreat-
ing—
To grope blindly for the warm hand, for the

swift touch,
To seek blindly for the starry lamps of pas-
sion.
To crave blindly for the dear words of long-
ing!
To go forth cold, and drear, and lonely, O so

lonely.
With the heart-cry even as the crying,
The lamentable crying on the hills
When lambless ewes go desolately astray —

Tlic Rune of the Passion of IVoman

Yea, to go forth discrowned at last, who have

worn
The flower-sweet lovely crown of rapturous

love:
To know the eyes have lost their starry

wonder ;
To know the hair no more a fragrant dusk
Wherein to whisper secrets of deep longing;
To know the breasts shall henceforth be no

haven
For the dear weary head that loved to lie

there —
To go, to know, and yet to live and suffer.
To be as use and wont demand, to fly no

signal
That the soul founders in a sea of sorrow,
But to be "true," "a woman," "patient,"

" tender,"
" Divinely acquiescent," all-forbearing.
To laugh, and smile, to comfort, to sustain,
To do all this — oh this is bitterest,
O this the heaviest cross, O this the tree
Whereon the woman hath her crucifixion.

But, O ye women, what avail? Behold,
Men worship at the tree, whereon is writ
The legend of the broken hearts of women.
And this is the end : for young and old the
end:

The Rune of the Passion of Woman

For fair and sweet, for those not sweet nor

fair,
For loved, unloved, and those who once were

loved,
For all the women of all this weary world
Of joy too brief and sorrow far too long.
This is the end : the cross, the bitter tree.
And worship of the phantom raised on high
Out of your love, your passion, your despair,
Hopes unfulfilled, and unavailing tears.

THE RUNE OF THE SORROW OF
WOMEN

This is the rune of the women who bear in

sorroiv:
Who, having anguish of body, die in the pangs

of bearing,
Who, with the ebb at the heart, pass ere the

wane of the babe-mouth.

The Rune

O we are tired, we are tired, all we who are

women :
Heavy the breasts with milk that never shall

nourish :
Heavy the womb that never again shall be

weighty.
For we have the burthen upon us, we have the

burthen,
The long slow pain, the sorrow of going, and

the parting.
O little hands, O little lips, farewell and fare-
well.
Bitter the sorrow of bearing only to end with

the parting.

The Rune of the Sorrow of Women

The Dream

Far away in the east of the world a Woman

had sorrow.
Heavy she was with child, and the pains were

upon her.
And God looked forth out of heaven, and he

spake in his pity :
" O Mary, thou bearest the Prince of Peace,

and thy seed shall be blessed."
But Mary the Mother sighed, and God the

All-Seeing wondered.
For this is the rune he heard in the heart of

Mary the Virgin : —
" Man blindfold soweth the seed, and blindly

he reapeth :
And to the word of the Lord is a blessing

upon the sower.
O what of the blessing upon the field that is

sown.
What of the sown, not of the sower, what of

the mother, the bearer?
Sure it is this that I see : that everywhere over

the world
The man has the pain and the sorrow, the

weary womb and the travail !
Everywhere patient he is, restraining the tears

of his patience

The Rune of the Sorrow of Women

Slow in upbraiding, swift in passion unselfish,

Bearing his pain in silence, in silence the
shame and the anguish :

Slow, slow he is to put the blame on the love
of the woman :

Slow to say she led him astray, swift ever to
love and excuse her !

O 'tis a good thing, and I am glad at the
seeing,

That man who has all the pain and the patient
sorrow and waiting

Keepeth his heart ever young and never up-
braideth the woman

For that she laughs in the sun and taketh the
joy of her living

And holdeth him to her breast, and knoweth
pleasure

And plighteth troth akin to the starry im-
mortals.

And soon forgetteth, and lusteth after an-
other.

And plighteth again, and again, and yet again
and again.

And asketh one thing only of man who is pa-
tient and loving,' —

This : that he swerve not ever, that faithful he
be and loyal.

And know that the sorrow of sorrows is only
a law of his being,

The Rune of the Sorroiv of Women

And all is well with Woman, and the World

of Woman, and God.
O 'tis a good thing, and I am glad at the

seeing!
And this is the rune of man the bearer of pain

and sorrow,
The father who giveth the babe his youth his

joy and the life of his living! "

(And high in His Heaven God the All-Seeing
troubled.)

The Rune

O we are weary, how weary, all we of the

burthen :
Heavy the breasts with milk that never shall

nourish :
Heavy the womb that never again shall be

fruitful :
Heavy the hearts that never again shall be

weighty.
For we have the burthen upon us, we have the

burthen,
The long slow pain, and the sorrow of going,

and the parting.
O little hands, O little lips, farewell and fare-
well :

The Rune of the Sorrow of Women

Bitter the sorrow of bearing only to end with

the parting,
Bitter the sorrow of bearing only to end with

the parting.

THE SHEPHERD

"Verily, those herdsmen also were of the sheep!"

Nietzsche.

He loved me, as he said, in every part,

And yet I could not, would not, give him
all:
Why should a woman forfeit her whole
heart
At bidding of a single shepherd's call ?
One vast the deep, and yet each wave is free
To answer to the moonshine's drowsy smile
Or leap to meet the storm-wind's rapturous
glee :
This heart of mine a wave is oftenwhile.
Depth below depth, strange currents cross, re-
cross,
The anguished eddies ebb and flow.
But on the placid surface seldom toss

The reckless flotsam of what seeths below:
O placid calms and maelstrom heart of me.
Shall it be thus till there be no more sea?

The Shepherd

" I am thy shepherd, love, that on this hill

Of life shall tend and guard thee evermore."
These were thy words that far-off day and still

Lives on thine echoing lips this bond of yore.
Yet who wert thou, O soul as I am, thus

To take so blithely gage of shepherding?
Were we not both astray where perilous

Steps might each into the abysmal darkness
fling?
Lo, my tired soul even as a storm-stayed ewe

Across the heights unto my shepherd cried :
But to the sheltered Vale at last I drew

And laid me weary by the sleeping side.
Thou didst not hear the Shepherd calling us,
Nor far the night wind, vibrant, ominous.

Ill

O shepherd of mine, lord of my little life, '

Guard me from knowledge even of the
stress :
And if I stray, take heed thou of thy wife,

Errant from mere woman's wantonness.
Even as the Lord of Hosts, lo, in thy hand,

The hollow of thy hand, my soul support:
Guide this poor derelict back unto the land

And lead me, pilot, to thy sheltering port !

The Shepherd

No — ^no — keep back — away — not now thy kiss :

O shepherd, pilot, wake ! awake ! awake !
The deep must whelm us both ! Hark, the
waves hiss,
And as a shaken leaf the land doth shake !
Awake, O shepherding soul, and take com-
mand ! —
— Nay, vain, vain words : how shall he under-
stand ?

FOAM OF THE PAST

THRENODIES AND SONGS
CHANTS AND DIRGES

FOAM OF THE PAST

TO W. B. YEATS

In a small book in a greater, " The Little
Book of the Great Enchantment" in The
Book of White Magic for Wisdom) ... the
" Leabhran Mhor Gheasadaireachd " to give
the Gaelic name ... it is said : " When you
have a memory out of darkness, tell to a seer,
to a poet, and to a friend, that which you re-
member: and if the seer say, I see it — and if
the poet say, I hear it — and if the friend say,
I believe it: then know of a surety that your
remembrance is a true remembrance." But if
our ancestral memories, or memories of the
imagination, or reveries of the imagining mind
wandering in a world publicly foregone yet
inwardly actual, could become authentic only
by a test such as this, then I fear they would
indeed be apparent as mere foam, the froth
of dream. For where is he who is at once
seer and poet and friend^ Well, you have
the great desire, which is the threshold of
vision, and vision itself you have, which is the

103

Foam of the Past

white enchantment : your words that you com-
pel to a new and subtle music, and the un-
known airs in your mind that shepherd those
words into the green glens of your imagina-
tion, would reveal you as the poet, though not
one of your fellows acclaimed you, or none
offered you the mistletoe bough with its old
symbolism of wisdom and song: and, finally,
I think I may call you friend, for we go one
way, the dearer that it is narrow and little trod
and leads by the whispering sedge and the
wilderness, and meet sometimes on that way,
and know that we seek the same Graal, and
shall come upon it, beyond that fathomless
hollow of green water that lies in the West
as our poets say, the " Pool " whose breath is
Silence and over which hangs a bow of red
flame whitening to its moonwhite core.

So you, perhaps, may say of some of these
lines in " From the Hills of Dream " and
" Foam of the Past " that they come familiarly
to you in other than the sense of mere ac-
quaintance. I think you, too, have known the
dew which falls when Dalua whispers under
the shadowy rowan-trees, and have heard the
laughter of the Hidden Host, and known, . . .
not the fairie folk of later legend, . . . but the
perilous passage of the great Lords of Shadow,
" who tread the deeps of night." You, too,

104

Foam of the Past

perhaps, have feared The White Hound and
the Red Shepherd: and have known that
weariness, too old and deep for words, of
which the aged Gaehc woman of the Island
of Tiree had dim knowledge when she sang

// is the grey rock I am,
And the grey rain on the rock:
It is the grey wave . . .
That grey hound.

You have heard The Rune of the Winds,
the blowing of the four white winds and the
three dark winds: perhaps, if you have not
seen, or heard, my little Moon-Child, you re-
member her from long ago, and her loneliness
when she sang

/ have no playmate but the tide

The seaweed loves with dark brown eyes:

The night-waves have the stars for play,
For me but sighs.

For all poetry is in a sense memory : all art,
indeed, is a mnemonic gathering of the in-
numerable and lost into the found and unique.
I am sure that you, too, have seen the rising
of the Crimson Moon, and have walked
secretly with Midir of the Dew and moon-
crown'd Brigid and wave-footed Manan.
For you also the long way that seems brief

105

Foam of the Past

and the short way that seems long, who can
say with Dalua in The Immortal Hour

And if I tread the long, continuous way
Within a narrow round, not thinking it long,
And fare a single hour thinking it many days,
I am not first or last of the Immortal Clan
For whom the long ways of the world are brief
And the short ways heavy with unimagined time.

I have listened so long to the music of the
three harpers of Fraech, that what I most
love now in the cadence and inward breath of
song is that which comes across the thorn.
You remember them, the three sons of Boinn
of the Sidhe, that fair queen : the three har-
pers of Fraech in the old tale of the Tain bo
Fraich . . . who had for bard names Tear-
Bringer, Smile-Bringer, and Sleep-Bringer :
and how it was from the music of Uaithne,
the self-playing harp of the Everlasting One,
that these three were named. And I, too, like
Befinn, sister of Boinn, am spell-bound in
that vision of sorrowful beauty ... of beauty
that comes secretly out of darkness and grey-
ness and the sighing of wind, as the dew upon
the grass and the reed by pale water: and is,
for so brief a while : and, as the dew is gath-
ered again swiftly and in silence, is become
already a dream, a lost air remembered, a

io6

Foam of the Past

beautiful thing that might have been. For
that is what is hidden in the lament of the
shennachies of old, when they sang of the
loveliness of Befinn fading, like a leaf of May
at the cold fires of Samhain, before the great
flame of beauty of her son Fraech, " most
beautiful of the men of Erin and Albin "
. . . because of what she saw in that exceed-
ing beauty, like the blue dusk at the heart of
flame. " Beautiful beyond all beauty of
youth, he was : but he has not long lived."
That is the burden of the song. And what
is this deep undertide of longing for that
which is beyond wavering reach, for that
which is covered up in the secrecies of things
immortal, but the longing of Finnavar, daugh-
ter of bright Oilill and dark-browed Maeve,
for Fraech, the Son of Beauty, though she
had never seen him, and loved only by hear-
say, and because of the white passion in her
heart, and because that inappeasable desire
was more great to her than the things of life?
Alas, what sorrowful truth lives in that dark
saying of Boinn of the Sidhe ..." Men shall
die who have an ear for harmonies."

So that to you, for one, these poems, how-
ever rude in form they may sometimes be,
will come with that remembrance of the imag-
ination which is the incalculable air of the

107

Foam of the Past

otherworld of poetry. As you know, most of
them have their place in tales of mine co-
loured with the colour of a lost day and of a
beauty that is legend : and must suffer by
severance from their context, as pluckt pine-
branches lose, if not their native savour, at
least the light and gloom of their forest-com-
pany and the smooth hand of the wind. The
sound and colour of a barbarous day may well
vanish in these broken recalling strains . . .
at their best dimly caught even when, for ex-
ample, " The Death Dance " be read in its
due place in " The Laughter of the Queen,"
apart from which it is perhaps like an air born
a thousand years ago on a Gaelic minstrel's
clarsach and played anew to-day with curious
artifice on a many-noted instrument. One or
two at least of these threnodies and chants
will have for you the familiar cadence of
thought as well as of the familiar fall of
words, for they are but adaptations of what
long ago were chanted to rude harps made of
applewood and yew. The songs of the Swan-
Children of Lir have been sung by many poets :
Deirdre's Lament on leaving Scotland, as she
and Nathos (Naois) crossed the Irish Sea, has
been a music in every generation of the Gael :
and I do no more than remember, and repeat,
with an accent of atmosphere or thought or

1 08

Foam of the Past

words, which, perhaps, just reveals the differ-
ence between paraphrase and metaphrase.
Like Deirdre, we, too, look often yearningly
to a land from which we were exiled in time,
but inhabit in dream and longing, saying with
her

Glen of the Roes, Glen of the Roes,

In thee I have dreamed to the fidl my happy dream:

0 that where the shallow bickering Ruel flows

1 might hear again, o'er its flashing gleam.
The cuckoos calling by the murmuring stream.

F. M.

109

LEAVES, SHADOWS, AND DREAMS

I have seen all things pass and all men go
Under the shadow o/ the drifting leaf:

Green leaf, red leaf, brown leaf,

Grey leaf blown to and fro.
Blown to and fro.

I have seen happy dreams rise up and pass
Silent and swift as shadows on the grass:

Grey shadows of old dreams.

Grey beauty of old dreams.
Grey shadows in the grass.

THE LAMENT OF IAN THE PROUD

What is this crying that I hear in the wind?
Is it the old sorrow and the old grief?
Or is it a new thing coming, a whirling leaf
About the grey hair of me who am weary and

blind?
I know not what it is, but on the moor above

the shore
There is a stone which the purple nets of the

heather bind,
And thereon is writ : She will return no more.
O blown whirling leaf,
And the old grief,
And wind crying to me who am old and blind !

Ill

DEIRDRE IS DEAD . . .

"Deirdre the beautiful is dead . . . is dead!"

{The House of Usna)

The grey zvind weeps, the grey wind weeps,

the grey wind zvccps:
Dust on her breast, dust on her eyes, the grey

wind weeps!

Cold, cold it is under the brown sod, and cold

under the grey grass ;
Here only the wet wind and the flittermice and

the plovers pass :

I wonder if the wailing birds, and the soft
hair-covered things

Of the air, and the grey wind hear what sigh-
ing song she sings

Down in the quiet hollow where the coiled

twilights of hair
Are gathered into the darkness that broods on

her bosom bare ?

112

Deirdre is Dead

It is said that the dead sing, though we have
no ears to hear,

And that whoso Hsts is Hckt up of the Shad-
ow, too, because of fear —

But this would give me no fear, that I heard
a sighing song from her lips :

No, but as the green heart of an upthrust
towering billow slips

Down into the green hollow of the ingathering

wave.
So would I slip, and sink, and drown, in her

grassy grave.

For is not my desire there, hidden away under
the cloudy night

Of her long hair that was my valley of whis-
pers and delight —

And in her two white hands, like still swans

on a frozen lake,
Hath she not my heart that I have hidden

there for dear love's sake ?

Alas, there is no sighing song, no breath in

the silence there:
Not even the white moth that loves death flits

through her hair

113

Deirdrc is Dead

As the bird of Brigid, made of foam and the

pale moonwhite wine
Of dreams, flits under the sombre windless

plumes of the pine.

I hear a voice crying, crying, crying: is it the

wind
I hear, crying its old weary cry time out of

mind?

The grey wind weeps, the grey wind weeps,

the grey wind zvceps:
Dust on her breast, dust on her eyes, the grey

wind weeps!

114

HEART O' BEAUTY

O where are thy white hands, Heart o' Beauty?

Heart o' Beauty !
They are as white foam on the swept sands,

Heart o' Beauty !
They are as white swans i' the dusk, thy white

hands.
Wild swans in flight over shadowy lands,

Heart o' Beauty !

0 lift again thy white hands. Heart o' Beauty,

Heart o' Beauty !
Harp to the white waves on the yellow sands.

Heart o' Beauty !
They will hearken now to these waving

wands,
To the magic wands of thy white hands.

Heart o' Beauty !

From the white dawn till the grey dusk,

Heart o' Beauty !

1 hear the unseen waves of unseen strands,

Heart o' Beauty !

115

Heart O' Beauty

I see the sun rise and set over shadowy lands,
But never, never, never thy white hands, thy ^ i
white hands,

Heart o' Beauty !

ii6

THE MONODY OF ISLA THE SINGER

"Like Bells on the wind . . ."

Is it time to let the Hour rise and go forth as

a hound loosed from the battle-cars?
Is it time to let the Hour go forth, as the

White Hound with the eyes of flame?
For if it be not time I would have this hour

that is left to me under the stars
Wherein I may dream my dream again, and

at the last whisper one name.

It is the name of one who was more fair than
youth to the old, than life to the young:

She was more fair than the first love of An-
gus the Beautiful, and though I were blind

And deaf for a hundred ages I would see her,
more fair than any poet has sung,

And hear her voice like mournful bells crying
on the wind.

117

WHITE-HANDS

O where in the north, or where in the south,

or where in the east or west
Is she who hath the flower-white hands and

the swandown breast?
O, if she be west, or east she be, or in the

north or south,
A sword will leap, a horse will prance, ere I

win to Honey-Mouth.

She has great eyes, like the doe on the hill,

and warm and sweet she is,
O, come to me, Honey-Mouth, bend to me,

Honey-Mouth, give me thy kiss !

White-Hands her name is, where she reigns

amid the princes fair :
White hands she moves like swimming swans

athrough her dusk-wave hair:
White hands she puts about my heart, white

hands fan up my breath :
White hands take out the heart of me, and

grant me life or death !

ii8

White-Hands

White hands make better songs than hymns,
white hands are young and sweet :

O, a sword for me, O Honey-Mouth, and a
war-horse fleet !

O wild sweet eyes ! O glad wild eyes ! O

mouth, how sweet it is !
O, come to me, Honey-Mouth ! bend to me,

Honey-Mouth ! give me thy kiss !

119

THE DESIRE AND THE LAMENTA-
TION OF COEL

(The noise of harps and tympans. From the wood
comes the loud chanting voice of Co el) :

O, 'tis a good house, and a palace fair, the
Dun of Macha,
And happy with a great household is Macha
there :
Druids she has, and bards, minstrels, harpers,

knights ; 4

Hosts of servants she has, and wonders

beautiful and rare,
But nought so wonderful and sweet as her
face queenly fair,
O Macha of the Ruddy Hair !

{Choric Voices in a loud, swelling chant):
O Macha of the Ruddy Hair!

(CoEL chants) :
The colour of her great Diin is the shining
whiteness of lime,
And within it are floors strewn with green
rushes and couches white;

120

The Desire and the Lamentation of Coel

Soft wondrous silks and blue gold-claspt
mantles and furs
Are there, and jewelled golden cups for

revelry by night:
Thy grianan of gold and glass is filled with
sunshine-light,

O Macha, queen by day, queen by
night !

{Choric Voices):

O Macha, queen by day, queen by
night!

Beyond the green portals, and the brown and
red thatch of wings
Striped orderly, the wings of innumerous
stricken birds,
A wide shining floor reaches from wall to
wall, wondrously carven
Out of a sheet of silver, whereon are graven

swords
Intricately ablaze : mistress of many hoards
Art thou, Macha of few words !

{Choric Voices):

0 Macha of few words!

Fair indeed is thy couch, but fairer still is thy
throne,

121

The Desire and the Lamentation of Coel

A chair it is, all of a blaze of wonderful yel-
low gold:
There thou sittest, and watchest the women
going to and fro,
Each in garments fair and with long locks

twisted fold in fold :
With the joy that is in thy house men would
not grow old,

O Macha, proud, austere, cold.

{Choric Voices):

O Macha, proud, austere, cold!

Of a surety there is much joy to be had of
thee and thine,
There in the song-sweet sunlit bowers in
that place ;
Wounded men might sink in sleep and be well
content
So to sleep, and to dream perchance, and

know no other grace
Then to wake and look betimes on thy
proud queenly face,

O Macha of the Proud Face !

{Choric Voices):

O Macha of the Proud Face!

122

The Desire and the Lamentation of Coel

And if there be any here who wish to know
more of this wonder,
Go, you will find all as I have shown, as I
have said :
From beneath its portico, thatched with wings
of birds blue and yellow
Reaches a green lawn, where a fount is fed
From crystal and gems : of crystal and gold
each bed

In the house of Macha of the Ruddy
Head!

{Choric Voices):

In the house of Macha of the Ruddy
Head!

In that great house where Macha the queen
has her pleasaunce
There is everything in the whole world that
a man might desire.
God is my witness that if I say little it is for
this,
That I am grown faint with wonder, and

can no more admire.
But say this only, that I live and die in the
fire

Of thine eyes, O Macha, my desire,
With thine eyes of fire !

123

The Desire and the Lamentation of Coel
{Choric Voices in a loud swelling chant):

But say this only, that we live and die in the
fire

Of thine eyes, 0 Macha, Dream, De-
sire,
With thine eyes of fire!

{Choric Voices repeat their refrains, but
fainter, and becoming more faint. Last van-
ishing sound of the harps and tympans.)

{The Voice of Coel) :
And where now is Macha of the proud face
and the ruddy hair,
Macha of few words, proud, austere, cold,
with the eyes of fire ?
Is she calhng to the singers down there under
the grass,
Is she saying to the bard, sing: and to the

minstrel, where is thy lyre?
Or is that her voice that I hear, lonelier and

further and higher
Than the wild wailing wind on the moor
that echoes my desire,

O Macha of the proud face
And the eyes of fire!

T24

DALUA^

I have heard you calling, Dalua

Dalua !
I have heard you on the hill,
By the pool-side still,
Where the lapwings shrill

Dalua . . . dalua . . . dalua!

What is it you call, Dalua,

Dalua !
When the rains fall,
When the mists crawl
And the curlews call

Dalua . . . dalua . . . dalua!

I am the Fool, Dalua,
Dalua!
When men hear me, their eyes
Darken: the shadow in the skies
Droops: and the keening-zvoman cries
Dalua . . . Dalua . . . Dalua

' DalQa, one of the names of a mysterious being
in the Celtic mythology, the Fairy Fool.

125

THE SONG OF FIONULA

Sleep, sleep, brothers dear, sleep and dream,
Nothing so sweet lies hid in all your years.

Life is a storm-swept gleam

In a rain of tears:
Why wake to a bitter hour, to sigh, to weep?
How better far to sleep —

To sleep and dream.

To sleep and dream, ah, that were well indeed :

Better than sighs, better than tears.
Ye can have nothing better for your meed

In all the years.
Why wake to a bitter hour, to sigh, to weep?

How better far to sleep —
To sleep and dream, ah, that is well indeed !

126

THE SONG OF AEIFA
From The Swan-Children of Lir

Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans,

Across the wind-sprent foam ;
The wave shall be your father now,
And the wind alone shall kiss your brow,

And the waste be your home.

Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans,

Your age-long quest to make ;
Three hundred years on Moyle's wild breast,
Three hundred years on the wilder west.

Three hundred years on this lake.

Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans,

And Lir shall call in vain
For all his aching heart and tears,
For all the weariness of his years,

Ye shall not come again.

Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans,

Till the ringing of Christ's bell;
Then at the last ye shall have rest,
And Death shall take ye to his breast

At the ringing of Christ's bell.

127

THE SORROW OF THE HOUSE OF LIR

Happy our father Lir afar,
With mead, and songs of love and war :
The salt brine, and the white foam,
With these his children have their home.

In the sweet days of long ago
Soft-clad we wandered to and fro :
But now cold winds of dawn and night
Pierce deep our feathers thin and light.

The hazel mead in cups of gold
We feasted from in days of old :
The sea-weed now our food, our wine
The salt, keen, bitter, barren brine.

On soft warm couches once we pressed:
White harpers lulled us to our rest :
Our beds are now where the sea raves,
Our lullaby the clash of waves.

Alas ! the fair sweet days are gone
When love was ours from dawn to dawn:
Our sole companion now is pain,
Through frost and snow, through storm and
rain.

128

The Sorrow of the House of Lir

Beneath my wings my brothers he
When the fierce ice-winds hurtle by :
On either side and 'neath my breast
Lir's sons have known no other rest.

Ah, kisses we shall no more know,
Ah, love so dear exchanged for woe,
All that is sweet for us is o'er,
Homeless we are from shore to shore.

129

THE CHANT OF ARDAN THE PICT

O Colum and monks of Christ

It is peace we are having this night:

Sure, peace is a good thing,

And I am glad with the gladness.

We worship one God,
Though ye call him De —
And I say not, O Dial
But cry Bea'uil !

For it is one faith for man.
And one for the living world,
And no man is wiser than another —
And none knoweth much.

None knoweth a better thing than this:
The Sword, Love, Song, Honour, Sleep.
None knoweth a surer thing than this :
Birth, Sorrow, Pain, Weariness, Death.

130

THE LAMENTATION OF BALVA THE

MONK

Balva the old monk I am called : when I was

young, Balva Honeymouth.
That was before Colum the White came to

lona in the West.
She whom I loved was a woman whom I won

out of the South,
And I had a good heaven with my lips on

hers and with breast to breast.

Balva the old monk I am called : were it not

for the fear
That the soul of Colum the White would meet

my soul in the Narrows
That sever the living and dead, I would rise

up from here
And go back to where men pray with spears

and arrows.

Balva the old monk I am called : ugh ! ugh !

the cold bell of the matins — 'tis dawn!
Sure it's a dream I have had that I was in a

warm wood with the sun ashine,

131

The Lamentation of Balva the Monk

And that against me in the pleasant greenness
was a soft fawn,

And a voice that whispered " Balva Honey-
mouth, drink, I am thy wine ! "

132

THE LAST NIGHT OF ARTAN THE
CULDEE

It is but a little thing to sit here in the silence

and the dark :
For I remember the blazing noon when I saw

Oona the White :
I remember the day when we sailed the Moyle

in our skin-built barque ;
And I remember when Oona's lips were on

mine in the heart of the night.

So it is a little thing to sit here, hearing

nought, seeing nought :
When the dawn breaks they will hurry me

hence to the new-dug grave :
It will be quiet there, if it be true what the

good Colum has taught,
And I shall hear Oona's voice as a sleeping

seal hears the moving wave.

133

OONA OF THE DARK EYES AND THE
CRYING OF WIND

I have fared far in the dim woods :

And I have known sorrow and grief,

And the incalculable years

That haunt the solitudes.

Where now are the multitu'^es

Of the Field of Spears?

Old tears

Fall upon them as rain,

Their eyes are quiet under the brown leaf.

I have seen the dead, innumerous:

I too shall lie thus,

And thou, Congal, thou too shalt lie

Still and white

Under the starry sky.

And rise no more to any Field of Spears,

But, under the brown leaf,

Remember grief

And the old, salt, bitter tears.

And I have heard the crying of wind.
It is the crying that is in my heart:

134

Oona of the Dark Eyes

Oona of the Dark Eyes, Oona of the Dark

Eyes,
Oona, Oona, Oona, Heart of my Heart!
But there is only crying of wind
Through the silences of the sky,
Dews that fall and rise,
The faring of long years.
And the coverlet of the brown leaf
For the old familiar grief
And the old tears.

