Poems

BOOK III

Fled foam underneath us, and around us, a wandering and milky smoke,High as the saddle girth, covering away from our glances the tide;And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance broke;The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed.I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,And never a song sang Niam, and over my finger-tipsCame now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair,And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips.Were we days long or hours long in riding, when rolled in a grisly peace,An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak?And we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed fleeceFled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke.And we rode on the plains of the sea's edge; the sea's edge barren and gray,Gray sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten awayLike an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas.But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark;Dropping; a murmurous dropping; old silence and that one sound;For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark:Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground.And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night,For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun,Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light,And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one.Till the horse gave a whinny; for, cumbrous with stems of the hazel and oak,A valley flowed down from his hoofs, and there in the long grass lay,Under the starlight and shadow, a monstrous slumbering folk,Their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way.And by them were arrow and war-axe, arrow and shield and blade;And dew-blanched horns, in whose hollow a child of three years oldCould sleep on a couch of rushes, and all inwrought and inlaid,And more comely than man can make them with bronze and silver and gold.And each of the huge white creatures was huger than fourscore men;The tops of their ears were feathered, their hands were the claws of birds,And, shaking the plumes of the grasses and the leaves of the mural glen,The breathing came from those bodies, long-warless, grown whiter than curds.The wood was so spacious above them, that He who had stars for His flocksCould fondle the leaves with His fingers, nor go from His dew-cumbered skies;So long were they sleeping, the owls had builded their nests in their locks,Filling the fibrous dimness with long generations of eyes.And over the limbs and the valley the slow owls wandered and came,Now in a place of star-fire, and now in a shadow place wide;And the chief of the huge white creatures, his knees in the soft star-flame,Lay loose in a place of shadow: we drew the reins by his side.Golden the nails of his bird-claws, flung loosely along the dim ground;In one was a branch soft-shining, with bells more many than sighs,In midst of an old man's bosom; owls ruffling and pacing around,Sidled their bodies against him, filling the shade with their eyes.And my gaze was thronged with the sleepers; no, not since the world began,In realms where the handsome were many, nor in glamours by demons flung,Have faces alive with such beauty been known to the salt eye of man,Yet weary with passions that faded when the seven-fold seas were young.And I gazed on the bell-branch, sleep's forebear, far sung by the Sennachies.I saw how those slumberers, grown weary, there camping in grasses deep,Of wars with the wide world and pacing the shores of the wandering seas,Laid hands on the bell-branch and swayed it, and fed of unhuman sleep.Snatching the horn of Niam, I blew a lingering note;Came sound from those monstrous sleepers, a sound like the stirring of flies.He, shaking the fold of his lips, and heaving the pillar of his throat,Watched me with mournful wonder out of the wells of his eyes.I cried, "Come out of the shadow, king of the nails of gold!"And tell of your goodly household and the goodly works of your hands,"That we may muse in the starlight and talk of the battles of old;"Your questioner, Usheen, is worthy, he comes from the Fenian lands."Half open his eyes were, and held me, dull with the smoke of their dreams;His lips moved slowly in answer, no answer out of them came;Then he swayed in his fingers the bell-branch, slow dropping a sound in faint streamsSofter than snow-flakes in April and piercing the marrow like flame.Wrapt in the wave of that music, with weariness more than of earth,The moil of my centuries filled me; and gone like a sea-covered stoneWere the memories of the whole of my sorrow and the memories of the whole of my mirth,And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone.In the roots of the grasses, the sorrels, I laid my body as low;And the pearl-pale Niam lay by me, her brow on the midst of my breast;And the horse was gone in the distance, and years after years 'gan flow;Square leaves of the ivy moved over us, binding us down to our rest.And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot;How the fetlocks drip blood in the battle, when the fallen on fallen lie rolled;How the falconer follows the falcon in the weeds of the heron's plot,And the names of the demons whose hammers made armour for Conhor of old.And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot;That the spear-shaft is made out of ashwood, the shield out of ozier and hide;How the hammers spring on the anvil, on the spearhead's burning spot;How the slow, blue-eyed oxen of Finn low sadly at evening tide.But in dreams, mild man of the croziers, driving the dust with their throngs,Moved round me, of seamen or landsmen, all who are winter tales;Came by me the kings of the Red Branch, with roaring of laughter and songs,Or moved as they moved once, love-making or piercing the tempest with sails.Came Blanid, Mac Nessa, tall Fergus who feastward of old time slunk,Cook Barach, the traitor; and warward, the spittle on his beard never dry,Dark Balor, as old as a forest, car borne, his mighty head sunkHelpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death-making eye.And by me, in soft red raiment, the Fenians moved in loud streams,And Grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone,So lived I and lived not, so wrought I and wrought not, with creatures of dreams