135

THE LOVE-SONG OF DROSTAN

(From " Drostan and Yseul": an unpublished

drama.)

Drostan : You have drunken of the cup of
wisdom. Let me also drink.

[Suddenly snatches a small clar-
sach from the woman's hand, and to
its wild and rude music chants —

In the days of the Great Fires when the hills

were aflame,
Aed the Shining God lay by a foamwhite

mountain,
The white thigh of moon-crown'd Dana,

Beautiful Mother.
And the wind fretted the blue with the tossed

curling clouds
Of her tangled hair, and like two flaming stars

were her eyes
Torches of sunfire and moonfire : and her vast

breasts
Heaved as the sea heaves in the white calms,

and the wind of her sighs

136

The Love-Song of Drostan

Were as the winds of sunrise soaring the

peaks of the eagles —
Dana, Mother of the Gods, moon-crown'd,

sea-shod, wonderful !

" Fire of my love," she cried. . , . Aed of the

Sunlight and Shadow
Laughed : and he rose till he grew more vast

than Dana :
The sun was his trampling foot, and he wore

the moon as a feather :
And he lay by Dana : and the world swayed,

and the stars swung.
Thus was Oengus born, Lord of Love, Son of

Wisdom and Death.

Hear us, Oengus, Beautiful, Terrible, Sun-
Lord and Death-Lord!

Give us the white flame of love born of Aed
and of Dana —

Hearken, thou Pulse of hearts, and let the
white doves from your lips

Cover zvith passionate zvings the silence be-
tween us.

Where a white fazvn leaps and only Vseiil and
I behold it.

T^yj

♦

THE CUP

Chuir Muiril mirr ami,
Chuir Uiril mil ann,
Chuir Muirinn fion ann,
'S chuir Michal ann buadh.

" Muriel placed myrrh in it:
Uriel placed honey in it:
Murien placed wine in it:
And Michael strength."

The Cup of bitter-sweet I know
Tliat witli old wine of love doth glow:
The dew of tears to it doth go,
And wisdom is its hidden woe.

Were I but young again to throw
This cup where the wild thistles grow,
Or where, oblivious, ceaseless, slow,
The grey tumultuous waters flow !

138

THE LOVE-CHANT OF CORMAC
CONLINGAS

Oime, Oime, woman of the white breasts,

Eihclh ! 1
Woman of the golden hair, and Hps of the

red, red rowan !

Oime, O-ri, Oime !

Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast

more smooth,
Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou

movest, Eilidh —

Oime, a-ro ; Oime, a-ro !

It is the marrow in my bones that is aching,

aching, EiHdh :
It is the blood in my body that is a bitter wild

tide, Oime !

O-ri, Ohion, O-ri, arone !

Is it the heart of thee calling that I am hear-
ing, Eilidh,

Or the wind in the wood, or the beating of
the sea, Eilidh,

Or the beating of the sea?

' Eilidh is pronounced Eily.

The Love-Chant of Connac Conlingas

Shule, shule agrah, shule agrah, shule agrah,

Shule !
Heart of me, move to me ! move to me, heart

of me, Eilidh, Eilidh,
Move to me!

Ah ! let the wild hawk take it, the name of me,

Cormac Conlingas,
Take it and tear at thy heart with it, heart

that of old was so hot with it,

Eilidh, Eihdh, O-ri, Eihdh, Eilidh!

140

THE DEATH-DIRGE FOR CATHAL

Out of the wild hills I am hearing a voice, O

Cathal !
And I am thinking it is the voice of a bleeding

sword.
Whose is that sword? I know it well: it is

the sword of the Slayer —
Him that is called Death, and the song that it

sings I know : —

0 where is Cathal mac Art, the white cup

for the thirst of my lips?

Out of the cold greyness of the sea I am hear-
ing, O Cathal,

1 am hearing a wave-muffled voice, as of one

who drowns in the depths :
Whose is that voice ? I know it well : it is the

voice of the Shadow —
Her that is called the Grave, and the song that

she sings I know : —
O where is Cathal mac Art, that has warmth

for the chill that I have?

141

The Death-Dirge for Cafhal

Out of the hot greenness of the wood I am
hearing, O Cathal,

I am hearing a rustling step, as of one stum-
bling blind.

Whose is that rustling step ? I know it well :
the rustling walk of the Blind One —

Her that is called Silence, and the song that
she sings I know : —

O where is Cathal mac Art, that has tears to
water my stillness?

142

THE DEATH DANCE

O arone a-ree, eily arone, arone !

'Tis a good thing to be sailing across the seas !

How the women smile and the children are

laughing glad
When the galleys go out into the blue sea —

arone !

O eily arone, arone !

But the children may laugh less when the
wolves come,

And the women may smile less in the win-
ter-cold—

For the Summer-sailors will not come again,
arone !

0 arone a-ree, eily arone, arone !

1 am thinking they will not sail back again,

O no!
The yellow-haired men that came sailing

across the sea:
For 'tis wild apples they would be, and swing

on green branches.
And sway in the wind for the corbies to preen

their eyne,

O eily arone, eily a-ree!

143

The Death Dance

And it is pleasure for Scathach the Queen to
see this :

To see the good fruit that grows on the Tree
of the Stones :

Long black fruit it is, wind-swayed by its yel-
low roots,

And like men they are with their feet danc-
ing in the void air !

O, O, arone, a-ree, eily arone !

O arone a-ree, eily arone, arone,
O, O, arone, a-ree, eily arone!

144

THE END OF AODH-OF-THE-SONGS

The swift years slip and slide adown the

steep ;
The slow years pass ; neither will come again.
Yon huddled years have weary eyes that weep,
These laugh, these moan, these silent frown,

these plain,
These have their lips curl'd up with proud

disdain.

0 years with tears, and tears through weary

years.
How weary I who in your arms have lain :
Now, I am tired : the sound of sHpping spears
Moves soft, and tears fall in a bloody rain.
And the chill footless years go over me who

am slain.

1 hear, as in a wood, dim with old light, the

rain,
Slow falling ; old, old, weary, human tears :
And in the deepening dark my comfort is my

Pain,
Sole comfort left of all my hopes and fears,
Pain that alone survives, gaunt hound of the

shadowy years.

145

THE LAMENT OF DARTHOOL

lonmhuin tir, an tir ud shoir —
Alba go na h'-iongantaihh;
Nocha ttiocfainn aistc ale,
Muna ttagainn le Naoise.

O woods of Oona, I can hear the singing
Of the west wind among the branches green
And the leaping and laughing of cool waters

springing,
And my heart aches for all that has been,
For all that has been, my Home, all that has

been!

Glenmassan ! O Glenmassan !

High the sorrel there, and the sweet fragrant

grasses :
It would be well if I were listening now to

where
In Glenmassan the sun shines and the cool

west wind passes,
Glenmassan of the grasses!

146

The Lament of Darthool

Lock Etive, O fair Loch Etive, that was my
first home,

I think of thee now when on the grey-green
sea —

And beneath the mist in my eyes and the fly-
ing foam

I look back wearily,

I look back wearily to thee !

Glen Orchy, O Glen Orchy, fair sweet glen,
Was ever I more happy than in thy shade?
Was not Nathos there the happiest of men?
O may thy beauty never fade,
Most fair and sweet and beautiful glade.

Glen of the Roes, Glen of the Roes,
In thee I have dreamed to the full my happy
dream :

0 that where the shallow bickering Ruel

flows.

1 might hear again, o'er its flashing gleam,
The cuckoos calling by the murmuring stream.

147

THE LOVE-KISS OF DERMID AND
GRAINNE

When by the twiht sea these twain were come
Dermid spake no one word, Grainne was

dumb,
And in the hearts of both deep silence was.
" Sorrow upon me, love," whispered the grass ;
" Sorrow upon me, love, " the sea-bird cried ;
" Sorrow upon me, love," the lapsed wave

sighed.

" For what the King has willed, that thing

must be,
O Dermid ! As two waves upon this sea
Wind-swept we are, — the wind of his dark

mind.
With fierce inevitable tides behind."
" What would you have, O Grainne : he is

King."
" I would we were the birds that come with

Spring,
The purple-feathered birds that have no home,
The birds that love, then fly across the

foam."

148

The Love-Kiss of Derniid and Grainne

" Give me thy mouth, O Dermid," Grainne

said
Thereafter, and whispering thus she leaned

her head —
Ah, supple, subtle snake she glided there
Till, on his breast, a kiss-deep was her hair
That twisted serpent-wise in gold red pain
From where his lips held high their proud dis-
dain.
" Here, here," she whispered low, " here on

my mouth
The swallow, Love, hath found his haunted
South."

Then Dermid stooped and passionlessly

kissed.
But therewith Grainne won what she had

missed.
And that night was to her, and all sweet

nights
Thereafter, as Love's flaming swallow-flights
Of passionate passion beyond speech to

tell.
But Dermid knew how vain was any spell

Against the wrath of Finn: and Grainne's

breath
To him was ever chill with Grainne's death ;
Full well he knew that in a soundless place

149

The Love-Kiss of Dcrmid and Grainne

His ov/n wraith stood and with a moon-white

face
Watched its own shadow laugh and shake its

spear
Far in a phantom dell against a phantom deer.

150

THE TRYST OF QUEEN HYNDE

Queen Hynde was in the rowan-wood with

scarlet fruit aflame,
Her face was as the berries were, one sun-hot

wave of shame.

With scythes of fire the August sun mowed
down vast swathes of shade :

With blazing eyes the waiting queen stared on
her steel-blue blade.

"What, thirsty hound," she muttered low,

" with thirst you flash and gleam :
Bide, bide a wee, my bonnie hound, I'll show
ye soon a stream ! "

The sun had tossed against the West his

broken scythes of fire
When Lord Gillanders bowed before his

Queen and Sweet Desire.

She did not give him smile or kiss; her hand

she did not give :
" But are ye come for death," she said, " or

are ye come to live ? "

151

The Tryst of Queen Hynde

Gillanders reined and looked at her : " Hynde,

Queen and Love," he said,
" I wooed in love, I come in love, to this the

tryst we made:

" Why are your eyes so fierce and wild ? why

is your face so white?
I love you with all my love," he said, " by day

and by night."

" What o' the word that's come to me, of how

my lord's to wed
The lilywhite maid o' one that has a gold

crown on his head?

" What o' the word that yesternight ye wan-
toned with my name.

And on a windy scorn let loose the blown leaf
o' my shame ? "

The Lord Gillanders looked at her, and never

a word said he.
But sprang from off his great black horse and

sank upon his knee.

" This is my love," said white Queen Hynde,
" and this, and this, and this " —

Four times she stabbed him to the heart while
she his lips did kiss.

152

The Tryst of Queen Hynde

She left him in the darkhng wood : and as she

rode she sang
(The httle notes swirled in and out amid the

horsehoof clang)

My love was sweet, was szveet, was sweet,

but not so sweet as now!
A deep long sleep my sweet love has beneath

the rowan-bough.

They let her in, they lifted swords, his head

each one did bare :
Slowly she bowed, slowly she passed, slowly

she clomb the stair :

Her little son she lifted up, and whispered

'neath his cries —
" The old king's son, they say ; mayhap ; he has

Gillander's eyes."

153

THE SONG OF AHEZ THE PALE

But this was in the old, old, far-off days,
But this was in the old, old, far-off days.

They rode beneath the ancient boughs, and as

they rode she sang.
But at the last both silent were: only the
horse-hoofs rang.

Guenn took up his sword, and she felt its shin-
ing blade,

And she laughed and vowed it fitted ill for the
handling of a maid.

He looked at her, and darkly smiled, and said

she was a queen :
For she could swing the white sword high and

love its dazzling sheen.

She lifted up the great white sword and swung

it o'er his head —
" Ah, you may smile, my lord, now you may

smile," she said.

For this was in the old, old, far-off days,
For this was in the old, old, far-off days.

154

THE WAR-SONG OF THE VIKINGS

Let loose the hounds of war,

The whirHng swords !
Send them leaping afar,
Red in their thirst for war;
Odin laughs in his car

At the screaming of the sw^ords !

Far let the white-ones fly,

The whirling swords !
Afar off the ravens spy
Death-shadows cloud the sky.
Let the wolves of the Gael die

'Neath the screaming swords !

The Shining Ones yonder

High in Valhalla
Shout now, with thunder:
Drive the Gaels under,
Cleave them asunder —

Swords of Valhalla!

155

THE CRIMSON MOON

Behind the Legions of the Sun, the Star Bat-
tahons of the night,

The reddening of the West I see, from morn
till dusk, from dusk till light.

A day must surely come at last, and that day
soon,

W'hen the Hidden People shall march out be-
neath the Crimson Moon.

Our palaces shall crumble then, our towers
shall fall away,

And on the plains our burning towns shall
flaunt a desolate day :

The cities of our pride shall wear tiaras of red
flame,

And all our phantom glory be an idle wind-
blown name.

What shall our vaunt be on that day, or who

thereon shall hear
The laughter of our laughing lips become the

wail of fear?
Our vaunt shall be the windy dust in eddies

far and wide,

156

The Crimson Moon

The hearing, theirs who follow us with swift
and dreadful stride.

A cry of lamentation, then, shall sweep from

land to land :
A myriad waving hands shall shake above a

myriad strand :
The Day shall swoon before a Shade of vast

ancestral Night,
Till a more dreadful Morn awake to flood and

spume of light.

This is the prophecy of old, before the roam-
ing tribes of Man

Spread Multitude athwart the heirdom of an
earlier Clan —

Before the gods drank Silence, and hid their
way with cloud,

And Man uprose and claimed the Earth and
all the starry crowd.

So Man conceived and made his dream, till at

the last he smiled to see
Its radiant skirts brush back the stars from

Immortality :
He crowned himself with the Infinite, and

gave his Soul a Home,
And then the quiet gods awoke and blew his

life to foam.

157

The Crimson Moon

This is the Dream I see anew, when all the
West is red with light,

Behind the Legions of the Sun, the Star Bat-
tahons of the night.

Verily the day may come at last, and that day
soon,

When the Hidden People shall march out be-
neath the Crimson Moon.

158

THE WASHER OF THE FORD

There is a lonely stream afar in a lone dim

land;
It hath white dust for shore it has, white bones

bestrew the strand :
The only thing that liveth there is a naked

leaping sword ;
But I, who a seer am, have seen the whirling

hand

Of the Washer of the Ford.

A shadowy shape of cloud and mist, of gloom

and dusk, she stands.

The Washer of the Ford :
She laughs, at times, and strews the dust

through the hollow of her hands.
She counts the sins of all men there, and slays

the red-stained horde —
The ghosts of all the sins of men must know

the whirling sword

Of the Washer of the Ford.

She stoops and laughs when in the dust she

sees a writhing limb :
" Go back into the ford," she says, " and

hither and thither swim ;

159

The Washer of the Ford

Then I shall wash you white as snow, and

shall take you by the hand,
And slay you there in silence with this my

whirling brand.
And trample you into the dust of this white,
windless sand " —

This is the laughing word
Of the Washer of the Ford
Along that silent strand.

I
1

1 60

THE MOURNERS
{From the Breton)

When they had made the cradle

Of ivory and of gold,
Their hearts were heavy still

With the sorrov^f of old.

And ever as they rocked, the tears

Ran down, sad tears :
Who is it lieth dead therein.

Dead all these weary years?

And still they rock that cradle there

Of ivory and of gold :
For in their minds the shadow is

The Shadow of Old.

They weep, and know not what they weep ;

They wait a vain re-birth :
Vanity of vanities, alas.

For there is but one birth

On the wide green earth.

J6i

FOAM OF THE PAST
II

MILKING SIAN

Give up thy milk to her who calls
Across the low green hills of Heaven
And stream-cool meads of Paradise !

Across the low green hills of Heaven
How sweet to hear the milking call,
The milking call i' the meads of Heaven

Stream-cool the meads of Paradise,
Across the low green hills of Heaven.

Give up thy milk to her who calls,
Sweet voiced amid the Starry Seven.
Give up thy milk to her who calls 1

i65

THE KYE-SONG OF ST. BRIDE

O sweet St. Bride of the

Yellow, yellow hair :
Paul said, and Peter said.
And all the saints alive or dead
Vowed she had the sweetest head,
Bonnie, sweet St. Bride of the

Yellow, yellow hair.

White may my milkin' be,

White as thee :
Thy face is white, thy neck is white,
Thy hands are white, thy feet are white,
For thy sweet soul is shinin' bright —

O dear to me,

O dear to see

St. Briget white !

Yellow may my butter be.

Firm, and round :
Thy breasts are sweet,
Firm, round and sweet,
So may my butter be :
So may my butter be O

Briget sweet !

i66

The Kyc-Song of St. Bride

Safe thy way is, safe, O

Safe, St. Bride :
May my kye come home at even,
None be faUin', none be leavin',
Dusky even, breath-sweet even,
Here, as there, where O

St. Bride thou
Keepest tryst with God in heav'n,
Seest the angels bow
And souls be shriven —
Here, as there, 'tis breath-sweet even

Far and wide —
Singeth thy little maid
Safe in thy shade

Briget, Bride !

167

ST. BRIDE'S LULLABY

Oh, Baby Christ, so dear to me,

Sang Briget Bride:
How sweet thou art.
My baby dear.
Heart of my heart !

Heavy her body was with thee,
Mary, beloved of One in Three —

Sang Briget Bride —
Mary, who bore thee, Httle lad :
But light her heart was, light and glad
With God's love clad.

Sit on my knee.

Sang Briget Bride :
Sit here
O Baby dear,

Close to my heart, my heart :
For I thy foster-mother am,
My helpless lamb !
O have no fear,

Sang good St. Bride.
1 68

St. Bride's Lullaby

None, none,
No fear have T :
So let me cling
Close to thy side
While thou dost sing,
O Briget Bride !

My Lord, my Prince, I sing ;
My Baby dear, my King !
Sang Briget Bride.

169

THE BIRD OF CHRIST

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Christ upon the Cross :
My little nest was near,

Hidden in the moss.

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Christ was pale and wan :
His eyes beheld me singing

Bron, Bron, mo Bron ! ^

Holy, Holy, Holy,

" Come near, O wee brown bird ! "
Christ spake, and lo, I lighted

Upon the Living Word.

Holy, Holy, Holy,

I heard the mocking scorn !
But Holy, Holy, Holy,

I sang against a thorn !

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Ah, his brow was bloody :
Holy, Holy, Holy,

All my breast was ruddy.

i"0 my Grief, my Grief!"
170

The Bird of Christ

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Christ's-Bird shalt thou be
Thus said Mary Virgin

There on Calvary.

Holy, Holy, Holy,

A wee brown bird am I:
But my breast is ruddy

For I saw Christ die.

Holy, Holy, Holy,
By this ruddy feather,

Colum, call thy monks, and
All the birds together.

171

THE MEDITATION OF COLUM
Before the Miracle of the Fishes and the Flies

Praise be to God, and a blessing too at that,

and a blessing !
For Colum the White, Colum the Dove, hath

worshipped ;
Yea he hath worshipped and made of a desert

a garden.
And out of the dung of men's souls hath made

a sweet savour of burning.

A savour of burning, most sweet, a fire for
the altar.

This he hath made in the desert ; the hell-saved
all gladden.

Sure he hath put his benison, too, on milch-
cow and bullock.

On the fowls of the air, and the man-eyed
seals, and the otter.

172

The Meditation of Colum

III

But where in his Dun in the great blue main-
land of Heaven

God the Allfather broodeth, where the harpers
are harping His glory ;

There where He sitteth, where a river of ale
poureth ever,

His great sword broken, His spear in the dust,
He broodeth.

And this is the thought that moves in His

brain, as a cloud filled with thunder
Moves through the vast hollow sky filled with

the dust of the stars :
What boots it the glory of Colum, since he

maketh a Sabbath to bless me
And hath no thought of my sons in the deeps

of the air and the sea?

173

ST. CHRISTOPHER OF THE GAEL

Behind the wattle-woven house
Nial the Mighty gently crept
From out a screen of ashtree boughs
To where a captive white-robe slept.

Lightly he moved, as though ashamed ;
To right and left he glanced his fears.
Nial the Mighty was he named
Though but an untried youth in years —

But tall he was, as tall as he,
White Dermid of the magic sword,
Or Torcall of the Hebrid Sea
Or great Cuhoolin of the Ford ;

Strong as the strongest, too, he was :
As Balor of the Evil Eye ;
As Fionn who kept the Ulster Pass
From dawn till blood-flusht sunset sky.

Much had he pondered all that day
The mystery of the men who died
On crosses raised along the way,
And perished singing side by side.

174

St. Christopher of the Gael

Modred the chief had sailed the Moyle,
Had reached lona's guardless-shore,
Had seized the monks when at their toil
And carried northward, bound, a score.

Some he had thrust into the deep,
To see if magic fins would rise :
Some from high rocks he forced to leap,
To see wings fall from out the skies :

Some he had pinned upon tall spears,
Some tossed on shields with brazen clang,
To see if through their blood and tears
Their god would hear the hymns they sang.

But when his oarsmen flung their oars,
And laughed to see across the foam
The glimmer of the highland shores
And smoke-wreaths of the hidden home,

Modred was weary of his sport.
All day he brooded as he strode
Betwixt the reef-encircled port
And the oak-grove of the Sacred Road.

At night he bade his warriors raise
Seven crosses where the foamswept strand
Lay still and white beyond the blaze
Of the hundred camp-fires of the land.

175

St. Christopher of the Gael

The women milked the late-come kye,
The children raced in laughing glee ;
Like sheep from out the fold of the sky
Stars leapt and stared at earth and sea.

At times a wild and plaintive air

Alade delicate music far away:

A hill- fox barked before its lair :

The white owl hawked its shadowy prey.

But at the rising of the moon
The druids came from grove and glen,
And to the chanting of a rune
Crucified St. Columba's men.

They died in silence side by side,
But first they sang the evening hymn :
By midnight all but one had died,
At dawn he too was grey and grim.

One monk alone had Modred kept,

A youth with hair of golden-red,

Who never once had sighed or wept.

Not once had bowed his proud young head.

Broken he lay, and bound with thongs.
Thus had he seen his brothers toss
Like crows transfixed upon great prongs.
Till death crept up each silent cross,

176

St. Christopher of the Gael

Night grew to dawn, to scarlet mom ;
Day waned to firelit, starlit night:
But still with eyes of passionate scorn
He dared the worst of Modred's might.

When from the wattle-woven house
Nial the Mighty softly stepped,
And peered beneath the ashtree boughs
To where he thought the whiterobe slept,

He heard the monk's words rise in prayer,
He heard a hymn's ascending breath —
" Christ, Son of God, to Thee I fare
This night upon the wings of death."

Nial the Alighty crossed the space,
He waited till the monk had ceased ;
Then, leaning o'er the foam-white face,
He stared upon the dauntless priest.

" Speak low," he said, " and tell me this :
Who is the king you hold so great ? —
Your eyes are dauntless flames of bhss
Though Modred taunts you with his hate :-

" This god or king, is He more strong
Than ^lodred is ? And does He sleep
That thus your death-in-life is long,
And bonds your aching body keep ? "

177

St. Christopher of the Gael

The monk's eyes stared in Nial's eyes:
" Young giant with a child's white heart,
I see a cross take shape and rise,
And thou upon it nailed art ! "

Nial looked back : no cross he saw
Looming from out the dreadful night:
Yet all his soul was filled with awe,
A thundercloud with heart of light.

" Tell me thy name," he said, " and why
Thou waitest thus the druid knife,
And carest not to Hve or die?
Monk, hast thou little care of life? "

" Great care of that I have," he said,
And looked at Nial with eyes of fire:
" My life begins when I am dead.
There only is my heart's desire."

Nial the mighty sighed. " Thy words
Are as the idle froth of foam,
Or clashing of triumphant swords
When Modred brings the foray home.

" My name is Nial : Nial the Strong :
A lad in years, but as you see
More great than heroes of old song
Or any lordly men that be.

178

St. Christopher of the Gael

" To Modred have I come from far,
O'er many a hill and strath and stream,
To be a mighty sword in war,
And this because I dreamed a dream :

" My dream was that my strength so great
Should serve the greatest king there is:
Modred the Pict thus all men rate,
And so I sought this far-off Liss.

" But if there be a greater yet,
A king or god whom he doth fear,
My service he shall no more get,
My strength shall rust no longer here."

The monk's face gladdened. " Go, now, go :
To Modred go : he sitteth dumb.
And broods on what he fain would know :
And say, ' O King, the Cross is come! '

" Then shall the king arise in wrath,
And bid you go from out his sight.
For if he meet you on his path
He'll leave you stark and still and white.

" Thus shall he show, great king and all.
He fears the glorious Cross of Christ,
And dreads to hear slain voices call
For vengeance on the sacrificed.

179

St. Christopher of tJie Gael

" But, Nial, come not here again :
Long before dawn my soul shall be
Beyond the reach of any pain
That Modred dreams to prove on me.

" Go forth thyself at dawn, and say
' This is Christ's holy natal morn,
My king is He from forth this day
When He to save mankind was born ' :

" Go forth and seek a lonely place
Where a great river fills the wild ;
There bide, and let thy strength be grace,
And wait the Coming of a Child.

" A wondrous thing shall then befall:
And when thou seek'st if it be true,
Green leaves along thy staff shall crawl,
With flowers of every lovely hue."

The monk's face whitened, like sea-foam :
Seaward he stared, and sighed " I go —
Farewell — my Lord Christ calls me home ! "
Nial stooped and saw death's final throe.

An hour before the dawn he rose
And sought out Modred, brooding, dumb;
" O King," he said, " my bond I close.
King Christ I seek : the Cross is come ! "

1 80

5"^ Christopher of the Gael

Swift as a stag's leap from a height
King Modred drew his dreadful sword:
Then as a snow-wraith, silent, white,
He stared and passed without a word.

Before the flush of dawn was red
A druid came to Nial the Great :
" The doom of death hath Modred said,
Yet fears this Christ's mysterious hate :

" So get you hence, you giant-thewed man :
Go your own way : come not again :
No more are you of Modred's clan :
Go now, forthwith, lest you be slain."

Nial went forth with gladsome face ;

No more of Modred's clan he was :

"Now, now," he cried, "Christ's trail I'll

trace.
And nowhere turn, and nowhere pause."

He laughed to think how Modred feared
The wrath of Christ, the monk's white king:
" A greater than Modred hath appeared,
To Him my sword and strength I bring."

All day, all night, he walked afar :
He saw the moon rise white and still :
The evening and the morning star:
The sunrise burn upon the hill.

i8i

St. Christopher of the Gael

He heard the moaning of the seas,
The vast sigh of the sunswept plain,
The myriad surge of forest-trees ;
Saw dusk and night return again.

At falHng of the dusk he stood
Upon a wild and desert land :
Dark fruit he gathered for his food,
Drank water from his hollowed hand

Cut from an ash a mighty bough

And trimmed and shaped it to the half :

" Safe in the desert am I now,

With sword," he said, " and with this staff."

The stars came out : Arcturus hung

His ice-blue fire far down the sky :

The Great Bear through the darkness swung:

The Seven Watchers rose on high.

A great moon flooded all the west.
Silence came out of earth and sea
And lay upon the husht world's breast.
And breathed mysteriously.

Three hours Nial walked, three hours and

more:
Then halted when beyond the plain
He stood upon that river's shore
The dying monk had bid him gain.

182

St. Christopher of the Gael

A little house he saw : clay-wrought.
Of wattle woven through and through :
Then, all his weariness forgot.
The joy of drowning-sleep he knew.

Three hours he slept, and then he heard
A voice — and yet a voice so low
It might have been a dreaming bird
Safe-nested by the rushing flow.

Almost he slept once more: then. Hush!
Once more he heard above the noise
And tempest of the river's rush
The thin faint words of a child's voice.

" Good Sir, awake from sleep and dream,
Good Sir, come out and carry me
Across this dark and raging stream
Till safe on the other side I be."

Great Nial shivered on his bed :
" No human creature calls this night,
It is a wild fetch of the dead,"
He thought, and shrunk, and shook with
fright.

Once more he heard that infant-cry:
" Come out, Good Sir, or else I droivn —
Come out, Good Sir, or else I die
And you, too, lose a golden crown."

183

St. Christopher of the Gael

" A golden crown " — so Nial thought —
" No — no — not thus shall I be ta'en !
Keep, ghost-of-the-night, your crown gold-
wrought —
Of sleep and peace I am full fain! "

Once more the windy dark was filled
With lonely cry, with sobbing plaint :
Nial's heart grew sore, its fear was stilled,
King Christ, he knew, would scorn him faint.

" Up, up thou coward, thou sluggard, thou,"
He cried, and sprang from off his bed —
" No crown thou seekest for thy brow,
But help for one in pain and dread ! "

Out in the wide and lonely dark
No fetch he saw, no shape, no child:
Almost he turned again — but hark!
A song rose o'er the waters wild:

A king am I
Tho' a little Child,
Son of God am I,
Meek and mild,
Beautiful

Because God hath said
Let my cup he full
Of wine and bread.
184

St. Christopher of the Gael

Come to me

Shaken heart,

Shaken heart!

I will not flee.

My heart

Is thy heart

O shaken heart!

Stoop to my Cup,

Sup,

Drink of the wine:

The wine and the bread,

Saith God,

Are mine —

My Flesh atid my Blood!

Throw thy sword in the flood:

Come, shaken heart:

Fearful thou art!

Have no more fear —

Lo, I am here.

The little One,

The Son,

Thy Lord and thy King.

It is I who sing:
Christ, your King . . .
Be not afraid:
Look, I am Light,
A great star

185

St. Christopher of the Gael

Seen from afar

In the darkness of night:

I am Light,

Be not afraid . . .

Wade, wade

Into the deep flood!

Think of the Bread,

The Wine and the Bread

That are my Flesh and Blood.

Cross, cross the Flood,

Sure is the goal „ . .

Be not afraid

O Soul,

Be not afraid!

Nial's heart was filled with joy and pain :
** This is my king, my king indeed :
To think that drown'd in sleep I've lain
When Christ the Child-God crieth in need ! "

Swift from his wattled hut he strode,
Stumbling among the grass and bent,
And, seeking where the river flowed,
Far o'er the dark flood peered and leant:

Then suddenly beside him saw
A little Child all clad in white :
He bowed his head in love and awe,
Then lifted high his burthen light.

i86

St. Christopher of the Gael

High on his shoulders sat the Child,
While with strong limbs he fared among
The rushing waters black and wild
And where the fiercest currents swung.

The waters rose more high, more high,
Higher and higher every yard . . .
Nial stumbled on with sob and sigh,
Christ heard him panting sore and hard.

"O Child," Nial cried, " forbear, forbear!
Hark you not how these waters whirled!
The weight of all the earth I bear,
The weary weight of all the world ! "

"Christopher!" . . . low above the noise,
The rush, the darkness, Nial heard
The far-ofif music of a Voice
That said all things in saying one word —

"Christopher . . . this thy name shall be!
Christ-bearer is thy name, even so
Because of service done to me
Heavy with weight of the world's woe."

With breaking sobs, with panting breath
Chistopher grasped a bent-held dune,
Then with flung staff and as in death
Forward he fell in a heavy swoon.

187.

St. Christopher of the Gael

All night he lay in silence there,
But safe from reach of surging tide:
White angels had him in their care,
Christ healed and watched him side by side.

When all the silver wings of dawn
Had waved above the rose-flusht east,
Christopher woke ... his dream was gone.
The angelic songs had ceased.

Was it a dream in very deed,
He wondered, broken, trembling, dazed?
His staff he lifted from the mead
And as an upright sapling raised.

Lo, it was as the monk had said —
// he would prove the vision true.
His staff would blossom to its head
With flowers of every lovely hue.

Christopher bowed : before his eyes
Christ's love fulfilled the holy hour . . .
A south-wind blew, green leaves did rise
And the staff bloomed a myriad flower !

Christopher bowed in holy prayer,
While Christ's love fell like healing dew :
God's father-hand was on him there :
The peace of perfect peace he knew.

iP8

THE CROSS OF THE DUMB

A CHRISTMAS ON lONA, LONG, LONG AGO

One eve, when St. Columba strode

In solemn mood along the shore.

He met an angel on the road

Who but a poor man's semblance bore.

He wondered much, the holy saint.
What stranger sought the lonely isle.
But seeing him weary and wan and faint
St. Colum hailed him with a smile.

" Remote our lone lona lies
Here in the grey and windswept sea,
And few are they whom my old eyes
Behold as pilgrims bowing the knee. . . .

" But welcome . = . welcome . . . stranger-
guest.
And come with me and you shall find
A warm and deer-skinn'd cell for rest
And at our board a welcome kind. , . .

189

The Cross of the Dumb

" Yet tell me ere the dune we cross
How came you to this lonely land?
No curraghs in the tideway toss
And none is beached upon the strand ! "

The weary pilgrim raised his head

And looked and smiled and said, '' From far,

My wandering feet have here been led

By the glory of a shining star. ..."

St. Colum gravely bowed, and said,
" Enough, my friend, I ask no more ;
Doubtless some silence-vow was laid
Upon thee, ere thou sought'st this shore:

" Now, come : and doff this raiment sad
And those rough sandals from thy feet:
The holy brethren will be glad
To haven thee in our retreat."

Together past the praying cells
And past the wattle-woven dome
Whence rang the tremulous vesper bells
St. Colum brought the stranger home.

From thyme-sweet pastures grey with dews
The milch-cows came with swinging tails :
And whirling high the wailing mews
Screamed o'er the brothers at their pails.

190

The Cross of the Dumb

A single spire of smoke arose,
And hung, a phantom, in the cold :
Three younger monks set forth to close
The ewes and lambs within the fold.

The purple twilight stole above
The grey-green dunes, the furrowed leas:
And Dusk, with breast as of a dove,
Brooded : and everywhere was peace.

Within the low refectory sate

The little clan of holy folk :

Then, while the brothers mused and ate,

The wayfarer arose and spoke. . . .

" O Coliim of lona-Isle,

And ye who dzvcll in God's quiet place.

Before I crossed your narroiu kyle

I looked in Heaven upon Christ's face."

Thereat St. Colum's startled glance
Swept o'er the man so poorly clad,
And all the brethren looked askance
In fear the pilgrim-guest was mad.

" And, Coliim of God's Church i' the sea
And all ye Brothers of the Rood,
The Lord Christ gave a dream to me
And bade me bring it ye as food.

191

The Cross of the Dumb

"Lift to the wandering cloud your eyes
And let them scan the wandering Deep. . . .
Hark ye not there the wandering sighs
Of brethren ye as outcasts keep?"

Thereat the stranger bowed, and blessed;
Then, grave and silent, sought his cell:
St. Colum mused upon his guest,
Dumb wonder on the others fell.

At dead of night the Abbot came
To where the weary wayfarer slept:
"Tell me," he said, "thy holy name ..."
— No more, for on bowed knees he wept. . . .

Great awe and wonder fell on him;
His mind was like a lonely wild
When suddenly is heard a hymn
Sung by a little innocent child.

For now he knew their guest to be
No man as he and his, but one
Who in the Courts of Ecstasy
Worships, flame-winged, the Eternal Son.

The poor bare cell was filled with light,
That came from the swung moons the Seven
Seraphim swing day and night
Adown the infinite walls of Heaven.

192

The Cross of the Dumb

But on the fern-wove mattress lay
No weary guest. St. Colum kneeled,
And found no trace ; but, ashen-grey.
Far ofif he heard glad anthems pealed.

At sunrise when the matins-bell
Made a cold silvery music fall
Through silence of each lonely cell
And over every fold and stall,

St. Colum called his monks to come
And follow him to where his hands
Would raise the Great Cross of the Dumb
Upon the Holy Island's sands. . . .

" For I shall call from out the Deep
And from the grey fields of the skies,
The brethren we as outcasts keep,
Our kindred of the dumb wild eyes. . . .

" Behold, on this Christ's natal morn,
God wills the widening of His laws.
Another miracle to be born —
For lo, our guest an Angel was! . . .

" His Dream the Lord Christ gave to him
To bring to us as Christ-Day food,
That Dream shall rise a holy hymn
And hang like a flower upon the Rood ! . .

193

The Cross of the Dumb

Thereat, while all with wonder stared
St. Colum raised the Holy Tree :
Then all with Christ-Day singing fared
To where the last sands lipped the sea.

St. Colum raised his arms on high , . .
" O ye, all creatures of the wing,
Come here from out the fields o' the sky,
Come here and learn a wondrous thing!"

At that the wild clans of the air
Came sweeping in a mist of wings —
Ospreys and fierce solanders there,
Sea-swallows wheeling mazy rings,

The foam-white mew, the green-black scart.
The famishing hawk, the wailing tern,
All birds from the sand-building mart
To lonely bittern and heron. . . .

St. Colum raised beseeching hands
And blessed the pastures of the sea:
" Come, all ye creatures, to the sands,
Come and behold the Sacred Tree!"

At that the cold clans of the wave
With spray and surge and splash appeared :
Up from each wrack-strewn*, lightless cave
Dim day-struck eyes affrighted peered.

194

The Cross of the Dumb

The pollacks came with rushing haste,
The great sea-cod, the speckled bass ;
Along the foaming tideway raced
The herring-tribes like shimmering glass:

The mackerel and the dog-fish ran,
The whiting, haddock, in their wake:
The great sea-flounders upward span.
The fierce-eyed conger and the hake :

The greatest and the least of these
From hidden pools and tidal ways
Surged in their myriads from the seas
And stared at St. Columba's face,

" Hearken," he cried, with solemn voice —
" Hearken ! ye people of the Deep,
Ye people of the skies. Rejoice !
No more your soulless terror keep !

" For lo, an Angel from the Lord
Hath shown us that wherein we sin —
But now we humbly do His Word
And call you, Brothers, kith and kin. . . .

" No more we claim the world as ours
And everything that therein is —
To-day, Christ's-Day, the infinite powers
Decree a common share of bliss.

195

The Cross of the Dumb

" I know not if the new-waked soul
That stirs in every heart I see
Has yet to reach the far-off goal
Whose symbol is this Cross-shaped Tree. . .

" But, O dumb kindred of the skies,

O kinsfolk of the pathless seas,

All scorn and hate I exorcise.

And wish you nought but Love and Peace !

Thus, on that Christmas-day of old
St. Colum broke the ancient spell.
A thousand years away have rolled,
'Tis now ..." a baseless miracle."

O fellow-kinsmen of the Deep,
O kindred of the wind and cloud,
God's children too . . . how He must weep
Who on that day was glad and proud!

196

NAOI MIANNAIN

Miann mna sithe, braon :

Miann Sluagh, gaoth:

Miann fitheach, full :

Miann eunarag, an fasaich:

Miann faoileag, faileagan mhara:

Miann Bard, fith-cheol-min Ihuchd nan

trnsganan uaine:
Miann fear, gaol bhean :
Miann mna, chlann beag:
Miann anama, ais.

Nine Desires

The desire of the fairy women, dew:

The desire of the fairy host, wind:

The desire of the raven, blood :

The desire of the snipe, the wilderness :

The desire of the seamew, the lawns of the

sea:
The desire of the poet, the soft low music of

the Tribe of the Green Mantles:
The desire of man, the love of woman:
The desire of women, the little clan:
The desire of the soul, wisdom.

197

THROUGH THE IVORY
GATE

"Green thou would' st not be plucked, thy purple
fruit I longed for. . . ."

The Stephanos of Philippus.

"Lci-bas, tout nous appelle. . . . Et, qui sait, tous
les reves a realiser! . . .

"A quoi ban les realiser . . . ils sont si beaux f"

Axel.

"Love is as a vapour that is licked up of the wind.
Let whoso longeth after this lovely mist — that as a
breath is, and is not — beware of this wind. There is
no sorrow like unto the sorrow of this wind."

Leabhran Mhor-Gheasadaireachd.
(The Little Book of the Great Enchantment.)

' ' The waves of the sea have spoken to me; the wild
birds have taught me; the music of many waters has
been my master."

Kalevala.

THE SECRET DEWS

Poor little songs, children of sorrow, go.
A wind may take you up, and blow you far.
My heart will go with you, too, wherever
you go.

As the little leaves in the wood, they pass :
The wind has lifted them, and the wind is gone.
Have I too not heard the wind come, and
pass?

The secret dews fall under the Evening-Star,
And there is peace I know in the west: yet,
if there be no dawn,
The secret dews fall under the Evening-Star.

201

THE ENCHANTED VALLEYS

By the Gate of Sleep we enter the En-
chanted \'alleys.
White soundless birds fly near the twilit
portals :
Follow, and they lead to the Silent Alleys.

Grey pastures are there, and hush'd spell-
bound woods,
And still waters, girt with unwhispering reeds :
Lost dreams linger there, wan multitudes :

They haunt the grey waters, the alleys dense

and dim,
The immemorial woods of timeless age.
And where the forest leans on the grey

sea's rim.

Nothing is there of gladness or of sorrow :
What is past can neither be glad nor sad :
It is past : there is no dawn : no to-morrow.

202

THE VALLEY OF WHITE POPPIES

Between the grey pastures and the dark

wood
A valley of white poppies is lit by the low

moon:
It is the grave of dreams, a holy rood.

It is quiet there : no wind doth ever fall.
Long, long ago a wind sang once a heart-
sweet rune.
Now the white poppies grow, silent and tall.

A white bird floats there like a drifting leaf :
It feeds upon faint sweet hopes and perishing
dreams
And the still breath of unremembering grief.

And as a silent leaf the white bird passes.
Winnowing the dusk by dim forgetful streams.
I am alone now among the silent grasses.

203

THE VALLEY OF SILENCE

In the secret Valley of Silence

No breath doth fall ;
No wind stirs in the branches ;
No bird doth call :
As on a white wall

A breathless lizard is still,
So silence lies on the valley
Breathlessly still.

In the dusk-grown heart of the valley

An altar rises white :
No rapt priest bends in awe
Before its silent light:
But sometimes a flight

Of breathless words of prayer
White-wing'd enclose the altar,
Eddies of prayer.

204

DREAM MEADOWS

Girt with great garths of shadow
Dim meadows fade in grey :
No moon Hghtens the gloaming,
The meadows know no day:
But pale shapes shifting
From dusk to dusk, or lifting
Frail wings in flight, go drifting
Adown each flowerless way.

These phantom-dreams in shadow
Were once in wild-rose flame ;
Each wore a star of glory,

Each had a loved sweet name :

Now they are nameless, knowing
Nor star nor flame, but going
Whither they know not, flowing
Waves without wind or aim.

But later through the gloaming
The Midnight-Shepherd cries:

The trooping shadows follow
Making a wind of sighs:

205

Dream Meadows

The fold is hollow and black;
No pathway thence, no track;
No dream ever comes back
Beneath those silent skies.

206

GREY PASTURES

In the grey gloaming where the white

moth flies —
When I, quiet dust on the forgetful wind,
Shall be untroubled by any breath of

sighs —

It may be I shall fall like dew upon
The still breath of grey pastures such as these
Wherein I wander now 'twixt dusk and
dawn.

See, in this phantom bloom I leave a kiss :
It was given me in fire ; now it is grey dust :
Mayhap I may thrill again at the touch
of this.

207

LONGING

O would I were the cool wind that's blowing

from the sea,
Each loneliest valley I would search till I

should come to thee.

In the dew on the grass is your name, dear,

i' the leaf on the tree —
O would I were the cool wind that's blowing

from the sea.

O would I were the cool wind that's blowing

far from me —
The grey silence, the grey waves, the grey

wastes of the sea.

208

THE SINGER IN THE WOODS
" Were Memory but a voice. . . ."

Where moongrey-thistled dunes divide the

woods from the sea
Sometimes a phantom drifts, like smoke, from

tree to tree :
His voice is as the thin faint song when the

wind wearily
Sighs in the grass, and sighing, dies : barely it

comes to me.

Sometimes I hear the sighing voice along the

shadowy shore;
Sometimes wave-borne it comes, as when on

labouring oar
Dying men sigh once, and die, at the closing

of the door
They hear below the muffled tides or the dull

drowning roar.

Sometimes he passes through the caves where

twilight dies ;
His voice like mist from a valley then doth

rise,

209

The Singer in the Woods

Or, in a windy flight of gathered sighs,
Is blown like perishing smoke against the
midnight skies.

But oftenest in the dark woods I- hear him
sing

Dim, half-remembered things, where the old
mosses cling

To the old trees^ and the faint wandering ed-
dies bring

The phantom echoes of a phantom Spring.

Lost in the dark gulf of the woods, his song

sinks low :
I listen : and hear only the long, inevitable,

slow
Falling of wave on wave, the sighing flow:
In the silence I hear my heart sobbing its

old woe.

2IO

BY THE GREY STONE

It is quiet here : the wet hill-wind's sigh
Sobs faintly, as though behind a curtain of
thick grass.
The vanishing curlew wails a fading cry.

I can hear the least soft footfall pass.
Is that the shrewmouse I hear, or does the

night-moth whirr?
I have waited so long, so long, so long,

alas !

No one. No one. I hear no faintest stir.
Yet Love spake once, with lips of flame and

eyes of fire,
With breath of burning frankincense and

myrrh —

Spake, and the vow was even as De-
sire . . .
Terrible, winged, magnific, crested with
flame,
So that I bowed before it, mounting
gyre upon g>'re. . . .

211

By the Grey Stone

I see now a grey bird by the grey stone
of no name :
It is blind and deaf, and its wings are tipped
with mire.

Is it Love's lordly vow or mine own bit-
ter shame?

212

THE VALLEY OF PALE BLUE
FLOWERS

In a hidden valley a pale blue flower
grows.
It is so pale that in the moonshine it is dim-
mer than dim gold,
And in the starshine paler than the palest
rose.

It is the flower of dream. Who holds it

is never old.
It is the flower of forgetfulness : and oblivion

is youth :
Breathing it, flame is not empty air, dust

is not cold.

Lift it, and there is no memory of sorrow

or any ruth ;
The grey monotone of the low sky is filled

with light ;
The dim, terrible, inpalpable lie wears

the raiment of truth.

213

The Valley of Pale Blue Flowers

I lift it, now, for somewhat in the heart
of the night
Fills me with dread. It may be that, as a
tiger in his lair,
Memory, crouching, waits to spring into
the light.

No, I will clasp it close to my heart, over-
droop with my hair :
I will breathe thy frail faint breath, O pale
blue flower.

And then . . . and then . . . nothing
shall take me unaware !

Nothing : no thought : no fear : only the

invisible power
Of the vast deeps of night, wherein down a

shadowy stair
My soul slowly, slowly, slowly, will sink

to its ultimate hour.

214

REMEMBRANCE

No mpre : let there be no more said.
It is over now, the long hope, the beautiful
dream.
The poor body of love in his grave is laid.

I had dreamed his shining eyes eternal,

alas !
Now, dead love, I know, can never rise again.
Never, never again shall I see even his

shadow pass.

A star has ceased 'to shine in my lonely
skies.
Sometimes I dream I see it shining in my
heart.
As a bird the windless pool over which it
flies.

No : no more : I will not say what I see,
there :
Sorrow has depths within depths . . . silence
is best:
Farewell, Dead Love : no more the same
road we fare.

215

THE VEILED AVENGER

(fragment)

A Voice

... I am He,
The Veiled Avenger, I am clothed with

shadow
The silence and the shadow of your soul
Where it has withered slowly from the Hght.

Unseen Chorus

The Veiled Avenger speaks. He knows him
not.

The Man

I hear a honey voice that murmureth peace,
Peace and oblivion. O ye secret doves
That feed the mind with sweet and perilous

breaths
And murmur ever among gossamer dreams,
Bring me the tidings out of the hidden place
Wherein your wings wake fire. Come once

again, wild doves

216

The Veiled Avenger

Of Beauty and Desire and the Twin Flame !
Wild doves, wild doves, bear unto me the

flame
That rises moonwhite amid scarlet fire . . .

{A lapwing wails.)

0 melancholy bird, Dalua's messenger !

1 am too weary now for further thought.

The Veiled Avenger

Pillows of sleepless sorrow. . . . Bow your

head.
To-night I shall build up for you a place
Where sleep shall not be silent and where

dreams
Shall whisper, and a little infinite voice
Shall wail as a wailing plover in your ears.
Then you shall know that shaken voice, and

wake.
Crying your own name.

The Man

Again, the wheeling cry
Where in the dusk the lapwing slips and falls
From ledge to ledge of darkness.

Unseen Chorus

He knoweth not
His own bitter infinite cry we hear him cry!

217

THE BELLS OF SORROW

It is not only when the sea is dark and chill
and desolate

I hear the singing of the queen who lives be-
neath the ocean :

Oft have I heard her chanting voice when
noon swings wide his golden gate,

Or when the moonshine fills the wave with
snow-white mazy motion.

And some day will it hap to me, when the

black waves are leaping,
Or when within the breathless green I see her

shell-strewn door.
The fatal bells will lure me where my sea-

drown'd death lies sleeping
Beneath the slow white hands of her who

rules the sunken shore.

For in my heart I hear the bells that ring

their fatal beauty,
The wild, remote, uncertain bells that chant

their dim to-morrow ; .

218

The Bells of Sorrow

The lonely bells of sorrow, the bells of fatal

beauty,
From lonely heights within my heart tolling

their lonely sorrow.

219

THE UNKNOWN WIND

"There is a wind that has no name." (Gaelic Saying.)

When the day darkens,
When dusk grows light,
When the dew is falling,

When Silence dreams. . . .
I hear a wind
Calling, calling
By day and by night.

What is the wind
That I hear calling
By day and by night,

The crying of wind?
When the day darkens.
When dusk grows light.
When the dew is falling?

220

CANTILENA MUNDI

Where the rainbows rise through sunset rains
By shores forlorn of isles forgot,

A solitary Voice complains

" The world is here, the world is not."

The Voice the Wind is, or the sea,

Or the Spirit of the sundown West:

Or is it but a breath set free

From off the Islands of the Blest?

It may be : but I turn my face

To that which still I hold so dear:

And lo, the voices of the days —

" The World is not, the World is here."

'Tis the same end whichever way,
And either way is soon forgot :

" The World is all in all To-day,

To-morrow all the World is not."

221

LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE WIND

I hear the little children of the wind

Crying solitary in lonely places :

I have not seen their faces

But I have seen the leaves eddying behind.

The little tremulous leaves of the wind.

222

IN THE SILENCES OF THE WOODS

In the silences of the woods

I have heard all day and all night

The moving multitudes

Of the Wind in flight.

He is named Myriad:

And I am sad

Often, and often I am glad,

But oftener I am white

With fear of the dim broods

That are his multitudes.

223

IN THE NIGHT

O wind, why break in idle pain
This wave that swept the seas

Foam is the meed of barren dreams
And hearts that cry for peace!

Lift then, O wind, this heart of mine,

And whirl aside in foam ;
J\Jq — wander on, unchanging heart.

The undrowning deeps thy home!

Less than a billow of the sea

That at the last doth no more roam,

Less than a wave, less than a wave,
This thing that hath no home.
This thing that hath no grave.

224

THE LORDS OF SHADOW

Where the water whispers 'mid the shadowy

rowan-trees
I have heard the Hidden People hke the hum

of swarming bees :
And when the moon has risen and the brown

burn ghsters grey
I have seen the Green Host marching in

laughing disarray.

Dalua then must sure have blown a sudden

magic air
Or with the mystic dew have sealed my eyes

from seeing fair:
For the great Lords of Shadow who tread the

deeps of night
Are no frail puny folk who move in dread of

mortal sight.

For sure Dalua laughed alow, Dalua the fairy

Fool,
When with his wildfire eyes he saw me 'neath

the rowan-shadowed pool :

225

The Lords of Shadow

His touch can make the chords of Ufe a bit-
ter jangUng tune,

The false glows true, the true glows false, be-
neath his moontide rune.

The laughter of the Hidden Host is terrible to

hear,
The Hounds of Death would harry me at

lifting of a spear:
Mayhap Dalua made for me the hum of

swarming bees
And sealed my eyes with dew beneath the

shadowy rowan-trees.

226

INVOCATION OF PEACE

AFTER THE GAELIC

Deep peace I breathe into you,
O weariness, here :
O ache, here !

Deep peace, a soft white dove to you;
Deep peace, a quiet rain to you ;
Deep peace, an ebbing wave to you !
Deep peace, red wind of the east from you ;
Deep peace, grey wind of the west to you ;
Deep peace, dark wind of the north from you ;
Deep peace, bkie wind of the south to you !
Deep peace, pure red of the flame to you ;
Deep peace, pure white of the moon to you ;
Deep peace, pure green of the grass to you ;
Deep peace, pure brown of the earth to you ;
Deep peace, pure grey of the dew to you.
Deep peace, pure blue of the sky to you !
Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the sleeping stones to you !
Deep peace of the Yellow Shepherd to you,

227

Invocation of Peace

Deep peace of the Wandering Shepherdess to

you,
Deep peace of the Flock of Stars to you,
Deep peace from the Son of Peace to you.
Deep peace from the heart of Mary to you,
From Briget of the Mantle
Deep peace, deep peace !
And with the kindness too of the Haughty

Father,
Peace !

In the name of the Three who are One,
And by the will of the King of the Elements,
Peace ! Peace !

228

THE DIRGE OF THE FOUR
CITIES

' ' There are jour cities that no mortal eye has seen
but that the soul knows; these are Gorias, that is in
the east; and Finias, that is in the south; and Murias,
that is in the west; and Falias, that is in the north.
And the symbol of Falias is the stone of death, which
is crowned with pale fire. And the symbol of Gorias
is the dividing sword. And the symbol of Finias is
a spear. And the symbol of Murias is a hollow that
is filled with water and fading light."

The Little Book of the
Great Enchantment.

' ' Wind comes front the spring star in the East; fire
from the summer star in the South; water front the
autumn star in the West; wisdom, silence and death
from the star in the North."

The Divine Adventure.

THE DIRGE OF THE FOUR CITIES

" The four cities of the world that was: the sunken
city of Murias, and the city of Gorias, and the city of
Finias, and the city of F alias." {Ancient Gaelic
Chronicle.)

Finias and Falias,

Where are they gone?
Does the wave hide Murias —

Does Gorias know the dawn?
Does not the wind wail

In the city of gems?
Do not the prows sail

Over fallen diadems
And the spires of dim gold
And the pale palaces
Of Murias, whose tale was told

Ere the world was old?

Do women cry Alas! . . .

Beyond Finias?
Does the eagle pass
Seeing but her shadow on the grass

Where once was Falias :
And do her towers rise
Silent and lifeless to the frozen skies?

231

The Dirge of the Four Cities

And do whispers and sighs

Fill the twilights of Finias
With love that has not grown cold
Since the days of old?

Hark to the tolling of bells

And the crying of wind!
The old spells

Time out of mind,
They are crying before me and behind !
I know now no more of my pain,
But am as the wandering rain
Or as the wind's shadow on the grass
Beyond Finias of the Dark Rose :
Or, 'mid the pinnacles and still snows
Of the Silence of Falias,
I go : or am as the wave that idly flows
Where the pale weed in songless thickets

grows
Over the towers and fallen palaces

Where the Sea-city was.

The city of Murias.

232

FINIAS

In the torch-lit city of Finias that flames on

the brow of the South
The Spear that divideth the heart is held in

a brazen mouth —

Arias the flame-white keeps it, he whose

laughter is heard
Where never a man has wandered, where

never a god has stirred.

High kings have sought it, great queens have
sought it, poets have dreamed —

And ever louder and louder the flame-white
laughter of Arias streamed.

For kingdoms shaken and queens forsaken
and high hopes starved in their drouth.

These are the torches ablaze on the walls of
Finias that lightens the South.

Forbear, O Arias, forbear, forbear — lift not

the dreadful Spear —
I had but dreamed of thee, Finias, Finias . . .

now I am stricken . . . now I am here !

FALIAS

In the frost-grown city of Falias lit by the

falling stars
I have seen the ravens flying like banners of

old wars —
I have seen the snow-white ravens amid the

ice-green spires
Seeking the long-lost havens of all old lost -il

desires.

O winged desire and broken, once nested in

my heart,
Canst thou, there, give a token, that, even now,

thou art?
From bitter war defeated thou too hadst

flight afar.
When all my joy was cheated ere set of

Morning Star.

Call loud ; O ancient Moirias, who dwellest in

that place,
Tell me if lost in Falias my old desire hath

grace ?

234

Falias

If now a snow-white raven it haunts the silent

spires
For the old impossible haven 'mid the old

auroral fires?

235

GORIAS

In Gorias are gems,

And pale gold,
Shining diadems

Gathered of old
From the long fragrant hair
Of dead beautiful queens.

There the reaper gleans

Vast opals of white air :
The dawn leans

Upon emerald there :
Out of the dust of kings j|

The sunrise lifts a cloud of shim-
mering wings.

In Gorias of the East

My love was born,
Erias dowered with a sword

And the treasures of the Morn —
But now all the red gems
And the pale gold
Are as the trampled diadems

Of the queens of old

In Gorias the pale-gold.

236

Gorias

Have I once heard the least,

But the least breath, again?
No : my love is no more fain
Of Gorias of the East.
Erias hath sheathed this sword

Long, long ago.
]\Ty heart is old . . .
Though in Gorias are gems
And pale gold.

237

MURIAS

In the sunken city of Murias
A golden Image dwells :

The sea-song of the trampling waves ^

Is as muffled bells I

Where He dwells, "

In the city of Murias.

In the sunken city of Murias

A golden Image gleams:
The loud noise of the moving seas

Is as woven beams

Where He dreams,
In the city of Murias.

In the sunken city of Murias,

Deep, deep beneath the sea
The Image sits and hears Time break

The heart I gave to thee

And thou to me,
In the city of Murias.

In the city of Murias,

Long, oh, so long ago,
Our souls were wed when the world
was young;

238

Murias

Are we old now, that we know
This silent woe
In the city of Murias?

In the sunken city of Murias

A graven Image dwells :
The sound of our little sobbing prayer

Is as muffled bells

Where He dwells,
In the city of Murias.

239

THE HOUR OF BEAUTY

"None hut God and I

Knows what is in my heart."

Sahara Song.

"Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly,
wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever
the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars,
wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wher-
ever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger,
and awe, and love, there is Beauty."

Emerson.

DIM FACE OF BEAUTY

Dim face of Beauty haunting all the world,
Fair face of Beauty all too fair to see,
Where the lost stars adown the heavens are
hurled,

There, there alone for thee

May white peace be.

For here where all the dreams of men are

whirled
Like sere torn leaves of autumn to and fro,
There is no place for thee in all the world,

Who driftest as a star,

Beyond, afar.

Beauty, sad face of Beauty, Mystery, Wonder,
What are these dreams to foolish babbling

men? —
Who cry with little noises 'neath the thunder

Of ages ground to sand,

To a little sand.

243

DREAMS WITHIN DREAMS

I have gone out and seen the lands of Faery
And have found sorrow and peace and
beauty there,
And have not known one from the other, but
found each
Lovely and gracious alike, delicate and
fair.

" They are children of one mother, she that is
called Longing,
Desire, Love," one told me: and another,
" her secret name
Is Wisdom : " and another, " they are not
three but one : "
And another, " touch them not, seek them
not, they are wind and flame."

I have come back from the hidden, silent
lands of Faery
And have forgotten the music of its an-
cient streams :
And now flame and wind and the long, grey,
wandering wave
And beauty and peace and sorrow are
dreams within dreams.

244

A CRY ON THE WIND

Pity the great with love, they are deaf, they
are blind:

Pity the great zvith love, time out of mind:

This is the song of the grey-haired wandering
wind

Since Oisin's mother fled to the hill a spell-
bound hind.

Sorrow on love! was the sob that rose in her

throat,
/, that a zvoman was, now wear the wild

fawn's coat:
This is to lift the heart to leap like a wave

to the oar.
This is to see the heart flung back like foam

on the shore.

Have not the hunters heard them, Oisin and

she together
Like peewits crying on the wind where the

world is sky and heather —
The peewits that wail to each other, rising

and wheeling and falling
Till greyness of noon or darkness of dusk is

full of a windy calling.

245

'A Cry on the Wind

Pity the great zvith love, they are deaf, they

are blind:
Pity the great with love, time out of mind!

0 sorrowful face of Deirclre seen on the hill !
Once I have seen you, once, beautiful, silent,

still :
As a cloud that gathers her robe like drifted

snow
You stood in the mountain-corrie, and

dreamed on the world below.

Like a rising sound of the sea in woods in the
heart of the night

1 heard a noise as of hounds, and of spears

and arrows in flight:
And a glory came Hke a flame, and morning

sprang to your eyes —
And the flame passed, and the vision, and I

heard but the wind's sighs.

Pity the great with love, they are deaf, they

are blind:
Pity the great with love, time out of mind!

Last night I walked by the shore where the

machar slopes :
I drowned my heart in the sea, I cast to the

wind my hopes.

246

A Cry on the Wind

What is this thing so great that all the Chil-
dren of Sorrow

Are weary each morn for night, and weary-
each night for the morrow !

Pity the great with love, they are deaf, they
are blind:

Pity the great with love, time out of mind:

This is the song of the grey-haired ivandering
wind

Since Oisin's mother fled to the hill a spell-
bound hind.

247

VALE, AMOR!

We do not know this thing

By the spoken word :
It is as though in a dim wood

One heard a bird

Suddenly sing:
Then, in the twinkhng of an eye
A shadow glooms the earth and sky,
And we stand silent, startled, in a changed
mood.

It is but a little thing

The leaping sword,
When in the startled silence of changed mood

It comes as when a bird

Doth suddenly sing.
But thrust of sword or agony of soul
Are alike swift and terrible and strong.
And no foot stirs the dead leaves of that si-
lent wood.

248

FLAME ON THE WIND

0 wind without that moans and cries, O dark

wind in my soul !

1 would I were the wet wild wind that's blow-

ing to the Pole !
I'd seek the plunging bergs of ice to cool my
flaming heart . . .

O Flaming Heart,
I'd drown you deep where the great ice-
bergs roll !
I'd follow on thy beating wings the wings of

the wild geese,
I'd seek among the plunging hills the phan-
tom-flight of peace . . .
O is there peace for hearts of fire in gloom
and cold and flight —

Torches of night
'Mid swaying bergs that grind the trampling
seas?

O wind without and rain without, O melan-
choly choir

Of tempest in the lonely night and tempest-
whirled desire,

249

Flame on the Wind

What if there be no peace amid the snow-
clouds of the Pole . . .

O Burning Soul,
Can hills of ice assuage this whirling fire !

O wet wild wind bow down dark wings and

winnow me away,
Whirl me on mighty shadowy wings where's

neither night nor day.
Where 'mid the plunging bergs of ice may
fade a whirling flame . . .

O Heart of Flame! . . .
'Mid dirges of white shapes that plunge and
sway.

250

THE ROSE OF THE NIGHT

There is an old mystical legend that when a soul
among the dead woos a soul among the living, so that
both may be reborn as one, the sign is a dark rose, or
a rose of flame, in the heart of the night.

The dark rose of thy mouth

Draw nigher, draw nigher !
Thy breath is the wind of the south,
A wind of fire,
The wind and the rose and darkness, O Rose
of my Desire !

Deep silence of the night,

Husht like a breathless lyre.
Save the sea's thunderous might,
Dim, menacing, dire,
Silence and wind and sea, they are thee, O
Rose of my Desire!

As a wind-eddying flame

Leaping higher and higher,
Thy soul, thy secret name,

Leaps thro' Death's blazing pyre,
Kiss me. Imperishable Fire, dark Rose, O
Rose of my Desire!

251

I-BRASIL

There's sorrow on the wind, my grief, there's

sorrow on the wind,

Old and grey !
I hear it whispering, calhng, where the last

stars touch the sea,
Where the cloud creeps down the hill, and the

leaf shakes on the tree,
There's sorrow on the wind and it's calling

low to me

Come away! Come away!

There's sorrow in the world, O wind, there's

sorrow in my heart

Night and day:
So why should I not listen to the song you

sing to me?
The hill cloud falls away in rain, the leaf

whirls from the tree,
And peace may live in I-Brasil where the last

stars touch the sea

Far away, far away.

252

LOVE AND SORROW

Love said one morn to Sorrow
" Lend me your robe of grey,
And here is mine so gay :
Please borrow,

And each the other be until to-morrow."

At morn they met and parted:

Each had her own again;

But each a new-felt pain;
Broken-hearted,
Love; and Sorrow, broken-hearted.

Love sighed "No more Ell borrow:
Ell never more be glad."
..." Can Love be oh so sad,"

Sighed Sorrow :

And so they kissed and parted on that
morrow.

But when these lovers parted

God made them seem as one —
"Eor so My will is done

Among the broken-hearted,"

He said ; " O ye who are broken-hearted."

253

SONG-IN-MY-HEART^

Song-in-my-heart, my heart's sorrow, my

delight,
I hear a thin whistling as of a high arrow in

flight
Or when the wind suddenly leaps, leaving the

grass snowy-white :
Is it your voice, Song-in-my-heart, that calls

to me to-night?

It is dark here, my Love, my Pulse, my
Heart, my Flame :

Dark the night, dark with wind and cloud, the
wind without aim

Baffled and blind, the cloud low, broken, drag-
ging, lame.

And a stir in the darkness at the end of the
room sighing my name, whispering my
name !

Is that the sea calling, or the hounds of the
sea, or the wind's hounds

^ Oran-a-chridhe, "Song in my heart," a term of
endearment.

254

Song-in-My-Heart

Baffling billow on billow, wave into wave,
with trampling sounds

As of herds confusedly crowding gorges? —
or with leaps and bounds

The narwhals in the polar seas crashing be-
tween ice-grown mounds?

Great is that dark noise under the black north

wind
Out on the sea to-night : but still it is — still as

the frost that bind
The stark inland waters in green depths where

icebergs grind —
In this noise of shaking storm in my heart

and this blast sweeping my mind.

255

MO BRON!
(a song on the wind)

O come across the grey wild seas,

Said my heart in pain;
Give me peace, give me peace,

Said my heart in pain.

This is the song of the Swan
On the tides of the wind,

The song of the wild Swan
Time out of mind.

O come across the grey wild seas,

O give me a token !
My head is on my knees,

My heart is broken.

This is the song of the Heart
On the tides of Sorrow :

This is the song of my heart
To-day and to-morrow.

256

SORROW

The wrack is lapping in the pools, the sea's
lip feels the sand,
Upon the mussel-purple rocks the restless
mews are wailing:
The sinuous serpents of the tide are darkly
twisting to the land :
The west wind drinks the foam as east she
comes a-saihng.

(A whisper of the secret tides upon another
coast,
The windy headlands of the soul, the lone
sands of the mind. . . .
That whisper swells as of a congregating
host,
And I am as one frozen or deaf or blind.)

O Tide that fills the little pools along the sun-
set-strand,
That sets the mews a-wailing above the
wailing sea,
Bring back, hold out, O flowing Tide, O with
a saviour hand
Restore the long-ebbed hopes, some frag-
ment give to me.'

257

Sorrozv

{Along the dim and broken coasts the tired
mind knows its own.
By day and night the silent tides are silent
evermore:
Around the headlands of the soul the great
deeps moan,
Or with dull thunders plunge from shore
to shore.)

258

THE FOUNTS OF SONG

" IVhat is the song I am singing?"

Said the pine-tree to the wave :

" Do you not know the song

You have sung so long

Down in the dim green alleys of the sea,

And where the great blind tides go swinging

Mysteriously,

And where the countless herds of the billows

are hurl'd
On all the wild and lonely beaches of the

world ? "

" Ah, Pine-tree," sighed the wave,

" I have no song but what I catch from thee :

Far ofif I hear thy strain

Of infinite sweet pain

That floats along the lovely phantom land.

I sigh, and murmur it o'er and o'er and o'er,

When 'neath the slow compelling hand

That guides me back and far from the loved

shore,
I wander long

259

The Founts of Song

Where never falls the breath of any song,
But only the loud, empty, crashing roar
Of seas swung this way and that for ever-
more."

" What is the song I am singing f"

Said the poet to the pine:

" Do you not know the song

You have sung so long

Here in the dim green alleys of the woods

Where the wild winds go wandering in all

moods,
And whisper often o'er and o'er.
Or in tempestuous clamours roar
Their dark eternal secret evermore ? "

" Oh, Poet," said the Pine,

" Thine

Is that song!

Not mine !

I have known it, loved it, long!

Nothing I know of what the wild winds cry

Through dusk and storm and night,

Or prophesy

When tempests whirl us with their awful

might.
Only, I know that when
The poet's voice is heard
Among the woods

260

The Founts of Song

The infinite pain from out the hearts of men
Is sweeter than the voice of wave or branch

or bird
In these dumb solitudes."

261

ON A REDBREAST SINGING AT THE
GRAVE OF PLATO

(in the grove of academe)

The rose of gloaming everywhere !
And through the silence cool and sweet
A song falls through the golden air
And stays my feet —
For there ! . . .

This very moment surely I have heard
The sudden, swift, incalculable word
That takes me o'er the foam
Of these empurpling, dim Ionian seas,
That takes me home
To where

Far on an isle of the far Hebrides
Sits on a spray of gorse a little home-sweet
bird.

The great white Attic poplars rise,

And down their tremulous stairs I hear

Light airs and delicate sighs.

Even here

Outside this grove of ancient olive-trees,

Close by this trickling murmuring stream,

262

A Redbreast at the Cnwe of Plato

Was laid long, long ago, men say,

That lordly Prince of Peace

Who loved to wander here from day to day,

Plato, who from this Academe

Sent radiant dreams sublime

Across the troubled seas of time,

Dreams that not yet are passed away.

Nor faded grown, nor grey,

But white, immortal are

As that great star

That yonder hangs above Hymettos' brow.

But now

It is not he, the Dreamer of the Dream,

That holds my thought.

Greece, Plato, and the Academe

Are all forgot :

It is as though I am unloosed by hands :

My heart aches for the grey-green seas

That hold a lonely isle

Far in the Hebrides,

An isle where all day long

The redbreast's song

Goes fluting on the wind o'er lonely sands.

So beautiful, so beautiful
Is Hellas, here.
Divinely clear
The mellow golden air,

263

A Redbreast at the Grave of Plato

Filled, as a rose is full,

Of delicate flame:

And oh the secret tides of thought and dream

That haunt this slow Kephisian stream !

But yet more sweet, more beautiful, more dear

The secret tides of memory and thought

That link me to the far-off shore

For which I long —

Greece, Plato, and the Academe forgot

For a robin's song !

264

THE BELLS OF YOUTH

The Bells of Youth are ringing in the gate-
ways of the South :
The bannerets of green are now unfurled :
Spring has risen with a laugh, a wild-rose in
her mouth,
And is singing, singing, singing thro' the
world.

The Bells of Youth are ringing in all the

silent places.

The primrose and the celandine are out:

Children run a-laughing with joy upon their

faces,

The west wind follows after with a shout.

The Bells of Youth are ringing from the
forests to the mountains,
From the meadows to the moorlands,
hark their ringing!
Ten thousand thousand splashing rills and
fern-dappled fountains
Are flinging wide the Song of Youth, and
onward flowing, singing!
265

The Bells of Youth

The Bells of Youth are ringing in the gate-
ways of the South:
The bannerets of green are now unfurled :
Spring has risen with a laugh, a wild-rose in
her mouth,
And is singing, singing, singing thro' the
world.

266

SONG OF APPLE-TREES

Song of Apple-trees, honeysweet and mur-
murous,

Where the swallows flash and shimmer as
they thrid the foamwhite maze,

Breaths of far-off Avalon are blown to us,
come down to us,

Avalon of the Heart's Desire, Avalon of the
Hidden Ways !

Song of Apple-blossom, when the myriad

leaves are gleaming
Like undersides of small green waves in foam

of shallow seas,
One may dream of Avalon, lie dreaming,

dreaming, dreaming.
Till wandering through dim vales of dusk the

stars hang in the trees.

Song of Apple-trees, honeysweet and mur-
murous.

When the night-wind fills the branches with
a sound of muffled oars,

267

Song of Apple-Trees

Breaths of far-off Avalon are blown to us,

come down to us,
Avalon of the Heart's Desire, Avalon of the

Hidden Shores.

268

ROSEEN-DHU

Little wild-rose of my heart,

Roseen-dhu, Roseen-dhu !
Why must we part,

Roseen-dhu ?
To meet but to part again!
Is it because we are fain
Of the wind and the rain.
Because we are hungry of pain,

Roseen-dhu?

Little wild-rose of my heart,

Roseen-dhu, Roseen-dhu,
Where / am, thou art,

Roseen-dhu !
If summer come and go.
If the wild wind blow.
Come rain, come snow,
If the tide ebb, if the tide flow,

Roseen-dhu !

Little wild-rose of my heart,

Roseen-dhu, Roseen-dhu . .
Time poiseth his shadowy dart,
Roseen-dhu !

269

Roseen-Dliu

What matter, O Roseen mochree,
Since each is a wave on the sea —
Since Love is as Hghtning for thee
And as thunder for me,
Roseen-dhu !

270

THE SHREWMOUSE

The creatures with the shining eyes
That Hve among the tender grass

See great stars falhng down the skies
And mighty comets pass.

Torches of thought within the mind
Wave fire upon the dancing streams

Of souls that shake upon them wind
In rain of falhng dreams.

The shrewmouse builds her windy nest

And laughs amid the corn:
She hath no dreams within her breast :

God smiled when she was born.

271

THE LAST FAY

I have wandered where the cuckoo fills

The woodlands with her magic voice:

I have wandered on the brows of hills

Where the last heavenward larks rejoice:

Far I have wandered by the wave.

By shadowy loch and swaying stream,

But never have I found the grave

Of him who made me a wandering Dream.

If I could find that lonely place

And him who lies asleep therein,

I'd bow my head and kiss his face

And sleep and rest and peace would win.

He made me, he who lies asleep
Hidden in some forgotten spot
Where winds sweep and rains weep
And foot of wayfarer cometh not:
He made me, Merlin, ages ago.
He shaped me in an idle hour,
He made a heart of fire to glow
And hid it in an April shower !
For I am but a shower that calls
A thin sweet song of rain, and pass:

272

The Last Fay

Even the wind-whirled leaf that falls
Lingers awhile within the grass,
But I am blown from hill to vale,
From vale to hill like a bird's cry
That shepherds hear a far-off wail
And wood folk as a drowsy sigh.

And I am tired, whom Merlin made.
I would lie down in the heart of June
And fall asleep in a leafy shade
And wake not till in the Faery Moon
Merlin shall rise our lord and king,
To leave for aye the tribes of Man,
And let the clarion summons ring
The kingdom of the Immortal Clan.
If but in some green place I'd see
An ancient tangled moss-like beard
And half-buried boulder of a knee
I should not flutter away a feared!
With leap of joy, with low glad cry
I'd sink beside the Sleeper fair :
He would not grudge my fading sigh
In the ancient stillness brooding there.

273

THE DIRGE OF "CLAN SIUBHAIL "
(the wandering folk)

Sorrow upon me on the grass and on the wan-
dering road :

My heart is heavy in the morn and heavier
still at night.

Sometimes I rest in a quiet place and lay me
down my heavy load,

And watch in the dewy valley the coming of
light after light,

Watch on the dusky hill and the darkening
plain the coming of light after light.

At dawn I am stirring again, and weary of

the night :
And all the morn and all the noon I lift my

heavy load :
At fall of day I see once more the coming

of light after light:
And night is as day and day is as night on

the endless road —
Sorrow upon me on the grass and on the

wandering road.

274

THE EXILE

It is not when the seamew cries above the
grey-green foam

Or circHng o'er the bracken-fields the flutter-
ing lapwings fly,

Or when above the broom and gale the lark
is in his windy home
That thus I long, and with old longing sigh.

For I am far away now, and now have time

for sighing,
For sighing and for longing, where the grey

houses stand.
In dreams I am a seamew flying, flying, flying
To where my heart is, in my own lost land.

It is when in the crowded streets the rustling

of white willows
And tumbling of a brown hill-water obscure

the noisy ways ;
Then is the ache a bitter pain ; and to hear

grey-green billows,
Or the hill-wind in a broom-sweet place.

275

THE SHADOW

" Do you hear the calling, Mary, down by the
sea?

Who is it callin', yonder, callin' to me ?

Last night a shadow came up to the rowan-
tree,

And Muirnean, it whispered, Muirnean, I'm
■waiting for thee!

" Do you hear the calling, Mary, down by the

shore ?
Who is it callin', yonder, callin' sore?
Last night I came in from the rowan an' shut

the door.
But some one without kept whisperin' the

same thing o'er and o'er.

" Do you hear the calling, Mary, here, close

by?
Who is it callin', whisperin', here, so nigh?
Give me my shawl, Mary, an' don't whimper

an' cry:
I'm going out into the night, just to look at

the sky."

276

The Shadow

Mary — Mary — Mary — wailed the wind wear-
ily:

Mary — Mary — Mary — wailed the rain in the
tree:

One! Two! Three! ticked the clock — One!
Two ! Three !

Out in the darkness rose the calling of the sea.

277

ORAN-BHROIN ^

{A crying in the wilderness as of a little child is the
symbol of I st love)

When all the West is blowing wild,

Is blowing wild
With tempest wings that fan the fire
Of sunset to one awful pyre,

I hear the crying of a child —
The crying of a little child
When all the West is blowing wild,
Is blowing wild.

The screaming scart, the wailing mew,

The lone curlew,
From shore and moor these voices rise :
The grey wind roams through ashen skies :
The West is all a blood-red hue :
Out of the glistering moorland dew
I hear a child's voice wail and rise
In mournful cries.

When all the West is blowing wild,
Is blowing wild

• A song of sorrow.
278

Oran-Bhroin

And shrill and faint along the shore,
By moor, or hill, and o'er and o'er

A child's lament is tost on high
It is a love that cannot die,
A lost love weeping evermore
While all the West is blowing wild,
Is blowing wild.

279

AT THE COMING OF THE WILD

SWANS

By loch and darkening river,

Above the salt sea-plains,
Across the misty mountains
Amid the blinding rains,

In fierce or silent weather

The wild swans southward fare,
The wild swans swing together
Through lonely fields of air,
Crying Honk, Honk, Honk,
Glugulii, ullalu, glugulu^
Honk! Honk!

The seamew's lonely laughter

Flits down the flowing wave,
The green scarts follow after

The surge where cross-tides rave:
The sea-duck's mellow wailing
Floats over sheltered places,
And southward, southward sailing
Go all the feathered races. . . .
When the swans cry Honk, Honk,
Glugulu, ullalu, glugulu.
Honk! Honk!

280

At the Coming of the Wild Swans

White spirits from the Northland,

Grey clan of Storm and Frost,
Wind-swooping to the Southland
From icy-seas blast-tost. . . .

Wild clan of sons and daughters,
A welcome, now you are come
When all your polar waters
Are frozen, white, and dumb !
Crying Honk, Honk, Honk,
Glugulu, ullalii, glugulu,
Honk! Honk!

281

THE WEAVER OF SNOW

In Polar noons when the moonshine glimmers,

And the frost-fans whirl,
And whiter than moonlight the ice-flowers

grow,
And the lunar rainbow quivers and shimmers,
And the Silent Laughers dance to and fro,

A stooping girl

As pale as pearl
Gathers the frost-flowers where they blow :
And the fleet-foot fairies smile, for they know

The Weaver of Snow.

And she climbs at last to a berg set free,

That drifteth slow:
And she sails to the edge of the world we see :
And waits till the wings of the north wind lean
Like an eagle's wings o'er a lochan of green,

And the pale stars glow

On berg and floe. . . .
Then down on our world with a wild laugh

of glee
She empties her lap full of shimmer and sheen.
And that is the way in a dream I have seen

The Weaver of Snow.

282

A SONG OF DREAMS

One came to me in the night

And said Arise!
I rose, phantom-white;
Far was my flight
To a star shaken with Hght

In the heart of the skies.

Through seven spheres I fled,

Opal and rose and white,
Emerald, violet, red.
Through azure was I led,
And the coronal on my head

With seven moons was bright.

What wonder that the day

Swings slowly through slow hours!
My heart leaps when the grey
Husht feet of Night are astray,
And I hear her wild bells play

On her starry towers.

283

EASTER

The stars wailed when the reed was born,
And heaven wept at the birth of the thorn :
Joy was pluckt Hke a flower and torn,
For Time foreshadowed Good-Friday Morn.

But the stars laughed like children free
And heaven was hung with the rainbow's glee
When at Easter Sunday, so fair to see,
Time bowed before Eternity.

284

WHEN THERE IS PEACE

There is peace on the sea to-night
Thought the fish in the white wave :

There is peace among the stars to-night
Thought the sleeper in the grave :

There is peace in my heart to-night
Sighed Love beneath his breath ;

For God dreamed in the silence of His might
Amid the earthquakes of death.

285

TIME

I saw a happy Spirit

That wandered among flowers:
Her crown was a rainbow,

Her gown was wove of hours.

She turned with sudden laughter,
/ was, but am no more!

And as I followed after
Time smote me on the brow.

286

INVOCATION

Writteai in the Gulf of Lyons during a storm.

Play me a lulling tune, O Flute-Player of

Sleep.
Across the twilight bloom of thy purple

havens.
Far off a phantom stag on the moon-yellow

highlands
Ceases ; and, as a shadow, wavers ; and passes :
So let Silence seal me and Darkness gather,

Piper of Sleep.

Play me a lulling chant, O Anthem-Maker,
Out of the fall of lonely seas, and the wind's

sorrow :
Behind are the burning glens of the sunset sky
Where like blown ghosts the seamews wail

their desolate sea-dirges :
Make me of these a lulling chant, O Anthem-
Maker.

No — no — from nets of silence weave me, O

Sigher of Sleep,
A dusky veil ash-grey as the moon-pale moth's

grey wing;

287

Invocation

Of thicket-stillness woven, and sleep of grass,

and thin evanishing air
Where the tall reed spires breathless — for I

am tired, O Sigher of Sleep,
And long for thy muffled song as of bells on
the wind, and the wind's cry

Falling, and the dim wastes that lie
Beyond the last, low, long, oblivious
sigh.

288

THE SECRET GATE

From out the dark of sleep I rose, on the

wings of desire :
" Give me the joy of sight," I cried, "O Mas-
ter of Hidden Fire!"

And a Voice said : IV ait
Till you pass the Gate.

" Give me the joy of sight," I cried, "O Mas-
ter of Hidden Fire !
By the flame in the heart of the soul, grant
my desire ! "

And a Voice said : Wait
Till you pass the Gate.

I shook the dark with the tremulous beat of

my wings of desire:
" Give me but once the thing I ask, O Master
of Hidden Fire ! "

And a Voice said: irait!
You have reached the Gate.

I rose from flame to flame on pinions of desire :
And I heard the voice of the Master of Hid-
den Fire :

Behold the Flaming Gate,

Where Sight doth wait!

289

The Secret Gate

Like a wandering star I fell through the deeps

of desire,
And back through the portals of sleep the
Master of Hidden Fire
Thundered : Await
The opening of the Gate!

But now I pray, now I pray, with passionate

desire :
" Blind me, O blind me. Master of Hidden
Fire,

I supplicate,

Ope not the Gate."

290

THE MYSTIC'S PRAYER

Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame,
O Master of the Hidden Fire !

Wash pure my heart, and cleanse for me
My soul's desire.

In flame of sunrise bathe my mind,
O Master of the Hidden Fire,

That, when I wake, clear-eyed may be
My soul's desire.

291

DRAMAS

To whose editorial hospitality I have so often
been indebted; and whose Undine following upon
The Idea of Tragedy shows that the dramatic poet
and the critic of imaginative drama can be one.

W. L. Courtney.

FOREWORD

// is Destiny, then, that is the Protagonist in the
Celtic Drama. . . . And it is Destiny, that sombre
Demogorgon of the Gael, whose boding breath, whose
menace, whose shadow glooms so much of the remote
life I know, and hence glooms also this book of in-
terpretations: for pages of life must either be inter-
pretative or merely documentary, and these following
pages have for the most part been written as by one
who repeats, with curious insistence, a haunting,
familiar, yet ever wild and remote air, whose obscure
meanings he would fain reiterate, interpret."

{From the Prologue to The Sin-Eater.)

FOREWORD

In these short dramas I have attempted to
give voice to two elemental emotions, the emo-
tion of the inevitableness of destiny and the
emotion of tragical loveliness. One does not
need to know the story of Midir and Etain,
of Concobar and Deirdre, of Deirdre and the
Sons of Usna, in order to know the mystery
and the silent arrivals of destiny, or to know
the emotion of sorrow at the passage of beau-
ty : as one does not need to know the story of
Iphigenia in Aulis in order to know the emo-
tion of indignation at kingly guile or the
emotion of pity for the betrayed : as one does
not need to know the story of the Crozvncd
Hippolytos in order to know the emotion of
tragical suspense, as when Phaedra's love for
the son of her husband is like a leaf on the
wind ; or in order to know the emotion of
bewildered futility, as when Theseus curses
and banishes his innocent son and persuades
to him the doom of Poseidon. For these emo-
tions are not the properties of drama, which
is but a fowler snaring them in a net. These

297

Foreword

deep elementals are the obscure Chorus which
plays upon the silent flutes, upon the nerves
wherein the soul sits enmeshed. They have
their own savage or divine energy, and the
man of the woods and the dark girl of the
canebrakes know them with the same bowed
suspense or uplifted lamentation or joy as do
the men and women who have great names
and to whom the lords of the imagination have
given immortality.

Many kings have desired, and the gods for-
bidden. Concobar has but lain down where
Caesars have fallen and Pharaohs closed im-
perial eyes, and many satraps and many ty-
rants have bent before the wind. All old men
who in strength and passion rise up against
the bitterness of destiny are the kindred of
Lear : those who have kept love as the crown
of years, and seen it go from them like a
wreath of sand, are of the kin of Concobar.
There is not one Lear only, or one Concobar,
in the vast stage of Hfe: but a multitude of
men who ask, in the dark hour of the Winged
Destiny, Am I in truth a king? or who, in-
credulous, whisper Deirdre is dead, Deirdre
the beautiful is dead, is dead.

The tradition of accursed families is not the
fantasy of one dramatist or of one country or
of one time. The Oresteia of Aischylos is no

298

Foreword

more than a tragic fugue wherein one hears
the cries of uncountable threnodies. The
doom of the clan of Usna is not less veiled
in terror and perpetuated in fatality than the
doom of the Atreidai : and even " The Fall of
the House of Usher " is but a single note of
the same ancient mystery' over which Sopho-
cles brooded in the lamentations which eddy
like mournful winds around the House of
Labdacus.

Whether the poet turn to the tragedy of
the Theban dynasty wherein Laios and lokaste
and Oidipus move like children of lire in a
wood doomed to flames ; or to the tragedy of
the Achaian dynasty, wherein Pelops and
Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaos, Helen and
Iphigenia, Klytaemnestra prophesying and the
prophet Kalchas, are like shadowy figures,
crowned with terror and beauty, on the verge
of a dark sea where the menace of an obscure
wind is continually heard beyond the enchant-
ed shore ; or to the tragedy of Lear weeping,
where all kingship seems as a crown left in
the desert to become the spoil of the adder
or a pillow for wandering dust ; or to the Cel-
tic tragedy of the House of Fionn, where
Dermid and Crania, where Oisin and Mal-
veen, are like the winds and the waters, the
rains and the lamentations of the hills; or to

299

Foreword

that other and less familiar Gaelic tragedy of
the House of Usna, where an old king knows
madness because of garnered love spilt and
wasted, and where a lamp of deathless beauty
shines like a beacon, and where heroes die as
leaves fall, and where a wind of prophesying
is like the sound of dark birds flying over
dark trees in the darkness of forgotten woods :
— whether one turn to these, or to the doom
of the House of Malatesta, or to the doom of
the House of Macbeth, or to the doom of tlie
House of Ravenswood, one turns in vain if he
be blind and deaf to the same elemental forces
as they move their eternal ichor through the
blood that has to-day's warmth in it, that are
the same powers though they be known of
the obscure and the silent, and are committed
like wandering flame to the torch of a ballad
as well as to the starry march of the com-
pelling words of genius ; are of the same do-
minion, though that be in the shaken hearts
of islesfolk and mountaineers, and not with
kings in Mykenai, or by the thrones of Tam-
burlaine and Aurungzebe, or with great lords
and broken nobles and thanes.

But the poet, the dramatist, is not able — is
not yet able — to express in beauty and convey
in symbol the visible energy of these emotions
without resort to the artifice of men and

300

Foreword

women set in array, with harmonious and
arbitrary speech given to them, and a back-
ground of illusion made unreal by being made
emphatic.

If one were to express the passion of re-
morse under the signal of a Voice lamenting,
or the passion of tears under the signal of a
Cry, and be content to give no name to these
protagonists and to deny them the background
of history or legend : and were to unite them
in the sequence of significant and essential
things which is drama in action, but in a se-
quence of suggestion and symbol rather than
of statement and pageant : he would be told
that he had mistaken the method of music
passing into drama for the method of verbal
illusion passing into drama.

And, while this is so, it cannot be gainsaid
that he must not seek to disengage from the
creature of his imagination these old allies, the
intimate name and the familiar circumstance.
It may be true that a Voice and a Cry may
suffice, not as choric echo or emphasis, but as
protagonists in a drama where the passions
and energies and unveiled emotions are un-
loosed, and elemental strives with elemental,
till Love and Terror may in very weariness
lie down together, and Death and Sorrow and
Wrath and Lamentation disclose their own

301

Foreword

august nakedness, beings standing apart from
the mortal wrappings of words and action, of
silence and sound and colour and shape, to
which our mind compels them. But that is
too subtle a dream for realisation to seem pos-
sible yet. It is too subtle perhaps even as the
insubstantial phantom of a dream, save for
those who, hungering after the wild honey of
the mind and thirsting for the remoter springs,
foresee a time when the imagination shall lay
aside words and pigments and clay, as rai-
ment needless during the festivals of the spirit,
and express itself in the thoughts which in-
habit words — as light inhabits water or as
greenness inhabits grass ; and in the colours
which inhabit pigments, as wild-roses and'
dew-wet laburnum and white and purple iris
gathered from a June morning and hidden in
earthenware jars ; and in the perpetual and
protean energy of Form which, tranced and
unique, dreams in clay or sleeps in marble or
ivory.

But so long as the imagination dwells in
this old convention which imposes upon us the
use of events that chime to the bells of the
past, and the use of names which are at once
congruous and traditional ... in this con-
vention of episode and phrase in the concert
of action and suspense ... it will be well

302

Fore-word

ever and again to turn to those ancestral
themes past which so many generations have
slipt Hke sea-going winds over pastures, and
upon which the thoughts of many, minds have
fallen in secret dews. I do not say, for I do
not so think, that there might not be drama
as moving whether it deal with the event of
to-day and the accent of the hour as with a re-
mote accent recovered and with remote event.
Some of the dramas of Browning, some of the
finer French dramas, some of the short plays
of Mr. Yeats and others, are to the point. But,
to many minds, there must always be a su-
preme attraction in great themes of drama as
familiar to us as the tales of faerie and won-
•der to the mind of childhood. The mind,
however, need not be bondager to formal tra-
dition. I know one who can evoke modern
dramatic scenes by the mere iterance of the
great musical names of the imagination . . .
Menelaos, Helen, Klytaemnestra, Andro-
mache, Kassandra, Orestes, blind Oidipus,
Elektra, Kreusa, and the like. This is not be-
cause these names are in themselves esoteric
symbols, or are built of letters of revelation as
the fabled tower of Ys was built of evocatory
letters made of wind and water, of brownness
of earth, of greenness of grass, and of dew,
all of which the druids held in the hollows of

303

Foreword

the five vowels. My friend has not seen any
representation of the Agamemnon or the
Chocphoroi, of Aias or Oidipus at Kolonos, of
Elektra or Ion, or indeed of any Greek play.
But he knows the story of every name men-
tioned in each of the dramas of the three
kings of Greek Tragedy. So, as he says, why
should he go out to see a trivial play of triv-
ial people animated by trivial emotions against
a background of trivial circumstance, when he
can sit before his fire and see Elektra and
Orestes standing appalled before the dead
body of Klytaemnestra, listening if the coming
steps are the steps of murdered Aigisthos, and
cowering when they see the pale immortal
faces of the Dioskoroi : or see Oidipus, that"
proud king, when he hears the first terrible
whisper of destiny from the lips of the prophet
Teiresias, or when, blind and abased, he lies in
the dust, with lokaste, wife and queen and
revealed mother, already 'a silent fruit on the
tree of death,' while, beyond, the Chorus raves :
or when, as in Aias (as our Cuchulain fight-
ing the waves with drawn sword and foam on
his lips, or Concobar in the legendary tale
that on the day of the Crucifixion he ran into
the woods lopping great branches from the
trees and calling 'A king is fallen to-day, an
innocent king is slain, a great king is fallen !')

304

Foreword

the mad prince runs among a herd of cattle and
slaughters the lowing bulls, thinking them to
be .Agamemnon and Menelaos — or, later, when
he stands subtly smiling as though acquiescing
to the fair words of Tekmessa, and then with
sidelong eyes goes furtively to the solitary
place where he may fall upon his sword ? Or,
again, he may see Klytaemnestra entering the
doorway, with Elektra and Orestes waiting
with beating hearts, not as either Euripides or
Aischylos has revealed to us ; or may see Oidi-
pus staring with sudden scornful wrath at
Teiresias, not as either Aischylos or Sophocles
has revealed to us ; but a Klytaemnestra, an
Elektra, an Orestes, an Oidipus, a Teiresias,
as revealed to his own vision that is of to-
day, shaped from the mould that moulds the
spirit of to-day and coloured with the colour
of to-day's mind. And here, he says, is his de-
Hght. "For I do not live only in the past, but
in the present, in these dramas of the mind.
The names stand for the elemental passions,
and I can come to them through my own gates
of to-day as well as through the ancient por-
tals of Aischylos or Sophocles or Euripides:
and for background I prefer the flame-light
and the sound of the wind to any of the crude
illusions of stagecraft."

It is no doubt in this attitude that Racine,

305

Foreword

so French in the accent of his classical genius,
looked at the old drama which was his in-
spiration : that Mr. Swinburne and Mr.
Bridges, so English in the accent of their
genius, have looked at it; that Echegaray, in
Spain, looked at it before he produced his
troubled modern Elektra which is so remote
in shapen thought and coloured semblance
from the colour and idea of its prototype ; that
Gabriele D'Annunzio looked at it before he
became obsessed with the old terrible idea of
the tangled feet of Destiny, so that a tuft of
grass might withhold or a breath from stirred
dust empoison, and wrote that most perturb-
ing of all modern dramas, La Citta Morta.

It concurs, then, that there is no inherent
reason why a poet of to-day should not over-
take the same themes as Aischylos overtook
from Phrynicus, and Sophocles from Aischy-
los, and Euripides from all three, and Philocles
and Agathon and Xenocles indiscriminately.
The difficulty is not in the remoteness of the
theme, still less in the essential substance. It
is in the mistaken idea that the ancient formal
method is inevitable, and in the mistaken idea
that a theme sustained on essential and ele-
mental things and therefore independent of
unique circumstance can be exhausted by the
flashing upon it of one great light. Kassandra

' 306

Foreword

and Helen and Iphigenia . . . they live : they
are not dead. But, to approach them, to come
face to face with them, that is not the reward
of the most eager mind, or of the most up-
lifted desire: it is the reward only of genius
akin in quality at least with that of those great
ones of old who, like drifting Pharos, flashed
across the dark seas of antiquity a dazzling il-
lumination on this lifted wave called Helen,
on that lifted wave called Andromache, on
these long rolling billows called Agamemnon
or Aias or Orestes. It is not the themes that
have receded but the imaginations that have
quailed.

Merely to parody the Greek tragedians, by
taking a great theme and putting one's pre-
sumption and weakness beside it — that is an-
other thing altogether. It is difficult after
Shelley and Robert Browning, after Mr. Swin-
burne and Mr. Robert Bridges, to say that no
modern English poet has achieved a play with
a Greek heart ... no play written as a nine-
teenth century Sophocles or Euripides or
Agathon would have written it. Even on
Prometheus Unbound and Atalanta in Caly-
don, even on Erechthcus, the Gothic genius of
the North has laid a touch as delicate as frost,
as durable as the finger of primeval fire on the
brows of the immemorial rock. Perhaps the

307

Foreword

plays of Mr. Bridges are more truly classical
than any modern drama since Racine. But
their flame is flame seen in a mirror : we see
the glow, we are intellectually warmed by it,
but we do not feel it . . . our minds only, not
our hearts that should burn, our nerves that
should thrill, respond.

The reason, I do not doubt, is mainly a
physical rather than an intellectual difficulty.
It is the indwelling difficulty. It is the in-
dwelling spirit and not the magnetic mind that
is wayward and eager to evade the compelling
wand of the imagination. For the spirit is
not under the spell of tradition. It wishes to
go its own way. Tradition says, if you would
write of the slaying of Klytaemnestra you must
present a recognisable Elektra and a recognis-
able Orestes, and Dioskoroi recognisable as
Dioskoroi against a recognisable background :
but to the spirit Elektra and Orestes are sim-
ply abstract terms of the theatre of the imag-
ination, the Dioskoroi are august powers,
winnowers of fate, and the old Greek back-
ground is but a remembered semblance of a
living stage that is not to-day what it was yes-
terday or shall be to-morrow, and yet is ever
in essentials the same.

There is not one of the Greek dramas which
might not in spiritual identity be achieved to-

308

Foreword

day by genius that, with equaHty of power,
could perceive the intransiency of the essential
and immortal factors in the life of the imagin-
ation and the mutability of what is accidental
in time and circumstance.

We are, I believe, turning toward a new
theatre. The theatre of Ibsen, and all it
stands for, is become outworn as a compelling
influence. Its inherent tendency to demon-
strate intellectually from a series of incontro-
vertible material facts is not adequate for
those who would see in the drama the means
to demonstrate symbolically from a sequence
of intuitive perception. A subtle French
critic, writing of the theatre of Ibsen, appre-
ciates it as a theatre more negative than posi-
tive, more revolutionary than foundational,
more intellectual than religious. " A ce
theatre amer et sec," he adds, "I'ame moderne
ne peut etancher toutes ses soifs d'infini et
d'absolu."

I think that, there, the right thing is said,
as well as the significant indication given.
" More intellectual than religious " : that is,
more congruous with the method of the mir-
ror that gathers and reveals certain facets of
the spirit than with the spirit who as in a glass
darkly looks into the mirror. " More intellec-
tual than religious " : that is, more persuaded

309

Foreword

by the sight that reveals the visible than by the
vision that perceives what materially is not
visible. " At this bitter and dry theatre of the
intellect, the modern soul cannot quench its
thirst for the infinite and absolute " : and that
is the reason, alone adequate, v^hy to-day the
minds of men are turning to a new drama,
wherein thoughts and ideas and intuitions
shall play a more significant part than the
acted similitudes of the lesser emotions that
are not so much the incalculable life of
the soul as the conditioned energies of the
body. The Psychic Drama shall not be less
nervous; but the emotional energy shall
be along the nerves of the spirit, which sees
beneath and above and beyond, rather than
merely along the nerves of material life,
which sees only that which is in the line of
sight.

And as I have written elsewhere, it may
well be that, in a day of outworn conventions,
many of us are ready to turn gladly from the
scenic illusions of the stage carpenter and the
palpable illusions of the playwright, to the
ever-new illlusions of the dreaming mind,
woven in a new intense dramatic reality against
" imagined tapestries "

. . . dream-coloured dramas of the mind
Best seen against imagined tapestries . . .

310

Foreword

against revealing shadows and tragic glooms
and radiances as real, and as near, as the
crude symbols of painted boards and stereo-
typed phrase in which we still have a receding
pleasure.

I think the profoundest utterance I know,
witnessing to the fundamentally psychical na-
ture of the drama, is a phrase of Chateau-
briand which I came upon recently in Book
V of his Memoires ..." to recover the
desert I took refuge in the theatre." The
whole effort of a civilisation become anaemic
and disillusioned must be to " recover the
desert." That is a central truth, perceived
now of many who are still the few. This
great writer knew that in the theatre de
I'dme lay the subtlest and most searching
means for the imagination to compel reality
to dreams, to compel actuality to vision, to
compel to the symbolic congregation of words
the bewildered throng of wandering and illu-
sive thoughts and ideas. By " the desert " he
meant that wilderness, that actual or symbolic
solitude, to which the creative imagination
goes as the curlew to the wastes or as the mew
to foam and wind.

Other writers speak of " nature " and " soli-
tude" as though regarding them as sanctuaries
where the passions may, like the wild falcons,

Foreword

cover their faces with tlieir wings, and be still.
Chateaubriand was of those few who look
upon the solitudes of nature as enchanted
lands, where terror walks with beauty, and
where dreams start affrighted from quiet
pools because the shadow of invisible fear falls
past their shadowy hair and they see the phan-
tom slipping from depth to depth as a wind-
eddy from leaf to leaf. He was of those who
looked upon solitude as, of old, anchorites
looked upon waste places where the vulture
had her eyrie and the hyena wailed and in
desolate twilights the lioness filled the dark
with the hunger of her young. " Be upon
your guard against solitude: the great pas-
sions are solitary, and to transport them to
the desert is to restore them to their tri-
umph."

But I have wandered from the narrower
path on which I set out. Elsewhere, I hope
to express more adequately what here I have
cursorily outlined, and, also tentatively to il-
lustrate the Psychic Drama as thus indicated.
It is because my mind is occupied with many
problems of a new drama that I have thus
burdened a short play, remembered as it were
from some vast unwritten ancient drama, with
so lengthy a preface. However, it may stand
as the statement of a movement of return on

312

Foreword

the part of individual thought, that I believe
to be indicative of a movement of return on
the part of modern thought, to the instinct of
organic unity and ... in the deep sense of
the term ... to a religious inspiration.

F. M.

313

THE IMMORTAL HOUR
A DRAMA

NOTE

The Immortal Hour is founded on the an-
cient Celtic legend of Midir and Etain (or
Edane). I have no doubt that the legend,
though only honey for the later Gaelic poets,
had originally a deep significance, and that the
Wooing to the Othervvorld . . , i.e., to the
Gaelic Tir na 'n Og, the Land of Youth, of
the Ever Living, of Love, the Land of Heart's
Desire ... of the beautiful woman Etain,
wife of King Eochaidh, symbolised another
wooing and another mystery than that alone
of the man for the woman. It symbolised, I
think, the winning of life back to the world
after an enforced thraldom: the renewal of
Spring: in other words, Etain is a Gaelic Eu-
rydice, Midir a Gaelic Orpheus who pene-
trated the dismal realm of Eochaidh, and
Eochaidh but a humanised Gaelic Dis. It is not
Persephone, gathering flowers on Enna, whom
legend remembers here, but the not less beau-
tiful love of Apollo's son, slain by the treach-
erous earth in the guise of a grass-hid asp as
she flees from her pursuer : nor is there word

Z^7

Note

of Demeter, nor yet of Aristseus. To the
Gaelic mind, remembering what it had
dreamed in the Vale of Tempe (or in Asian
valleys, long before the Song-Charmer had a
Greek muse for mother and a birthright in
Hellas) the myths of Persephone and Eury-
dice might well be identified, so that Orpheus
sought each or both-in-one, in the gloomy un-
derworld. And the tale suffered no more
than a sea-change when, by the sundown
shores, it showed Eurydice-Persephone as
Etain being wooed back to sunshine and glad
life by the longing passion of Orpheus as
Midir. For in the Gaelic mythology, Midir,
too, is a son of light, a servant of song,
a son of Apollo, being of the divine race of
Oengus the Sun-God, Lord of Life and Death.
By his symbol of the dew he is also the Re-
storer, the Reviver.

Of Dalua I can say but a word here.^ He
is the Amadan-Dhu, or Dark Fool, the Faery
Fool, whose touch is madness or death for any
mortal : whose falling shadow even causes
bewilderment and forgetfulness. The Fool is

* The name Dalua and Etain should be pro-
nounced Da-lod-d, and Eh-tain (short, as in satin).
The name of Eochaidh, who later wins Etain for
a time, is pronounced Yochay, and that of Midir,
Mid'-eer (short, as in mid-day).

Note

at once an elder and dreadful god, a myste-
rious and potent spirit, avoided even of the
proud immortal folk themselves : and an ab-
straction, " the shadow of pale hopes, forgot-
ten dreams, and madness of men's minds."
He is, too, to my imagining, madness incorpo-
rate as a living force. In several of my writ-
ings this dark presence intervenes as a shadow
. . . sometimes without being named, or as
an elemental force, as in the evil music of
Gloom Achanna in the tale called " The Dan-
Nan-Ron," sometimes as a spirit of evil, as in
" Dalua," the opening tale in The Dominion of
Dreams.

The Black Hawk (or Eagle) alluded to in
first " direction " preceding text is the lolair
Dhu, which on the first day of the world
launched itself into the darkness and has
never yet caught up with the dawn, though its
rising or sinking shadow may be seen over
the edge of dark at the night-dusk or morn-
ing twilight. It should be added that with
the ancient Gaels (and with the few to-day
who have not forgotten or do not disdain the
old wisdom) the Hidden People (the Sidhe or
Shee; or Slice' an or Sheechun of the Isles)
were great and potent, not small and insignifi-
cant beings. " Mab " long ago was the ter-
rible "dark" queen, Maive {Medh, Medbli,

319

Note

Mahh) : and the still more ancient Puck was
not a frolicsome spirit, but a shadowy and
dreadful Power.

Students of Celtic mythology will be familiar
with the legend of the love of Etain or Edane
(herself half divine of race), wife of Eochaidh,
the High King, for a mysterious stranger who
came to the King's Diin, and played chess with
the King, and won Etain away with him, he
being Midir, a King in the Otherworld. Some
may look upon Midir as another Orpheus, and
upon Etain as a Eurydice with the significance
of Proserpine : others may see also in Etain,
what I see, and would convey in The Immortal
Hour, a symbol of the wayward but home-
wandering soul ; and in Midir, a symbol of the
Spirit ; and in Eochaidh, a symbol of the mun-
dane life, of mortal love. Others will see only
the sweet vanity of the phosphorescent play of
the mythopoeic Gaelic mind, or indeed not
even this, but only the natural dreaming of the
Gaelic imagination, ever in love with fantasy
and with beauty in fantasy. But, lest the old
and the new be confused, this should be added :
. . . That Eochaidh finds Etain in the way
he does, and that Dalua comes and goes be-
tween Etain and Eochaidh as he comes and
goes, and the meaning that lies in the obscure
love of Dalua, and the bewildered love of

320

Note

Etain, and the mortal love of Eochaidh, and
the immortal love of Midir . . . this is new,
perhaps : though what seems new may be the
old become transparent only, the old in turn
being often the new seen in reverse ... as
one may for the first time see a star in a deep
water that has already immemorially mirrored
it. Nor has Dalua part or mention in the an-
tique legend. Like other ancient things, this
divinity hath come secretly upon us in a for-
getful time, new and strange and terrible,
though his unremembered shadow crossed our
way when first we set out on our long travel,
in the youth of the world.

F. M.

321

ACT I

DRAMATIS PERSONS

EocHAiDH. High King of Ireland.
Etain. a Lost Princess, afterwards

Eochaidh's Queen.
MiDiR. A Prince of the Hidden People.
Dalua. The Amadan-Dhu.
Two Peasants, Manus and Maive, and Har-
pers, Warriors, etc.

ACT I

A forest glade at the rising of the moon. In
the background is the hazel-shad onrd
pool of a wide waste of zvater. As the
moonshine falls upon an ancient oak to
the right, the tall figure of Dalua is seen
leaning against the bole. He is clad in
black, with a small black cap from which
hangs a black haivk's feather.

Dalua
[Slozvly coming out of the shadow

By dim moon-glimmering coasts and dim grey
wastes

Of thistle-gathered shingle, and sea-murmur-
ing woods

Trod once but now untrod . . . under grey
skies

That had the grey wave sighing in their sails

And in their drooping sails the grey sea-ebb.

And with the grey wind wailing evermore

Blowing the dun leaf from the blackening
trees,

I have travelled from one darkness to another.

325

The Immortal Hour

Voices in the Wood

Though you have travelled from one darkness

to another
Following the dun leaf from the blackening

trees
That the grey wind harries, and have trodden

the woods
Where the grey-hooded crows that once were

men
Gather in multitude from the long grey wastes
Of thistled shingle by sea-murmurous coasts,
Yet you have come no further than a rood,
A little rood of ground in a circle woven.

Dalua

My lips have lost the salt of the driven foam,
Howbeit I hear no more the long dull roar,
Of the long grey beaches of the Hebrides.

Voices

Behind the little windless leaves of the wood
The sea-wastes of the wind-worn Hebrides
With thunderous crashes falling wave on

wave.
Are but the troubled sighs of a great silence.

Dalua

To the world's end I have come, to the
world's end.

326

The Immortal Hour

Voices

You have come but a little way who think so

far
The long uncounted leagues to the world's

end:
And now you are mazed because you stand at

the edge
Where the last tangled slope leans over the

abyss.

Dalua

You know not who I am, sombre and ancient
voices.

[Silence

And if I tread the long, continuous way
Within a narrow round, not thinking it

long,
And fare a single hour thinking it many

days,
I am not first or last, of the Immortal Clan,
For whom the long ways of the world are

brief
And the short ways heavy with unimagined

time.

Voices in the Wood
There is no first or last, or any end.

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

I have come hither, led by dreams and

visions,
And know not why I come, and to what

end.
And wherefore mid the noise of chariot

wheels
Where the swung world roars down the starry

ways
The Voice I know and dread was one with

me,
As the uplifted grain and wind are one.

Voices

Above you is the light of a wandering

star . . .
O Son of the Wandering Star, we know you

now !

Dalua

Like great black birds the demons haunt the

woods . . .
Hail, ye unknown who know me! . . .

A Voice

Hail, Son of Shadow !
328

The Immortal Hour

Voices

Hail, Brother of the strong, immortal gods.
And of the gods who have passed into a

sleep
In sandless hollows of forgotten hills,
And of the homeless, sad, bewildered gods
Who as grey wandering mists lickt up of the

wind
Pass slowly in the dull unfriendly light
Of the cold, curious eyes of envious

men. . . .

Other Voices

Ai! Ai!

• • • •

Who yet have that which gives their mortal

clay
A light and a power and a wonder that none

has
Of all the Clans of the Shee, save only those

who are not sprung of Orchil and of Kail
The mother and father of the earth-wrought

folk,
Greater than men but less than Orchil and

Kail,
As they in turn are less than sky-set Lu
Or Oengus who is keeper of the four great

keys . . .

329

The Immortal Hour

Other Voices

Than sky-set Lu who leads the hosts of the
stars . . .

Other Voices

Than Dagda, Lord of Thunder and of Si-
lence,
And Ana, the ancient Mother of the gods. . . .

Other Voices
Than Manan of the innumerable waters. . . .

Other Voices
Than moon-crown'd Brigid of the undying
flame. . . ,

Other Voices

Than Midir of the Dew and the Evening
Star. ...

Other Voices

Than Oengus, keeper of the East : of Birth :

of Song:
The keeper of the South : of Passion : and of

War :
The keeper of the West : of Sorrow : of

Dreams :
The keeper of the North: of Death: of Life.

330

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

Yet one more ancient even than the god of

the sun,
Than flame-haired Oengus, lord of Love and

Death,
Holds the last dreadful key , . , Oblivion.

Voices

Dim ages that are dust are but the loosened

laughters
Spilt in the youth of Oengus the Ever- Young !

Dalua

I am old, more old, more ancient than the

gods,
For I am son of Shadow, eldest god
Who dreamed the passionate and terrible

dreams
We have called Fire and Light, Water and

Wind,
Air, Darkness, Death, Change, and Decay,

and Birth
And all the infinite bitter range that is.

The Immortal Hour

A Voice

Brother and kin to all the twilit gods,
Living, forgot, long dead: sad Shadow of

pale hopes,
Forgotten dreams, and madness of men's

minds :
Outcast among the gods, and called the Fool,
Yet dreaded even by those immortal eyes
Because thy fateful touch can wreck the mind
Or lay a frost of silence on the heart:
Dalua, hail ! . . .

Dalua

I am but what I am.
I am no thirsty evil lapping life.

[Loud laughters from the wood

Laugh not, ye outcasts of the invisible world,
For Lu and Oengus laugh not, nor the gods
Safe set above the perishable stars.

[Silence
They laugh not, nor any in the high celestial

house.
Their proud immortal eyes grow dim and

clouded
When as a morning shadow I am gathered
Into their holy light, for well they know
The dreadful finger of the Nameless One,

332

The Immortal Hour

That moves as a shadow falls. For I Dalua
Am yet the blown leaf of the unknown
pov/ers.

Voices

{Tumultuously
We too are the blown leaves of the unseen
powers.

Dalua

Demons and Dreams and Shadows, and all ye
Invisible folk who haunt the darkling ways,
I am grown weary, who have stooped and lain
Over the green edge o' the shaken world
And seen beneath the whirling maze of stars
Infinite gulfs of silence, and the obscure
Abysmal wastes where Time hath never trod.

Voices
We too are weary: we are Weariness.

Dalua

[Listening intently

Voices of shadowy things, be still ! I hear
The feet of one who wanders through the
wood.

The Immortal Hour

Voices

We who are the children of the broken way,
The wandered wind, the idle wave, blown

leaves.
The wild distempered hour and swirling dust.
Hail thee, Dalua, Herdsman of fallen stars.
Shepherd of Shadows ! Lord of the Hidden

Way !

Dalua

[Going back to the oak
Voices be still ! The woods are suddenly

troubled.
I hear the footfall of predestined things.

[Enter Etain, in a coiled robe of pale
green, with mistletoe intertwined
in her long, dark, unloosened hair.
She comes slozvly forzvard, and
stands silent, looking at the moon-
shine on the water.

Etain

[Singing to a slow monotonous air
Fair is the moonlight
And fair the wood,
But not so fair
As the place I come from.

334

The Immortal Hour

Why did I leave it,
The beautiful country,
Where Death is only
A drifting Shadow?

0 face of Love,

Of Dream and Longing,
There is sorrow upon me
That I am here.

1 will go back

To the Country of the Young,

And see again

The lances of the Shee

As they keep hosting
With laughing cries
In pale places
Under the moon.

[Etain turns, and walks slowly for-
ward. She starts as she hears a
peculiar cry from the wood

Etain

None made that cry who has not known the
Shee.

335

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

[Coming forward and bowing low with
fantastic grace
Hail, daughter of kings, and star among the

dreams
Which are the lives and souls of whom have

won
The Country of the Young !

Etain

I know you not :
But though I have not seen your face before,
I think you are of those who have not kept
The bitter honey of mortality.
But are among the deathless folk who dwell
In hollow hills, or isles far off, or where
Flatheanas Hes, or cold Ifurin is.

Dalua
I have come far, led here by dreams and
visions.

Etain

By dreams and visions led I too have come
But know not whence or by what devious way,
Nor to what end I am come through these dim

woods
To this grey lonely loch.

336

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

[Touching her lightly with the shadow
of his hand

Have you forgot
The delicate smiling land beneath the arcs
Which day and night and momently are wove
Between its peaceful shores and the vast gulf
Of dreadful silence and the unpathwayed
dark?

Etain

If somewhat I remember, more is lost.
Have I come here to meet with you, fair sir,
Whose name I do not know, whose face is
strange ?

Dalua

Can you remember. ...

Etain

I have forgotten all . . .
I can remember nothing : no, not this
The little song I sang ev'n now, or what sweet

thought.
What ache of longing lay behind the song.
All is forgot. And this has come to me
The wind-way of the leaf. But now my

thoughts

337

The Immortal Hour

Ran leaping through the green ways of my

mind
Like fawns at play : but now I know no more
That this : that I am Etain White o' the Wave,
Etain come hither from the lovely land
Where the immortal Shee fill up their lives
As flowers with honey brewed of summer

airs,
Flame of the sun, dawn-rains, and evening

dews.

Dalua

[Sombrely

How knew you not that once, where the un-

setting moon
The grassy elf mounds fills with drowsy

gold,
I kissed your shadowy lips beneath the thorn
Heavy with old foam of changeless blossom?

Etain

[Leanmg forward and looking into his
face
You loved me once ? I have no memory
Of this: if once you loved me, have you lost
The subtle breath of love, the sudden fire?
For you are cold as are your shadowy eyes.

338

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

[ Unsfirring

When, at the last, amid the o'erwearied

Shee —
Weary of long delight and deathless joys —
One you shall love may fade before your eyes,
Before your eyes may fade, and be as mist
Caught in the sunny hollow of Lu's hand,
Lord of the Day. . . .

Etain

[Eagerly, with Her left hand pressed
against her heart
What then ?

Dalua

It may be then, white dove,
Your eyes may dwell on one on whom falls

not
The first chill breath blown from the Un-
known Land,
Of which the tender poets of the Shee
Sing in the dewy eves when the wild deer
Are milked, and 'neath the evening-star moths

rise
Grey-gold against a wave-uplifted moon.

339

The Immortal Hour

Etain
Well?

Dalua

Then I, Dalua. in that fateful hour,
Shall know the star-song of supreme desire,
And placing hand upon the perfect fruit
Shall taste and die. . . .

[A pause
. . . or, if I do not die,
Shall know the sweet fruit mine, then see it

slip
Down through dim branches into the abyss
Where all sweet fruit that is, the souls of men,
The joyous Shee, old gods, all beautiful words,
Song, music, dreams, desires, shall in the end
Sway like blown moths against the rosewhite

flame
That is the fiery plume upon the brows
Of Him called Silence.

Etain

I do not understand :
Your love shall fall about me like sweet rain
In drouth of death : so much I hear and know :
But how can death o'ertake the immortal folk
With whom I dwell? And if you love me
thus,

340

The Immortal Hour

Why is there neither word nor smile nor

glance
Of love, nor any little sign that love
Shakes like a windy reed within your heart?

Dalua

[Sombrely
I am Dalua.

Etain

I have heard lips whisper
Of one Dalua, but with sucked-in breath,
As though the lips were fearful of the word.
No more than this I know, no more recall.

Dalua

I cannot give you word of love, or kiss,
Sweet love, for in my fatal breath there lies
The subtle air of madness : from my hand
Death shoots an arrowy tongue, if I but touch
The unsuspecting clay with bitter heed.
With hate darkling as the swift winter hail.
Or sudden malice such as lifts and falls
A dreadful shadow of ill within my mind.
Nor could I if I would. We are sheep led
By an unknown Shepherd, we who are the

Shee,
For all we dream we are as gods, and far
Upgathered from the little woes of men.

341

The Immortal Hour

Etain

Then why this meeting, here in this old wood,
By moonhght, by this melancholy water?

Dalua

I knew not : now I know. A king of men
Has wooed the Immortal Hour. He seeks to

know
The joy that is more great than joy
The beauty of the old green earth can give.
He has known dreams, and because bitter

dreams
Have sweeter been than honey he has sought
The open road that lies mid shadowy things.
He hath sought and found and called upon the

Shee
To lead his love to one more beautiful
Than any mortal maid, so fair that he
Shall know a joy beyond all mortal joy.
And stand silent and rapt beside the gate,
The rainbow gate of her whom none may

find.
The Beauty of all Beauty.

Etain

Can this be ?
342

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

Nay, but he doth not know the end. There is
But one way to that Gate : it is not Love
Aflame with all desire, but Love at peace.

Etain
Who is this poet, this king?

Dalua

Led here by dreams,
By dreams and visions led as you and I,
His feet are nearing us. When you are won
By love and adoration, star of dreams,
And take sweet mortal clay, and have forgot
The love-sweet whisper of the King of The

Shee,
And, even as now, hear Midir's name unmov'd
When you are won thus, Etain, and none

know,
Not any of your kindred, whence unknown
As all unknowing you have come, for you
The wayward thistledown of fate shall blow
On the same idle wind — the doom of him
Who blindfold seeks you.

Etain
But he may not love ?
343

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

Yes, he shall love. Upon him I shall lay

My touch, the touch of him men dread and

call
The Amadan-Dhu, the Dark One, Fairy Fool.
He shall have madness even as he v^ills,
And think it wisdom. I shall be his thought —
A dream within a dream, the flame wherein
The white moths of his thought shall rise and

die.

[A blast of a horn is heard

Dalua

[Abruptly
Farewell.

[Touches her lightly with the shadow
of his hand, and ivhispers in her
ear
Now go. The huntsman's lodge is near.
I have told all that need be told, and given
Bewilderment and dreams, but dreams that

are
The fruit of that sweet clay of which I spoke.

[Etain slowly goes, putting her hand
to her head hczvildcredly. Before
she passes into and out of sight in
the wood, she sings plaintively

344

The Immortal Hour

I would go back

To the Country of the Young,

And see again

The lances of the Shee,

As they keep their hosting
With laughing cries
In pale places
Under the moon.

Scene II. — The same.

[Dalua stands, waiting the coming of
EocHAiDH the king. The king is
clad in a leathern hunting dress,
with a cleft helmet surmounted by
a dragon in pale findruiney

EoCHAIDH

[Stopping abruptly

Sir, I am glad. I had not thought' to see
One here.

Dalua

[ Taking off his cap, and sweeping it low
The king is welcome here.

345

The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH

The king?
How know you that the king is here ? Far off
The war-horns bray about my threatened

Dun.
None knows that I am here.

Dalua

And why, O king?

EocHAroH

For I am weary of wars and idle strife,
Who have no joy in all these little things
Men break their lives upon. But in my dreams.
In dreams I have seen that which climbs the

stars
And sings upon me through my lonely hours
And will not let me be.

Dalua

What song is that ?

EoCHAIDH

The song . . . but who is he who knows the

king
Here in this dim, remote, forgotten wood,
Where led by dreams and visions I have come ?

346

The Immortal Hour

Dalua
Those led by dreams shall be misled, O king!

EocHAroH

You are no druid : no knight in arms : none
Whom I have seen.

Dalua

I have known camps of men,
The minds and souls of men, and I have heard
Eochaidh the king sighing out his soul in
sighs.

Eochaidh

Tell me your name.

Dalua
I am called Dalua.

EocHAroH

[Ponderingly

I have not heard that name, and yet in dreams
I have known one who waved a shadowy

plume
And smiling said, " I am Dalua." Speak :
Are you this same Dalua?

347

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

I have come
To this lone wood and to this lonely mere
To drink from out the Fountain of all dreams,
The Shadowy Fount of Beauty.

EOCHAIDH

[Eagerly

At last!
The Fount of Beauty, Fountain of all dreams !
Now am I come upon my long desire !
The days have trampled me like armed men
Thrusting their spears as ever on they go,
And I am weary of all things save the stars,
The wind, shadows and moonrise, and strange

dreams.
If you can show me this immortal Fount
Whatso you will is yours.

Dalua

[Touching him lightly
You are the king,
And know, now, whence you came, and to
what end?

EoCHAIDH

[ Confusedly
The king? The king? What king?

348

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

You are the king?

EOCHAIDH

A king of shadows, I ! I am no king.

Dalua
And whither now, and whence ?

EoCHAIDH

I am not come
From any place I know of, and I go
Where dreams and visions lead me.

[Suddcjily a fountain rises in the mere,
the spray rising high in the moon-
shine

Dalua

Look, O king !

EoCHAIDH

[Staring eagerly, ivith hand above his
eyes
I cannot see what you would have me see.

349

The Immortal Hour

Dalua

[Plucking a branch from a mountain-
ash, and waving it before the king's
face
Look!

EOCHAIDH

I see a Fountain and within its shadow
A great fish swims, and on the moveless wave
The scarlet berries float : dim mid the depths
The face of One I see, most calm and great,
August, with mournful eyes,

Dalua

Ask what you will.

EoCHAIDH

The word of wisdom, O thou hidden God :
Show me my star of dreams, show me the
way!

A Voice [Solemnly

[Return, 0 Eochaidh Airemh, wander-
ing king

Eochaidh
That shall not be. No backward way is mine.
If I indeed be king, then kingly I
Shall cleave my way through shadows, as
through men.

350

The Immortal Hour

A Voice
Return!

EOCHAIDH

Nay, by the Sun and Moon, I swear
I will not turn my feet.

A Voice

Return! Return!

EoCHAIDH

[Hesitating, turns to look at Dalua,
who has szviftly and silently with-
drawn into the wood

[Silence

There is no backward way for such as I !
Howbeit — for I am shaken with old dreams.
And as an idle wave tossed to and fro —
I will go hence : I will go back to where
The quiet moonlight spills from the black

brow
Of the great hill that towers above the lands
Wherein men hail me king.

[Dalua's laughter comes from the
wood

Dalua

Follow, O follow, king of dreams and sha-
dows!

351

The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH
I follow. ...

[Exit

Scene III. — The rude interior of the cabin of
the huntsman, Manus. He is sitting, clad
in deerskin, with strapped sandals, before
a fire of pine-logs. Long, unkempt, black
hair falls about his face. His wife, Maive,
a worn woman with a scared look, stands
at the back, plucking feathers from a dead
cockerel. At the other side of the hearth,
Etain sits.

Manus

I've seen that man before who came to-night.

[He has addressed no one, and no one
answers

I say I have seen that man before.

Maive

Hush Manus
Beware of what you say. How can we tell
Who comes, who goes ? And, too, good man,

you've had
Three golden pieces.

Manus

Aye, they are put by.
That comforts me: for gold is ever gold.

352

The Immortal Hour

Maive

One was for her who stays with us to-night
And shares our scanty fare.

[Making a curtsey

Right welcome, too :
The other was for any who might come,
Asking for bite or sup, for fireside warmth.
The third. . . .

Manus

Yes, woman, yes, I know : for silence. Hush !

{A moan of wind is heard
There comes the rain.

Etain

[Rising and going to the left doorway,
pulls hack the hide. Shuddering,
she thrusts it crosswise again, and
returns

It was so beautiful,
So still, with not a breath of wind, and now
The hill-wind moans, the night is filled with

tears
Of bitter rain. Good people, have you seen
Such quiet eves fall into stormy nights
Before?

353

The Immortal Hour

Manus

Who knows the wild way of the wind :
The wild way of the rain ? They come, and go :
We stay. We wait. We listen. Not for us
To ask, to wonder.

Maive
They're more great than we.
They are so old, the wind and rain, so old,
They know all things, Grey Feathers and Blind
Eyes!

Etain

Who?. . . Who?. . .

Manus

. . . the woman speaks of Wind and Rain :
Blind Eyes, the dreadful one whom none has

seen.
Whose voice we hear : Grey Feathers, his pale

love,
Who flies before or follows, grey in rains.
Fierce blue in hail, death-white in whirling

snows.

Etain

Does any ever come to you by night?

. . . lost woodlander, stray wayfarer from

the hills,
Merchant or warrior from the far-off plains ?

354

The Immortal Hour

Manus
None.

Maive

We are so far away : so far, I think
Sometimes, we must be close upon the edge
Of the green earth, there where the old tales

say
The bramble-bushes and the heather make
A hollow tangle over the abyss.

Etain

But sometimes . . . sometimes. . . . Tell me :

have you heard.
By dusk or moonset have you never heard
Sweet voices, delicate music? . . . never seen
The passage of the lordly beautiful ones
Men call the Shee?

Manus

[Rising abruptly

We do not speak of them.

Hark!

Maive

[A stronger blast strikes the house.
Manus throws more logs on the
fire

355

The Immortal Hour

Maive
Hark! a second time I've heard a cry!

[All listen. Suddenly a loud knock is
heard. Maive covers her head,
and cowers beside the fire, behind
Etain, zuho rises. Manus seises
a spear, and stands waiting. The
heavy knock is repeated

A Voice
Open, good folk!

Manus

There is no door to ope :
Thrust back the skins from off the post.

[The ox-fell is thrust aside, and
Eochaidh enters. He stops at
the threshold, staring at Etain

Eochaidh

Good folk,

I give you greeting. [A pause

Lady, I bow my knee.
[Etain bows slowly in return.
Eochaidh comes a few steps for-
ward, stops, and looks fixedly at
Etain. He says slowly

You have great beauty.

[A pause

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The Immortal Hour

I have never seen
Beauty so great, so wonderful. In dreams,
In dreams alone such beauty have I seen,
A star above my dusk,

Etain

Sir, I pray you
Draw near the fire. This bitter wind and rain
Must sure have chilled you.

[She points to her vacant three-legged

stool. As EOCHAIDH slowlj pGSSCS

her, Manus slides his hand over
his shoulder and back

Manus

[With a strange look at Maive
He is not wet. The driving rains have left
No single drop !

Maive

[Piteously

Good sir ! brave lord ! good sir !
Have pity on us : sir, have pity !
We are poor, and all alone, and have no wile
To save ourselves from great ones, or from

those
Who dwell in secret places on the hills
Or wander where they will in shadow clothed.

357

The Immortal Hour

Manus

Hush, woman! Name no names: and speak

no word
Of them who come unbidden and unknown.
Good, sir, you are most welcome. I am

Manus,
And this poor woman is Maive, my childless

wife,
And this is a great lady of the land
Who shelters here to-night. Her name is

Etain.

EOCHAIDH

Tell me, good Manus : who else is here, or

whom
You may expect?

Manus

No one, fair lord. The wild
Gray stormy seas are doors that shut the world
From us poor island-folk. . . .

Maive

We are alone.
We're all alone, fair sir : there is none here
But whom you see. Gray Feathers and Blind

Eyes
Are all we know without.

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The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH

Who are these others ?

Manus
The woman speaks, sir, of the Wind and Rain.
These unknown gods are as all gods that are,
And do not love to have their sacred names
Used lightly : so we speak of him who lifts
A ceaseless wing across all lands and seas,
Moaning or glad, and flieth all unseeing
From darkness into darkness, as Blind Eyes:
And her, his lovely bride, for he is deaf and so
Veers this way and that for ever, seeing not
His love who breaks in tears beneath his wings
Or falls in snows before his frosty breath —
Her we name thus. Grey Feathers.

Maive

As for us.
We are poor lonely folk, and mean no wrong.
Sir, sir, if you are of the nameless ones,
The noble nameless ones, do us no ill !

EoCHAIDH

Good folk, I mean no ill. Nor am I made
Of other clay than yours. I am a man.
Let me have shelter here to-night : to-morrow
I will go hence.

359

The Immortal Hour

Manus
You are most welcome, sir.

EOCHAIDH

And you, fair Etain, is it with your will
That I be sheltered from the wind and rain?

Etain

How could I grudge you that ungrudged to
me?

[Manus and Maive withdraw into the

background. . The light wanes, as

the logs give less flame. Eochaidh

speaks in a low, strained voice

Etain, fair beautiful love, at last I know

Why dreams have led me hither. All these

years
These eyes like stars have led me : all these

years
This love that dwells like moonlight in your

face
Has been the wind that moved my idle

wave.
Forgive presumptuous words. I mean no ill.
I am a king, and kingly. Ard-Righ, I am,
Ard-Righ of Eire.

360

The Immortal Hour

Etain
And your name, fair lord ?

EOCHAIDH

Eochaidh Airemh.

Etain

And I am Etain called,
Daughter of lordly ones, of princely line.
But more I cannot say, for on my mind
A strange forgetful cloud bewilders me.
And I have memory only of those things
Of which I cannot speak, being under bond
To keep the silence of my lordly folk.
How I came here, or to what end, or why
I am left here, I know not.

Eochaidh

Truly, I
[Taking her hand in his

Now know full well.

Etain, dear love, my dreams
Come true. I have seen this dim pale face in

dreams
For days and months and years ; till at the

last
Too great a sdcU of beauty held my hours.

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The Immortal Hour

My kingdom was no more to me than sand,
Or a green palace built of August leaves
Already yellowing, waiting for the wind
To scatter them to north and south and

east.
I have forgotten all that men hold dear,
And given my kinghood to the wheeling

crows.
The trampling desert hinds, the snarling

fox.
I have no thought, no dream, no hope, but

this —

[Kissing her upon the brow

To call you love, to take you hence, my

Queen —
Queen of my Heart, my Queen, my Dream,

my Queen !

Etain

[Looking into his face, with thrown-
back head
I too, I too, am lifted with the breath
Of a tumultous wind. My lord and king,
I too am lit with fire, which fills my heart,
And lifts it like a flame to burn with thine,
To pass and be at one and flame in thine.
My, lord, my king! My lord, my lord, my
king!

362

The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH

The years, the bitter years of all the world
Are now no more. We have gained that

which stands
Above the trampling feet of hurrying years.

[A brief burst of mocking laughter is
heard

EoCHAIDH

[Turning angrily, and looking into the
shadowy background where are

Manus and Maive
Who laughed ? What means that laughter ?

Manus

[Sullenly
No one laughed.

EoCHAIDH

Who laughed? Who laughed?

Maive
Grey Feathers and Blind Eyes.
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The Immortal Hour

Etain

[ Wearily

None laughed. It was the hooting of an owl.

Dear lord, sit here. I am weary.

[Manus and Maive withdraw, and lie
doivn. EocHAiDH and Etain sit
before the smouldering fire. The
room darkens. Suddenly Eoch-
aidh leans forward, and whispers

Eochaidh

Etain !
Etain, dear love !

Etain -^

[Not looking at him, and slowly sway-
ing as she sings
How beautiful they are,
The lordly ones
Who dwell in the hills.
In the hollow hills.

They have faces like flowers
And their breath is wind
That blows over grass
Filled with dewy clover.

364

The Immortal Hour

Their limbs are more white
Than shafts of moonshine:
They are more fleet
Than the March wind.

They laugh and are glad
And are terrible :
When their lances shake
Every green reed quivers.

How beautiful they are
How beautiful
They lordly ones
In the hollow hills.

{Darkness, save for the red flame in
the heart of the fire.

END OF ACT I

365

ACT II

Scene I. — A year later. In the hall of the
Royal Dun at Tara. The walls covered
with skins, stag's heads and boar's heads,
weapons: at intervals great torches. At
lower end, a company of warriors, for the
most part in hratta of red and green, or
red and green and blue, like tartan but
in long, broad lines or curves, and not
in squares, deerskin gaiters and sandals.
Also harpers and others, and white-clad
druids and bards. On a dais sits Eochaidh
the High King. Beside him sits Etain,
his queen. Behind her is a group of ivhite-
robed girls.

Harpers (strike a loud clanging music from
their harps).

Chorus of Bards

Glory of years, O king, glory of years !
Hail, Eochaidh the High King of Eire, hail !
Etain the Beautiful, hail !

369

The Immortal Hour

Other Bards, Harpers, and Minstrels

Hail!

Druids

Hail!

Warriors

Hail!

EOCHAIDH

Drink from the great shells and horns ! . . .

for I am glad
That on this night which rounds my year of

joy,

In amity and all glad fellowship
We feast together.

[Turning to Etain

Etain, speak, my Queen.

Etain

[Rising

Warriors and druids, bards, harpers, friends
Of high and low degree, I who am queen
Do also thank you. But I am weary now,
And weary too with strange perplexing dreams
Thrice dreamed : and so I bid you all farewell.
[Bows low. Turning to the king adds

To you, dear love, my lord and king, I too
Will bid farewell to-night.

370

The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH

[Lovingly
Say not farewell :
Say not farewell, dear love, for we shall meet
When the last starry dews are gathered up
And loud in the green woods the throstles call.

Etain
Dear, I am tired. . . . Farewell!

EoCHAIDH

No, no, my fawn —
My fawn of love : this night, this night I pray
Leave me not here alone : for under all
This outer tide of joy I am sore wrought
By dreams and premonitions. For three

nights
I have heard sudden laughters in the dark,
Where nothing was ; and in the first false

dawn
Have seen phantasmal shapes, and on the

grass
A host of shadows marching, bent one way
As when green leagues of reed become one

reed
Blown slantwise by the wind.

371

The Immortal Hour

Etain

I, too, have heard
Strange deHcate music, subtle murmurings,
A Httle lovely noise of myriad leaves,
As though the greenness on the wind o' the

south
Came traveling to bare woods on one still
night :

[A pause

I, too, have heard sweet laughter at the

dawn,
Amid the twilight fern : but when I leaned
To see the unknown friends, no more than

this
I saw — grey delicate shadows on the grass,
Grey shadows on the fern, the flowers, the

leaves,
Swift flitting, like foam-shadows o'er a wave.
Before the grey wave of the coming day.

[A pause: then suddenly

But I am weary. Eochaidh, love and king,
Sweet sleep and sweeter dreams !

[Etain leans and kisses the king. He
stoops, and takes her right hand,
and lifts it to his lips. Warriors
raise their szvords and spears, as
Etain leaves, followed by her
women.

Z72

The Immortal Hour

Warriors and Others

The Queen ! The Queen !

Harpers (strike a loud clanging music from
their harps).

Chorus of Bards

Glory of years, O king, glory of years !
Hail, Eochaidh Ard-Righ of Eire, hail! hail!
Etain the Beautiful, hail !

Other Bards, Harpers, and Minstrels

Hail!

Druids

Hail!
Warriors

Hail!
Eochaidh

[Raising a white hazel-wand, till ah-
solute silence falls

Now go in peace. To one and all, good-night.

[The warriors, hards, minstrels troop
out, leaving only the harpers and
a fezv druids, who do not follow,
but stand uncertain as a stranger
passes through their midst and
confronts the king. He is young,

373

The Immortal Hour

princely, fair to see; clad all in
green, with a gold belt, a gold tor-
que round his neck, gold armlets
on his bare arms, and two gold
torques round his bare ankles. On
his long curling dark hair, falling
over his shoulder, is a small green
cap from which trails a peacock-
feather. To his left side is slung
a small clarsach, or harp.

MiDIR

Hail, Eochaidh, King of Eire.

EOCHAIDH

[Standing motionless and looking
fixedly at the stranger

Hail, fair sir!

MiDIR

[ With light grace

Sorrow upon me that I am so late

For this great feasting; but I come from far,

And winds and rains delayed me. Yet full

glad
I am to stand before the king to-night
And claim a boon !

374

The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH

No stranger claims in vain
Here in my Dun, a boon if that boon be
Such I may grant without a loss of fame,
Honour, or common weal. But first, fair sir,
I ask the name and rank of him who craves,
To all unknown?

MiDIR

I am a king's first son :
My kingdom lies beyond your lordly realms,
O king, and yet upon our mist-white shores
The Three Great Waves of Eire rise in foam.
But I am under geasa, sacred bonds.
To tell to no one, even to the king.
My name and lineage. Kmg, I wish you well :
Lordship and peace and all your heart's desire.

EoCHAIDH

Fair lord, my thanks I give. Lordship I have,
And peace a little while, though one brief year
Has seen its birth and life : my heart's desire —
Ah, unknown lord, give me my heart's desire —
And I will give you lordship of these lands,
Kingship of Eire, riches, greatness, power,
All, all, for but the little infinite thing
That is my heart's desire!

375

The Immortal Hour

MiDIR

And that, O king?

EOCHAIDH

It is to know there is no twiHght hour
Upon my day of joy : no starless night
Wherein my swimming love may reach in

vain
For any shore, wherein great love shall drown
And be a lifeless weed, which the pale shapes
Of ghastly things shall look at and pass by
With idle fin.

MiDIR

Have not the poets sung
Great love survives the night, and climbs the

stars,
And lives th' immortal hour along the brows
Of that infinitude called Youth, whom men
Name Oengus, Sunrise?

EoCHAIDH

Sir, I too have been
A poet.

MiDIR

Within the Country of the Young,
Whence I have come, our life is full of joy,
For there the poet's dreams alone are true.

376

The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH

Dreams . . . dreams. . . .

{A pause: then abruptly

But tell me now, fair lord, the boon
You crave.

MiDIR

I have heard rumour say that there is none
Can win the crown at chess from this crowned

king
Called Eochaidh.

EoCHAIDH

Well?

MiDIR

And I would win that crown :
For none in all the lands that I have been
Has led me to the maze wherein the pawns
Are lost or go awry.

Eochaidh

Sir, it is late,
But if I play with you, and I should win.
What is the guerdon ?

MiDIR

That — your heart's desire.

[A pause

Z77

The Immortal Hour

MiDIR

And what, O king, my guerdon if I win?

EOCHAIDH

What you shall ask.

MiDIR

Then be it so, O, king.

EoCHAIDH

Yet why not on the morrow, my fair lord ?
To-night the hour is late; the queen is

gone:
The chessboard lies upon a fawnskin couch
Beside the queen. She is weary, asleep.
To-morrow then . . .

MiDIR

[Drawing from his green vest a small
chess-hoard of ivory, and then a
handful of gold pawns

Not so, Ard-Righ, for see
I have a chess-board here, fit for a king —
For it is made of yellow ivory
That in dim days of old was white as cream

378

The Immortal Hour

When Dana, mother of the ancient gods,
Withdrew it from her thigh, with golden

shapes
Of unborn gods and kings to be her pawns.

EOCHAIDH

[Leaning forward curiously
Lay it upon the dais. In all my years
I have seen none so fair, so wonderful.

[Both lie upon the dais, and move the

pawns upon the ivory board
Harpers {play a delicate music).

A Young Minstrel

[Sings slowly

I have seen all things pass and all men go
Under the shadow of the drifting leaf:
Green leaf, red leaf, brown leaf,
Grey leaf blown to and fro:
Blown to and fro.

I have seen happy dreams rise up and pass
Silent and swift as shadozvs on the grass:

Grey shadows of old dreams.

Grey beauty of old dreams.
Grey shadows in the grass.

■ 379

The Immortal Hour
Scene II. — The same.

EOCHAIDH

[Rising abruptly, followed by Midir
more slowly

So, you have won ! For the first time the king
Has known one subtler than himself. Fair sir,
Your boon ?

Midir

O king, it is a little thing.
All that I ask is this, that I may touch
With my own lips the white hand of the

queen :
And that sweet Etain whom you love so well
Should listen to the distant shell-sweet song,
A little echoing song that I have made
Down by the foam on sea-drown'd shores to

please
Her lovelier beauty.

EoCHAIDH

Sir, I would that boon
Were other than it is : for the queen sleeps
Grown sad with weariness and many dreams :
But as you have my kingly word, so be it.

[Calls to the young minstrel
Go boy, to where the women sleep, and call
Etain, the Queen.

380

The Immortal Hour

[The minstrel goes, to left
Harpers {play a low delicate music).
[Enter Etain, in a robe of pale green,
zvith mistletoe intertwined in her
long loose hair

EOCHAIDH

Welcome, fair lovely queen.
But, Etain, whom I love as the dark wave
Loves the white star within its travelling

breast,
Why do you come thus clad in green, with hair
Entangled with the mystic mistletoe, as when
I saw you first, in that dim, lonely wood
Down by forgotten shores, where the last

clouds
Slip through grey branches into the grey

wave?

Etain

I could not sleep. My dreams came close to

me
And whispered in my ears. And someone

played
A vague perplexing air without my room.
I was as dim and silent as the grass.
Till a faint wind moved over me, and dews
Gathered, and in the myriad little bells
I saw a mvriad stars.

The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH

This nameless lord
Has won a boon from me. It is to touch
The whiteness of this hand with his hot Hps,
For he is fevered with a secret trouble,
From rumour of that beauty which too well
I know a burning flame. And he would sing
A song of echoes caught from out the foam
Of sea-drown'd shores, a song that he has

made,
Dreaming a foolish idle dream, an idle dream.

Etain
[Looking long and lingeringly at
MiDiR, slowly gives him her hand.
When he has raised it to his lips,
bowing, and let it go, she starts,
puts it to her brow bewilderingly,
and again looks fixedly at Midir

Fair nameless lord, I pray you sing that song.

Midir

[Slowly chanting and looking stead-
fastly at Etain

How beautiful they are,
The lordly ones
Who dwell in the hills,
In the hollow hills.

382

The Immortal Hour

They have faces like flowers,
And their breath is wind
That stirs amid grasses
Filled with white clover.

Their limbs are more white
Than shafts of moonshine :
They are more fleet
Than the March wind.

They laugh and are glad
And are terrible ;
When their lances shake
Every green reed quivers.

How beautiful they are,
How beautiful,
The lordly ones
In the hollow hills.

[Silence. Etain again puts her hand
to her brow hewilderedly

Etain

\Dreamily

I have heard. ... I have dreamed. ... I,

too, have heard,
Have sung . . . that song: O lordly ones that

dwell

383

The Immortal Hour

In secret places in the hollow hills,

Who have put moonlit dreams into my mind

And filled my noons with visions, from afar

I hear sweet dewfall voices, and the clink,

The delicate silvery spring and clink

Of faery lances underneath the moon.

MiDIR

I am a song

In the Land of the Young,

A sweet song:

I am Love.

I am a bird
With white wings
And a breast of flame,
Singing, singing.

The wind sways me
On the quicken-bough:
Hark! Hark!
I hear laughter.

Among the nuts
On the hazel-tree
I sing to the Salmon
In the faery pool.

384

The Immortal Hour

What is the dream
The Salmon dreams,
In the Pool of Connla
Under the hazels?

It is : There is no death
Midir, with thee,
In the honeysweet land
Of Heart's Desire.

It is a name wonderful,
Midir, Love:
It was born on the lips
Of Oengus Og.

Go, look for it :
Lost name, beautiful:
Strayed from the honeysweet
Land of Youth.

I am Midir, Love :
But where is my secret
Name in the land of
Heart's desire?

I am a bird
With white wings
And a breast of flame
Singing, singing:

385

The Immortal Hour

The Salmon of knowledge
Hears, whispers :
Look for it, Midir,
In the heart of Etain :

Etain, Etain,
My Heart's Desire:
Love, love, love.
Sorrow, Sorrow!

[Etain moves a little nearer, then
stops. She puts both hands before
her eyes, then withdraws them

Etain

I am a small green leaf in a great wood

And you, the wind o' the South !

[Silence. Eochaidh, as though spell-
bound, cannot advance, but
stretches his arms towards Etain

Eochaidh

Etain, speak!
What is this song the harper sings, what

tongue
It this he speaks? for in no Gaelic lands
Is speech like this upon the lips of men.
No word of all these honey-dripping words
Is known to me. Beware, beware the words

386

The Immortal Hour

Brewed in the moonshine under ancient oaks
White with pale banners of the mistletoe
Twined round them in their slow and stately

death.
It is the Feast of Saveen.^

Etain
All is dark
That has been hght.

EOCHAIDH

Come back, come back, O love that slips away !

Etain
I cannot hear your voice so far away :
So far away in that dim lonely dark
Whence I have come. The Ught is gone.
Farewell !

Eochaidh

Come back, come back! It is a dream that

calls,
A wild and empty dream ! There is no light
Within that black and terrible abyss .
Whereon you stand. Etain, come back, come

back,
I give you life and love.

>Samhain. The Celtic Festival of Summerend
Hallowe'en.

The Immortal Hour

Etain

I cannot hear
Your strange forgotten words, already dumb
And empty sounds of dim defeated shows.
I go from dark to Hght.

MiDIR

[Slowly whispering
From dark to light.

EOCHAIDH

O, do not leave me, Star of my Desire !
My love, my hope, my dream : for now I know
That you are part of me, and I the clay,
The idle mortal clay that longed to gain,
To keep, to hold, the starry Danann fire.
The little spark that lives and does not die.

Etain

Old, dim, wind-wandered lichens on a stone
Grown grey with ancient age : as these thy

words.
Forgotten symbols. So, Farewell: farewell!

MiDIR

Hasten, lost love, found love! Come, Etain,
come!

388

The Immortal Hour

Etain

What are those sounds I hear? The wild
deer call

From the hill-hollows : and in the hollows sing,

Mid waving birchen boughs, brown wander-
ing streams :

And through the rainbow'd spray flit azure
birds

Whose song is faint, is faint and far with love :

O, home-sweet, hearth-sweet, cradle-sweet it
is,

The song I hear!

MiDIR

[Slowly moving backward
Come, Etain, come! Afar
The hillside maids are milking the wild deer;
The elf-horns blow : green harpers on the

shores
Play a wild music out across the foam :
Rose-flusht on one long wave's pale golden

front.
The moon of faery hangs, low on that wave.
Come! When the vast full yellow flower is

swung
High o'er the ancient woods wherein old gods,
Ancient as they, dream their eternal dreams
That in the faery dawns as shadows rise
And float into the lives and minds of men

389

The Immortal Hour

And are the tragic pulses of the world,
Then shall we two stoop by the Secret Pool
And drink, and salve our sudden eyes with

dew
Gathered from foxglove and the moonlit fern.
And see. . . .

[Slowly chanting and looking stead-
fastly at Etain

How beautiful they are,
The lordly ones
Who dwell in the hills.
In the hollow hills.

They have faces like flowers,
And their breath is wind
That stirs amid grasses
Filled with white clover.

Their limbs are more white
Than shafts of moonshine:
They are more fleet
Than the March wind.

They laugh and are glad
And are terrible :
When their lances shake
Every green reed quivers.

390

The Iiiniiortal Hour

How beautiful they are,
How beautiful,
The lordly ones
In the hollow hills.

Etain

Hush! Hush!
Who laughed?

MiDIR

None laughed. All here are in a spell
Of frozen silence.

Etain

Sure, sure, one laughed.
Tell me, sweet Voice, which one among the

Shee
Is he who plays with shadows, and whose

laugh
Moves like a bat through silent haunted

woods ?

MiDIR

He is not here : so fear him not : Dalua.
It is the mortal name of him whose age
Was idle laughing youth when Time was

born.
He is not here : but come with me, and where
The falling stars spray down the dark Abyss,
There, on a quicken, growing from mid-earth

391

The Immortal Hour

And hanging like a spar across the depths,
Dalua sits : and sometimes through the dusk
Of immemorial congregated time,
His laughter rings : and then he listens long,
And when the echo swims up from the deeps
He springs from crag to crag, for he is mad,
And like a lost lamb crieth to his ewe.
That ancient dreadful Mother of the Gods
Whom men call Fear.

When he has wandered thence
Whether among the troubled lives of men or

mid
The sacred Danann ways, dim wolflike shapes
Of furtive shadow follow him and leap
The windway of his thought : or sometimes

dwarfed, more dread,
The stealthy moonwhite weasels of life and

death
Glide hither and thither. Even the high gods
Who laugh and mock the lonely Fairy Fool
When in his mortal guise he haunts the

earth.
Shrink from the Amadan Dhu when in their

ways
He moves, silent, unsmiling, wearing a dark

star
Above his foamwhite brows and midnight

eyes.

392

The Immortal Hour

Come, Etain, come : and have no fear, wild

fawn,
For I am Midir, Love, who loved you well
Before this mortal veil withheld you here.
Come!

In the Land of Youth
There are pleasant places:
Green meadows, woods,
Swift grey-blue waters.

There is no age there,

Nor any sorrow :

As the stars in heaven

Are the cattle in the valleys.

Great rivers wander
Through flowery plains,
Streams of milk, of mead,
Streams of strong ale.

There is no hunger
And no thirst
In the Hollow Land,
In the Land of Youth.

How beautiful they are.
The lordly ones
Who dwell in the hills.
In the hollow hills.

393

The liiniiorfal Hour

They play with lances
And are proud and terrible,
Marching in the moonlight
With fierce blue eyes.

They love and are loved :
There is no sin there :
But slaying without death,
And loving without shame.

Every day a bird sings :
It is the Desire of the Heart.
What the bird sings,
That is it that one has.

Come, longing heart.
Come, Etain, come !
Wild Fawn, I am calling
Across the fern!

[Slowly Etain, clasping his hand,
moves away with Midir. They
pass the spell-bound guards, and
disappear'. A sudden darkness
falls. Out of the shadoiv Dalua
moves rapidly to the side of
EocHAiDii, who starts, and peers
into the face of the stranger

394

The Immortal Hour

EOCHAIDH

It is the same Dalua whom I met
Long since, in that grey shadowy wood
About the verge of the old broken earth
Where, at the last, moss-clad it hangs in cloud.

Dalua
I am come.

EoCHAIDH

My dreams ! my dreams ! Give me my
dream !

Dalua

There is none left but this —

[Touches the king, who stands stiff
and erect, sways, and falls to the
ground

Dalua
the dream of Death.

THE END

395

THE HOUSE OF USNA

A DRAMA

NOTE

Concobar MacNessa was King of Ulster
and Ard-Righ or High-King of Ireland at the
beginning of the Christian era. By some
chroniclers his reign is said to be synchronous
with the mortal years of Christ.

Concobar had founded the knightly order
of " The Red Branch " — the forerunner,
though on a more epical scale, of the Round
Table of the Arthurian Chivalry — and by his
force of will and the power of his nation (the
Ultonians, the people of Uladh, or Ulster)
had become not only High-King of Ireland,
but dreamed to make of its nations one nation,
and that he and his sons and his son's sons
should be its kings. In this he disregarded
both the prophecies of the seers and the will
of the gods ; for he had long schemed, and at
last accomplished, a deed of evil and treachery
upon three of the champions of the Alban or
Scottish Gael, Naysha (Naois) and his two
brothers, the sons of Usna, though the hero
Usna had been allied to him and was bond-
brother in war and courtesy.

399

Note

The period of this drama is about four
years after the elopement of Deirdre, as told
in the old tale of Deirdre and the Sons of
Usna: a retold version of which, from Gaelic
and other sources, has already appeared in the
Old World Series of reprints. More ex-
plicitly, the actual period is the year following
the triumph of Concobar's inveterate hate in
his treacherous murder of Naysha (Naois)
and his brothers Ailne (Ainnle) and Ardan,
because of Naysha's love of Deirdre (the High
King's ward and most beautiful woman of her
time, and by Concobar destined to be his
queen, despite the prophecies at her birth) and
of Deirdre's for Naysha. Because of broken
kingly honour, and the slaying of the sons of
Usna and the death of Deirdre, Cormac Con-
lingas, Concobar's son and heir, with other
champions, seceded and joined the dread
enemy Queen Meave, then advancing against
the Ultonian Kingdom from the middle pro-
vinces and the west.^ Conaill Carna and the
youthful Setanta (already famous as the
Hound (Cu), or Cuchulain, the Hound of

' As the names have everywhere been anglicised.
. . . e.g. Medb or Medbh into Meave, pronounced
Mave; and Naois into Naysha . . . I need add only
that Cuchulain is pronounced Coohoolin, and Eilidh
Eily.

400

Note

Chulain) were among those who in their
loyalty remained with Concobar to fight with
vain magnificent heroism against the will of
the gods.

It is at this juncture that Cormac Conlingas,
suddenly deciding to return to Uladh to re-
join Concobar and the Red Branch, is seduced
by his great love for the wife of Cravetheen
the Harper, and, while with her, is burned to
death by Cravetheen.

When the drama opens, Concobar (already,
as was presaged, brought to the verge of mad-
ness by his thwarted and inconsolable passion
for Deirdre, and by his unkingly and treacher-
ous revenge and its outcome) does not know
that this new evil is come upon him and his
house and nation, though in truth the end is
at hand when the star of Ireland shall set in
blood from the north to the south and from
the east to the west.

401

DRAMATIS PERSONS

CoNCOBAR Macnessa. King of Ulster and

High-King of Ireland.
DuACH. A Druid.
CoEL. An Old Blind Harper.
Cravetheen. a Harper of the Kingship of

Cbnairey Mbr.
Maine. A Boy.

and
Ultonian Warriors.
Unseen : Mourners passing through the forest

tvith the charred bodies of Cormac Con-

lingas and Eilidh the Fair.
Chorus of Harpers.

402

SCENE I

Open glade in a forest of pines and oaks,
with the silent fires of sunset on the
holes. Confused cries are heard, but as
though a long zvay off. A dishevelled sav-
age figure, clad in deerskin and hide-hound
leggings, slips forward furtively from tree
to tree. His long dark locks fall ahout his
misshapen shoulders: his left arm is in a
sling: in his right hand he carries a spear.
He stands at last listening intently.

Starting abruptly he lifts his spear, but
slowly lowers it as an old man, blind, clad
in a white robe, zvith fat gold cirque ahout
his ivaist and an oak-fillet round his head,
comes forzuard leaning on a staff.

COEL

Who is it who is near me ? I hear the quick
breath of one who ... of one who hunts
... or is hunted.

Cravetheen

Druid, I am a stranger. Where am I ? Tell
me your name ?

403

The House of Usna

COEL

I am Coel the Druid. . . . Coel the old bUnd
harper.

Cravetheen

I, too, am a harper, though I am no druid.
I am Cravetheen the Harper. I am warrior
and chief harper to the great king Conairey
Mor. I crave sanctuary, Coel the Harper ! I
crave sanctuary . . . quick ! quick !

Coel
From whom?

[The confused cries are louder and
grow louder, then cease.

Cravetheen

[Shaking his spear
From them.

Coel

You are safe here. Tell me this, you who
are called Cravetheen : where is Cormac Con-
lingas, the son of the High-King Concobar?
Does he hasten north to the side of his father
whom he deserted, because Concobar the king
slew the sons of Usna, and because Deirdre
died of that great sorrow, Deirdre, the wife of
Naysha, the pride of the house of Usna?

404

The House of Usna

Cravetheen

{With savage mocking

Ay, a great king truly, Concobar, the son of
Nessa! From childhood he kept the beautiful
Deirdre to be his queen, but Naysha swooped
like a hawk and carried her to the north, be-
cause each loved each and laughed at the king.
And then did the great Concobar track him
through Eire to Alba? No! Did he force
the sword upon him, Deirdre's beloved? No!
For three years he lay like a wolf on a hill-
side staring at a far-off fold. . . . and then
with smooth words he won Naysha and his
two hero-brothers, and the beautiful Deirdre,
and gave kingly warrant to them. . . . and
then, ha ! then was the noise of swords, then
were red streams of blood, where the House
of Usna fought the fight of three heroes
against a multitude . . . and their shameful
glorious death . . . and then Deirdre, wonder
of the world, did Concobar win her at the last ?
No! No! She fell dead by the side of him
whom she loved, by the body of Naysha, the
son of Usna! A true queen, Deirdre the
Beautiful !

^°^^ [Raising his staff

Who are you ? Who are you ? No sanctu-
ary here for the foe of Concobar the king!

405

The House of Usna

Cravetheen
[With a loud, wailing, chanting voice

I am the voice of the House of Usna. I am
the voice in the wind crying for ever and ever
" Kings shall lie in the dust : great princes
shall be brought to shame: the champions of
the mighty shall be as swordsmen waving
reeds, as spearmen spearing the grass, as men
pursuing and wooing shadows ! " (A mo-
ment's pause.) Ay, by the sun and wind,
Coel the Blind, I am the broken spear to slay
them that foully slew the sons of Usna . . .
the spear to goad to madness Concobar the
king!

Coel

[Angrily

Tell me, mad fool, do you fly from the
wrath of Cormac Conlingas, the son of Con-
cobar ?

Cravetheen

[Laughing mockingly

Cormac, the son of Concobar ! Cormac
Conlingas, Cormac of the Yellow Locks ! No,
no, old man, I do not fly before the wrath of
Cormac the Beautiful ! Nor shall any man
again fly before him, before Cormac the Beau-
tiful, Cormac the Prince, Cormac the son of
Concobar !

406

The House of Usna

CoEL [Angrily

What! is the king's son dead ... is he

slain ? ^

Cravetheen

[Coming close, and speaking low, in a

changed voice

Old man, there was a woman of my people

as beautiful as Deirdre. She loved an Ul-

tonian, that had for name Cormac. . . . Cor-

mac Conlingas. Conairey Mor was fierce

with anger at that, and sent him away, but

against her will, and gave her to me, who

loved her, though she hated me. So I took

her to my Dun. But this Cormac came there

and found her . . . and I . . . oh, I, too, came

back suddenly, and learned that he was there !

[A long wailing chant is heard

COEL

Hush! What is that?

Cravetheen
[Still leaning close, and speaking lozv
That? . . . That is the wailing of those
who carry hither to Concobar the dead bodies
of Cormac his son and Eilidh the Fair.
[Suddenly springing back, and crying loudly.]
For I set fire to the great Diin, O, Coel the
Blind, and I laughed when the red flames

407

The House of Usna

swept up to where the sleepers lay — and they
died, Cormac and Eilidh, to the glad death-
song of me, Cravetheen the Harper ! Two
charred logs these mourners carry now —
Ah-h-h !

[As he cries a spear whirls across the
stage from left to right, then an-
other, then a third, which strikes
the ground at Cravetheen's feet.
Wild cries are heard — a rush — and
six or eight Ultonian zvarriors leap
forward, crying as they seize him

Warriors

Death to the Harper ! — death to Cravetheen
the Harper, ^ho has slain the king's son !

408

SCENE II

In the background, vague in the moon-
light, the walls of a great Dun or
ancient fortress, half obscured by trees.
To the right, in deep shadow, an oak.
Concobar, wrapt in a white robe, with a
fillet of gold round his head, leans in silence
against the oak. In front, in the moon-
light, the boy Maine, clad in a deerskin,
lies on the ground looking towards the
king, and playing softly upon a reed with
seven holes in it.

Concobar
Hush.

[Maine ceases playing, »

Concobar

[Coming slowly forward
Where is Deirdre?

Maine

[Unstirring, plays softly
40Q

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

[Slowly advancing, till he stands above
Maine, and looks down at him, in
silence
Where is Deirdre?

Maine

[Taking the reed from his month, in a
low, prolonged, chanting voice
Deirdre is dead! Deirdre the Beautiful is
dead, is dead!

CONCOBAR

It is the voice of my dreams.

Maine

Deirdre is dead! Deirdre the Beautiful is
dead, is dead!

CoNCOBAR [Muttering

Duach the Wise. . . . Where is Duach the
Wise ? These were his words : " In the
whisper of the leaf by night, in the first moan-
ing air of the new wind, in the voice of the
wave, that which has been is told, that which
is to be is known." O, heart of my heart. . . .
Deirdre, my love, my desire !

410

The House of Usna

Maine

[Rises and goes silently over to the oak,
and leans against it, lost in shadow

CONCOBAR

Heart of my heart, Deirdre ! Love of my
love, desire of all desire — can no voice rise to
those red lips, red as rowans, in that silent
place? There is no sadness like unto the
sadness of the king. Dream of dreams, I
trampled all dreams till the hour of my desire,
and in that hour you were stolen from me :
and in his heart the king was as a swineherd
herding swine, a helot, a slave. Was it I who
put death upon Naysha the Fair? Was it I
who put death upon the sons of Usna? It
was not I, by the Sun and the Moon ! It was
the beauty of Deirdre. O, beauty too great
and sore ! Deirdre, love of my love, sorrow
of my sorrow, grief of my grief ! I am old,
because of my sorrow. There is no king so
great that he may not perish because of a
woman's love. She sleeps : she sleeps : she is
not dead ! I will go to the grianan, and will
cry Heart o' Beauty, azvakc! It is I, Con-
cohar the King! She will hear, and she will
put white hands through her hair, like white
doves going into the shadow of a wood : and I

The House of Usna

will see her eyes like stars, and her face pale
and wonderful as dawn, and her lips like
twilight water, and she will sigh, and my heart
will be as wind fainting in hot grass, and I
will laugh because that I am made king of the
world and as the old gods, but greater than
they, greater than they, greater than they !

Maine
[Chanting slowly from the shadow
Deirdre is dead! Deirdre the Beautiful is
dead, is dead!

CONCOBAR

[Slowly turning, and looking towards
the shadow whence the sound came

Who spoke?

[Silence

CONCOBAR

Who spoke? (Turning again.) It was the
pulse of my heart. They lie who say that
Deirdre is dead. The sons of Usna are dead.
May the dust of Naysha rot among the worms
of the earth. It was he who was king, not I !
It was he whom Deirdre loved. . . . Deirdre,
who was so fair, the most beautiful of women;
my dream, my love !

[A long wailing cry is heard. Con-
cobar lifts his head, and listens.
412

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

It is Duach. The Druid has deep wisdom,
I will ask him to tell me where Deirdre is.
There is no woman in the world for me but
the daughter of Felim. Her beauty is more
terrible than day to the creatures of the night ;
more mysterious than night to the winged
children of the noon.

[The boughs dispart, and a tall, white-haired
man, clad in white, zvith a gold belt, and
with a wreath of oak leaves, enters from
the left

Duach
Hail, O king!

CONCOBAR

I heard the howl of the grey wolf, but now
you come alone. Where is the wolf?

Duach

There was no wolf. It was an image only
of your own mind. It was but your own
sorrow, O king.

CONCOBAR

Tell me, Duach, who lives in yonder great
Dun?

413

The House of Usna

DUACH

[Looking at the king curiously, then
sloivly

Concobar the king; with the comrades of
the king, and his guards ; his harpers and
poets ; the women of the household.

Concobar
Can you see the grianan, Duach ?

DuACH
I see the grianan, Concobar mac Nessa.

Concobar

Nessa . . . yes, I am the son of Nessa. . . .
Nessa, who was so fair. Tell me, Duach ; in
her youth was she so beautiful as the harpers
and poets say?

Duach

She was so beautiful that few looked at her
untroubled. In her eyes youths dreamed ; old
men looked back. To all men Nessa was a
light and a flame.

Concobar

Was she fair, as Deirdre is fair? Was
she beautiful, as Deirdre is beautiful?

4T4

The House of Usna

DUACH

Deirdre, whom you have slain, is dead.

CONCOBAR

[Calling

Deirdre, dear love, come ! I am here ! I
wait!

DuACH

From that silence where both are, their
names only may come back like falling dew.

CONCOBAR

There is none so beautiful as Deirdre.

DUACH

She sleeps by Naysha, son of Usna.

Con COB AR

[Furiously
You lie, old man. Naysha is dead.

DuACH

She sleeps by Naysha, son of Usna.

CONCOBAR

[ Troubled
Tell me ! When shall she wake ?

415

The House of Usna

DUACH

She shall wake no more.

CONCOBAR

Speak no lies, Druid. I heard her laugh a
brief while ago. She came out into the woods
at the rising of the moon.

DUACH

She will wake no more.

[Silence

DuACH

Hearken, Concobar mac Nessa ! That was
an evil deed, the slaying of the sons of Usna.
There were the noblest of all the Gaels of Eire
and Alba.

Concobar

[Sullenly
They are dead.

DUACH

They are more to be feared dead than when
their young, sweet, terrible life was upon
them. Their voices cry for vengeance, and all
men hear. Women whisper.

Concobar
What do they whisper?

416

The House of Usna

DUACH

"Most fair and beautiful were the sons of
Usna, slain treacherously by Concobar the
High-King."

Concobar

What vengeance is called for by those who
cry for an eric?

DuACH

It is no eric they cry, but the broken honour
of the king.

Concobar

And what do the young men say ?

DuACH

They say : " He has slain the image of our
desire."

Concobar

And what is the burthen of the sing the
singers sing?

DuACH

" The beauty of the world is now as an old
song that is sung."

[Silence

417

The House of Usna

Maine

[From the shadow of the oak, strikes
a note, and, in a low voice, chants
slozvly
Deirdre is dead! Deirdre the Beautiful is
dead, is dead!

CONCOBAR

Can dreams have a voice ?

DuACH

They alone speak. It is our spoken words
that are the idle dreams.

CoNCOBAR

Dreams — dreams. I am sick of dreams ! It
is love I long for — my lost love! my lost love !

DuACH

It is a madness, that love.

CoNCOBAR

Better that madness than all wisdom.

[Silence
Maine

[Playing a note or two, slowly, chants,
from the shadow of the oak
Deirdre is dead! Deirdre the Beautiful is
dead, is dead!

418

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

Duach, can dreams speak?

DUACH

The dead, old wisdom, the wind, dreams —
these speak. All else are troubled murmurs,
confused cries, echoes of echoes.

CONCOBAR

[Stands with outstretched arms, star-
ing towards the Dun

Duach
Death and beauty are in his eyes.

CoNCOBAR

[With a sudden, passionate gesture,
Hinging up his arms supplicatingly

Deirdre, my queen, my dream, my desire !
Death and beauty were in your eyes as a little
child, oh, fawn of women, when I lit my
dreams at your face before the House of
Usna did me that bitter, bitter wrong! . . .
that bitter, bitter wrong! O. Naysha, more
terrible your quiet smile in death than all the
armies of Meave! Deirdre, Deirdre, death

419

The House of Usna

and beauty are in your eyes, my queen, my
dream, my desire!

[With a sobbing cry he sinks to his
knees, bows his head, and pulls his
robe about him

Maine

[Slowly advances from the shadow,
softly playing on his reed-Uute

DUACH

Sing!

Maine

[Sings

Dim face of Beauty haunting all the world,
Fair face of Beauty all too fair to see,
Where the lost stars adown the heavens are
hurled,

There, there alone for thee

May white peace be.

For here, where all the dreams of men are

whirled
Like sere, torn leaves of autumn to and fro,
There is no place for thee in all the world.

Who drifted as a star,

Beyond, afar.

420

The House of Usna

Beauty, and face of Beauty, Mystery, Wonder,
What are these dreams to fooUsh babbling

men —
Who cry with little noises 'neath the thunder

Of ages ground to sand,

To a little sand?

[Concobar sloii'ly rises. He turns and
looks at Maine

Concobar
Who made that song?

Maine

Cormac the Red, the father of my father,
and son of Felim the Harper.

Concobar

Felim! . . . Felim the Harper — it was he
who was the father of Deirdre. He harps no
more. [Turning to Duach.] Do you remem-
ber when we went to the house of Felim the
Harper in the days of my youth ? Do you
remember the birthnight of Deirdre?

Duach
Ay.

421

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

And the prophecy of Cathba the Arch-
Druid?

DUACH

Ay: that before his eyes he saw a sea of
blood, and saw it rise and rise and rise till it
overflowed great straths, and laved the flanks
of high hills, and from the summits of the
mountains poured down upon the lands of the
Gael in a thundering flood, blood-red, to the
blood-red sea.

CONCOBAR

[Troubled, and moving slowly to and
fro
Did Cathba see the end?

DuACH

He saw the end.

CONCOBAR

It was but the idle wisdom of a dreamer.

DuACH

That idle wisdom is the utterance of the
gods. The dreamers and poets and seers are
their voices.

422

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

What were the last words of Cathba the
Wise ?

DUACH

That Eire, the most beautiful of all lands
under the sun, should be the saddest of all
lands under the sun. Blood shall run in that
land till Famine shall make her home there,
he said : and tears shall be shed for it in every
age : and all wisdom and beauty and hope shall
grow there : and she shall be a lamp, and
then know the darkness of darkness. But be-
fore the end she shall be a queenly land again,
and the nations shall bow before her as the
soul of peoples born anew. For into all the
nations of the world, he said, Eire shall die,
but shall live again. She shall be the soul of
the nations.

Con COB AR

Too many dreams . . . too many dreams?

DuACH

Cathba saw all that is to be.

CONCOBAk

If Felim the Harper were to come again. . . .

423

The House of Usna

DUACH

He would ask : Where is Emain Macha,
the royal city, the beautiful city? Where are
the sons of Usna? Where is Deirdre, the
most beautiful of women? Where is the glory
of the Red Branch ?

CONCOBAR

[ Confusedly

The Red Branch! ... The Red Branch!
At least, at least, the Red Branch stands !

DuACH

What of Fergus? . . . what of Cormac
Conlingas ? They and a third of the Red
Branch are gone from you : Fergus, the first
champion of Ulla ; Cormac Conlingas, the
greatest of your sons, the king that is to be!

CONCOBAR

Conaill Carna is with me . . . and Setanta
the wonderful youth, that is called Cuchulain.

DUACH

Yet neither they nor the gods themselves
shall in the end prevail.

424

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

[With sudden passion
Duach, win back to me my son Cormac, and
I will give you whatsoever you will — yea, my
kingship. Him only do I love of all men, him
only, my son who is so fair and proud and
beautiful. He shall be High-king; he and he
only is the son of my kinghood.

Duach
That which is to be, will be.

CONCOBAR

[Looking fixedly at him
Shall not Cormac Conlingas be king after
me?

Duach

Have you forgotten, O king! Cormac mac
Concobar is in arms against you. He and
Fergus and a third of the Red Branch are
with Queen Meave, whose armies gather to
overwhelm you, to do to Ulla as the Great
Queen has already done to Emain Macha,
your proud city.

Concobar
Cormac, my son, my son !

425

The House of Usna

DUACH

These were the words he sent : " For that
which you did upon Naysha and the sons of
Usna, and for that shame which you brought
upon Fergus mac Roy, and because of the
beauty of Deirdre which is no more in the
world because of you . . . the Sword and
Sorrow, Sorrow and the Sword ! "

CONCOBAR

[Angrily and impatiently

I care not ! I care not ! He shall be king.
Listen ! Duach ; I will send word to Cormac
that I am weary of the kingship. He shall be
Tanist, with all power. He shall be the Ard-
Righ himself. He shall save Eire. The
prophecies of Cathba shall be set at nought.
He shall be a great king. All Eire shall call
him king. All the Gaels shall call him Ard-
Righ. His son's sons shall reign after him.
Ireland shall be made one nation, because of
this great king — Cormac, the son of Concobar,
the son of Flachtna, kings and sons of kings!

Duach
Beware, O Concobar, of the foam of
dreams. It is only the great wave that will
lift Eire.

426

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

The great wave? Shall not that be the
king?

DUACH

Through no king can Eire become one
nation and great, but only through the kingli-
hood of her sons and daughters. In the end,
v/hen all are royal of soul, Eire shall be the
first of the nations of the world.

CONCOBAR

[Confusedly

In the end? ... In the end? Of what do
you speak ? Cormac shall be king, he and his
sons after him. The blood of the gods is in
Essa, his wife.

DuACH

[Leaning forward, and staring into the
king's face
Essa? . . . Have you not heard? Essa is
dead!

CONCOBAR

Essa is not dead. I saw her and Deirdre
and Dectera, my sister, and my mother Nessa,
walking in the wood at the rising of the moon.

427

The House of Usna

DUACH

[Muttering

Ay, that might well be. It is the hour of the

dead.

CoNCOBAR [Sadly

Is she dead, Essa, daughter of Etain the
Wonderful?

DUACH

She is not dead, being of the Divine race.
But her body lies at Rath Nessa, where in the
dream of death she can look for ever upon
the Hill of Tara.

CONCOBAR

Hopes fall about me as old leaves. [A
pause.] Nevertheless, I will send to Cormac
at the camp of Queen Meave. There shall be
no more war. Cormac Conlingas shall be
king.

DUACH

Cormac is not there. He is one of the nine
hostages at the Dun of Conairey Mor, the
king of the Middle Province. Meave marches
against him.

CONCOBAR

Fergus was king no more because of Nessa :
I am king no more because of Deirdre. She
is not here, the beautiful Deirdre. She is here

428

The House of Usna

no more. I will go into the woods, and upon
the hills. I am led by dreams and visions.
Deirdre, my dream and my desire!

DUACH

[Aside

The prophecy of the sting that was to sting
to madness the King of the Ultonians! The
gods see far !

CONCOBAR

[Starting

Who . . . what is that?
DUACH

I see nothing,

CONCOBAR

[Pointing

Look! . . . yonder ... a white hound — a
white hound, that moves through the wood!
How swift and silent. . . see, his head is low
. . . he is on the trail ... is it Rumac?

[An echo in the woods

Rumac! Cormac! Cormac!

CONCOBAR

[Moves backivard a step
What! Cormac! . . . Carmac? ... my
son Cormac !

429

The House of Usna

DUACH

[Staring into the dusk of the woods
I seen no hound. . , . Where is the white
hound ?

CONCOBAR

Yonder . , . under the oaks ... he goes
swiftly to the place where he was born.

DuACH

Who?

CONCOBAR

Cormac. Cormac ConHngas, my son. Is
this evil fallen upon me because of the death
of Deirdre? Is this evil come upon me out
of the House of Usna?

DUACH

The House of Usna is in the dust.

CONCOBAR

[Distraught, loudly chants
The grey wind weeps, the grey wind weeps,

the grey wind weeps;
Dust on her breasts, dust in her eyes, the grey
wind weeps!

DuACH

The hound is gone.

430

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

[Putting his finger on his lips

Hush ! do you hear the Httle children of the
wind . . . rustling and laughing . . . the little
children of the wind? Or are they the little
white feet of those who come at dusk? Or
are they the waves of the Moyle . . tears,
tears, sighs, oh tears, tears, tears, of Deirdre
upon the dark waters of the Moyle !

DUACH

Deirdre is in that far place where your
hound of old is . . . where Rumac bays
against a moon that does not set or wane.

[Calling

CONCOBAR

Rumac ! Rumac !

Echo
Coomac! Coomac!

CONCOBAR

Cormac, my beautiful son ! Cormac ! come !
come!

[A sound of a harp is heard. Both start

CONCOBAR

Who comes?

431

The House of Usna

DUACH

Someone comes through the wood.

CONCOBAR

[Drawing his sword

It is Naysha, son of Usna. Night after

night I hear him come harping through the

woods. Sometimes I see him, standing under

an oak. He calls upon Deirdre.

DUACH

It is Coel mac Coel, the old blind harper —
he who loved Macha the great queen, and was
blinded by her because that he loved over-
much. He alone wandered free out of Emain
Macha when the beautiful city was laid waste.
He is not alone ; there are the young bards
and minstrels with him. For the last three
nights they have come in the darkness, and
sung before the Royal Dun the song which
Coel made of Macha and her beautiful city.
Hark ! They sing now.

[The noise of harps and tympans. From the
wood conies the loud chanting voice of Coel:

O, 'tis a good house, and a palace fair, the
Dun of Macha,
And happy with a great household is Macha
there :

432

The House of Usna

Druids she has, and bard^s, minstrels, harpers,
knights ;
Hosts of servants she has, and wonders

beautiful and rare.
But nought so wonderful and sweet as her
face, queenly fair,
O Macha of the Ruddy Hair!

[Choric voices in a loud, S7uelling chant:
O Macha of the Ruddy Hair!

CoEL chants:

The colour of her great Dun is the shining

whiteness of lime,
And within it are floors strewn with green

rushes and couches white
Soft wondrous silks and blue gold-claspt

mantles and furs
Are there, and jewelled golden cups for

revelry by night :
Thy grianan of gold and glass is filled with

sunshine-light,

O Macha, queen by day, queen by night !

[Choric Voices:

O Macha, queen by day, queen by night !

Beyond the green portals, and the brown and

red thatch of wings
Striped orderly, the wings of innumerous

stricken birds,

433

The House of Usna

A wide shining floor reaches from wall to wall,

wondrously carven
Out of a sheet of silver, whereon are graven

swords
Intricately ablaze : mistress of many hoards
Art thovi, Macha of few words !

[Choric Voices:

O Macha of few words !

Fair indeed is thy couch, but fairer still is thy

throne,
A chair it is, all of a blaze of wonderful yellow

gold:
There thou sittest, and watchest the women

going to and fro.
Each in garments fair and with long locks

twisted fold in fold :
With the joy that is in thy house men would

not grow old,

O Macha, proud, austere, cold.

[Choric Voices:

O Macha, proud, austere, cold.

Of a surety there is much joy to be had of

thee and thine,
There in the song-sweet sunlit bowers in that

place ;
Wounded men might sink in sleep and be well

content

434

The House of Usna

So to sleep, and to dream perchance, and

know no other grace
Than to wake and look betimes on thy proud

queenly face,

O Macha of the Proud Face !

[Choric Voices:

O Macha of the Proud Face !

And if there be any here who wish to know

more of this wonder,
Go, you will find all as I have shown, as I

have said :
From beneath its portico, thatched with wings

of birds blue and yellow,
Reaches a green lawn, where a fount is fed
From crystal and gems : of crystal and gold
each bed

In the house of Macha of the Ruddy
Head!

[Choric Voices:

In the house of Macha of the Ruddy
Head !

In that great house where Macha the queen

has her pleasaunce
There is everything in the whole world that a

man might desire,
God is my witness that if I say little it is for

this,

435

The House of Usna

That I am grown faint with wonder, and can

no more admire,
But say this only, that I Hve and die in the
fire

Of thine eyes, O Macha, my desire,
With thine eyes of fire !

[Choric Voices in a loud, swelling chant:

But say this only, that we live and die in the

fire
Of thine eyes, O Macha, Dream, Desire,
With thine eyes of fire !

[Choric Voices repeat their refrains, hut
fainter, and becoming more faint. Last
vanishing sound of the harps and tympans

CONCOBAR

Is Emain Macha as a dream that is no
more?

DUACH

Emain Macha, the beautiful city, is as a
dream that is no more.

[A moan of wind

CONCOBAR

Wind, wind, nothing but wind !

436

The House of Usna

DUACII

Clouds cover the moon. Let us go, O king.
To-night, dreams : the morrow waits, when
dreams will be realities.

CONCOBAR

Dreams, dreams, nothing but dreams !

[Slozvly Concobar and Duach pass through
the darkening gloom. The Dun becomes
more and more obscure. From the dark-
ness to the right a single Hute note, where
Maine lies

Maine

[Chanting slowly, unseen

Deirdre is dead! Deirdre the Beautiful is
dead, is dead I

437

SCENE III

Scene the same. — Ultonian Warriors have
brought Cravetheen the Harper — a mis-
shapen savage figure, held by two war-
riors— before the king, so that Concobar
may decree what manner of death the
man is to die, because of having murdered
Cormac by setting fire to the Dun, where
he and Eilidh lay, and burning him and
his love, and all that were within the Dun.

Concobar

T have heard all. Let him go. What is
death ?

[Cravetheen is released

Cravetheen
Have you no mercy, O king?

Concobar
Harper, you have your life. Go!

438

The House of Usna

Cravetheen
Have you no mercy, O king?

CONCOBAR

What is your desire?

Cravetheen

I have but one desire, Concobar, King of
Ulla.

Concobar
Speak.

Cravetheen

It is that I may know death.

Concobar

[Rising^ and smiling strangely
Brother, I, too — I, too, have that one desire.

Cravetheen

[Confusedly
You . . . the king. . . .

Maine

[Lying under an oak, makes a clear
not on his rced-Hute, and chants
slowly, with wailing rise and fall

439

The House of Usna

Deirdre is dead! Deirdrc the Beautiful is
dead, is dead!

Cravetheen

[Muttering

Ah, now I know! Now I know! [Moving
slowly tozvards the king.] That cry is the cry
of the House of Usna! The gods do not
sleep, O king. That cry is the cry of the
House of Usna!

CONCOBAR

[With sudden fury, reaching out his
arms as though cursing or abhor-
ring the speaker
Take him away ! To death ! ... to death !
Away with him !

Cravetheen

[Eagerly and triumphantly
I am the voice of the House of Usna, O
king!

CONCOBAR

[Furiously

Tie him to the sapHngs! Let him die the
death of the oaks !

440

TJie House of Usna

Warriors

[Shouting

To the Death-tree ! To the Death-tree !
[They seise Cravetheen and drag him
away into the wood

CONCOBAR

[Staring about him confusedly
Who spoke? [Lower, in a hoarse whisper.]
Who spoke?

DUACH

O king, there is no evil done upon the world
that the wind does not bring back to the feet
of him who wrought it.

CONCOBAR

The wind ! . . . The wind !

DuACH

O king, the gods abhor most the evil that is
wrought unworthily by the great.

CONCOBAR

Who are the great ... I have lost love,
and my kinglihood, and my son, and all, all
my hopes. Who are the great ?

441

The House of Usna

DUACH

O king, you have slain youth, and love, and
beauty.

CONCOBAR

[ Wailingly

Life. . . . Life. . . . Life for ever slays
youth, and love, and beauty.

DUACH

Take not the brute law to be the divine law.
O king, are prophecies idle ways of an idle
wind? Long, long ago it was foretold that
evil would come upon you and your house be-
cause of your uncontrolled desire, but what
avail ? Your ears were deaf.

CoNCOBAR

Why do the gods pursue me? I am old, I
am old.

DuACH

At the kindling of the light they look into
the silent earth, and they behold the slain
bodies of Naysha and Ailne and Ardan, and a
shade stands at their grave calling night and
day — / am the House of Usna!

442

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

Druid, is there no evil done upon the world,
is there no slaying of young men, is there no
falling of heroic names into the dust, save
what I have done ?

DUACH

Because of your desire you slew your kingli-
hood.

CONCOBAR

My kinglihood ?

DuACH

More terrible than the fate of Usna is the
fall of royal honour. More terrible than the
death of Naysha is the shame put upon those
who blindly did your will. More terrible than
the death of Deirdre is the undoing of the
great wonder and mystery of beauty. The
gods call. ..." Concohar, Concobar, thy
thirst shall be for shadows, and the rose of
thy desire shall be dust within thy mouth!"

Concobar

[Hopelessly

It was because of love. ... It was because
of love.

443

The House of Usna

DUACH

Yes, O king . . . love of thine own love.

[Silence

CONCOBAR

Evil can be undone.

DuACH

Where are the sons of Usna ?

CONCOBAR

I tell you, Druid, evil can be undone. I
repent me of my evil. ... I repent me of my

evil.

DUACH

Where are the sons of Usna ? Where is the
word of the king? Where is Deirdre, the
too great beauty of this evil time? Where is
Emain Macha, the beautiful city? Where is
the glory of the Red Branch ? Where is Cor-
mac, Cormac Conlingas, who was to be king?
Where stands Eire that was to be one nation?

CONCOBAR

[In a hoarse whisper

Have all these evils come upon me because
I was a king and because I loved ?

444

The House of Usna

DUACH

Because you were a king and chose the un-
kingly way.

CONCOBAR

[ Wailingly
Good blooms like a flower that has its day :
evil like a weed that endures, and grows and
grows and grows,

DuACH

But the evil that is done of kings shall cover
the whole land.

CONCOBAR

[Starting, and furiously

Enough ! Enough, Druid ! I have heard
enough. I am the king. [Raising his sword,
and looking tozvards the Warriors, shouts.]
Ultonians, awake ! I am the king. I am the
Red Branch. On the morrow we march. I
shall lead you, with Conaill Carna and with
Cuchulain. The armies of Queen Meave shall
be scattered like dry leaves. Fear not the
gods ! The gods follow the victorious sword !
Before the new moon all the gods of the Gael
will be on our side! The Red Branch! The
Red Branch!

445

The House of Usna

Warriors

{Clashing swords and spears
The Red Branch! The Red Branch!

CONCOBAR

Up with the Sunburst ! Up with the banner
of the Sunburst !

Warriors
The Sunburst! The Sunburst!

Concobar

[Triumphantly

The gods are with us ! {Lower, and turn-
ing to Duach, exultantly.) The gods are with
us. Druid, it is the will of man that compels
the gods, not the gods who compel man.

Duach

[After a momentary pause, and laying
his hand on the king's arm
The gods are the will of man. For good
and for evil the gods are the will of man.

446

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

Stand back, Druid. I am weary of your
subtleties. (Slwiits.) Warriors, go ! On the
morrow I shall lead you — I, and Conaill the
Victorious, and Cuchulain the greatest cham-
pion of Eire !

Warriors

[Go shouting, and after they have gone
their voices are heard repeating
the acclaim
Concobar! Concobar! Conaill Carna!
Cuchulain! Cuchulain!

Concobar
[Looking sombrely at Duach
Druid, go ! I would be alone.

Duach
I go. But truly, yea, truly, O king, you
shall be alone from this hour.

Concobar

[Scornfully

Enough. I am the king. I have great
dreams. The gods are with me. They have
forgotten, for they do not long remember the
dead!

447

The House of Usna

DUACH

[Meaningly, as he moves slowly away
The gods neither sleep nor do they forget.

[A long pause. Silence

CONCOBAR

[Alone, exultantly
I am the king. I have great dreams.

[A wailing voice from the wood. The
king starts, raising his sword.

CONCOBAR

Who is that ? . . . what is that ?

Cravetheen

[Unseen, on the Death-tree

It is I, Cravetheen, in my hour of death.

[Silence. The king stands listening.
Again a long wailing cry.

Cravetheen

The gods do not sleep, O king! , . . Farewell.

[Slozvly Cone oh ar lowers his szvord.
It falls with a crash to the ground.
He stands as though spell-bound.

448

The House of Usna

CONCOBAR

[In an awed whispering voice
It is the cry of the House of Usna!

[Silence. Slowly the king lifts his

hand to his face, and bows his

head.

From the wood the boy Maine breathes

three poignant notes on his reed-flute, and

chants slowly with long rise and fall.

Deirdre is dead. Deirdre the Beautiful is
dead, is dead!

THE END

449

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

By Mrs. William Sharp

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Into this book are gathered the poems — with a
few exceptions — and the two finished dramas written
by William Sharp under the pseudonym of "Fiona
Macleod." One or two early lyrics in the present
volume were not reprinted in the posthumous Eng-
lish Edition of From the Hills of Dream, because that
selection was made, but not arranged, by the author
for a second and enlarged but not necessarily final
edition of the verse of "Fiona Macleod."

I have adhered as much as possible to a chrono-
logical sequence. The poems grouped in the sec-
tions From, the Hills of Dream., and those marked
elsewhere with *, were written between 1 893-1 896
and published under that title in 1896 by Patrick
Geddes and Colleagues, Edinburgh. In 1901 a
selection from that volume, together with poems
written between 1 896-1 900, was published under
the original title by Mr. Thomas B. Mosher, in
America. Those later poems are, in this Collect-
ed Edition, grouped together in "Foam of the
Past" and "Through the Ivory Gate;" and those
written subsequently, 1900- 190 5, form the sections
"The Dirge of the Four Cities" (with the exception
of Murias which was previously published as "Re-
quiem") and "The Hour of Beauty;" and form
part of the posthumous English Edition of From
the Hills of Dream issued by Mr. Heinemann in
1907. The subsequent poems, 1900- 190 5, together

453

Bibliographical Note

with those herein marked with an O, were published
under the title of The Hour of Beauty, by Mr. Mosher,
in 1907.

I wish to express my indebtedness to Mr. Alfred
Noyes for permission to reprint at the end of the
volume, his Sonnet "To Fiona MacLeod," which
appeared first in the Fortnightly Review in 1906,
and in 1907 as preface to the American Edition of
the tale entitled "The Wayfarer" (from The Winged
Destiny) published by Mr. Mosher.

The two poetic dramas "The House of Usna"
and "The Immortal Hour," were intended by the
author to form part of a series of plays to be pub-
lished collectively as The Theatre of the Soul, or
The Psychic Drama. The names of these unwritten,
though mentally cartooned poetic plays, by "Fiona
Macleod," were "Nial the Soulless," "The King of
Ys," "Drostan and Yssul," "The Veiled Avenger,"
"The Book of Dalua."

The two completed poetic plays appeared orig-
inally in the Fortnightly Review in 1900. In the
original manuscript the former bears the title "The
King of Ireland's Son," though preference was given
later to "The House of Usna," and under this name
the play was produced by The Stage Society and
acted at the Globe Theatre on the 29th of April,
1900, under William Sharp's direct supervision —
when one or two only of the audience, other than
the occupants of our stage box, knew that the
author," Fiona Macleod" witnessed the performance
in the person of the President of The Stage Society.
"The House of Usna" has not hitherto been pub-
lished in book form in Great Britain, but an Ameri-
can edition was brought out in America by Mr.
Mosher, in 1903.

454

Bibliographical Note

"The Immortal Hour" was altered and rewritten
several times. I cannot recall when it was begun,
but my husband read it to me at Ballycastle, Ire-
land, in the summer of 1899. The original form, as
printed in The Fortnightly Review, lacked the pres-
ent opening, and finished with a short epilogue; this
forepart was specially revised and printed separ-
ately as "Dalua," and thus described by the author:
"A fragment, as 'The Immortal Hour' itself is, of
the as yet unwritten Book of Dalua or Book of the
Dark Fool, of whose fulfilment the author some-
times dreams."

"The Immortal Hour" was published posthu-
mously in America by Mr. Mosher, in 1907, and in
England by Mr. T. N. Foulis in 1908.

A word concerning the illustrations. The suggest-
ive landscapes in volumes II, III, IV, V, VI — re-
produced from drawings by the Highland painter
and etcher, Mr. D. Y. Cameron — are glimpses of
some of those Isles of the West that form the setting
to so many of the "Fiona Macleod " Tales: Arran,
with its picturesque hills; lona, the Isle of Dreams,
with its "Svmdown Shores" ; the Treshnish Isles, that
lie further westward in the Atlantic ; and Skye, the
Isle of Mists, that fronts the stormy northern seas.

The portraits in volumes I and VII are from
photographs of William Sharp that date to the
period of the "Fiona Macleod" writings. That
in volume I was taken in Dublin, in 1896, two years
after the appearance of Pharais; that in volume
VII was taken in Sicily, at II Castello di Maniace,
by the Duke of Bronte, in 1903, a few months prior
to the publication of The Winged Destiny.

Elizabeth A. Sharp.

455

FIONA MACLEOD

A spirit listened to the whispering grass,
That shimtnered with wet tints of human tears,
And like a wandering wind the lonely years
Dried them; the spirit heard that low wind pass.
And cried There is no Time: Time never was!
Then beat it down and flew beyond the spheres.
To where the immortal Face of Beauty wears
That smile which earth sees darkly, as in a glass.

And now where'er the dews at nightfall glisten,
Where'er the mountain-winds are breathing low.
Where'er the seas creep glimmering to the shore.
Some wanderer shall pause awhile and listen.
And see i' the darkling glass a tenderer glow
Whence that bright spirit whispers evermore.

Alfred Noyes.

UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELKa
LIBRARY

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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388

Return this material to the library from which It was borrowed.

PR [Sharp] The

5550 writlngs^of

Pll ^iona Mac-

V.7 leod" m

(

AA 000 374 6427

■\CJ&i

■XMJ

■i/.; '. -rV

■0^

'Wr fr^iMm.

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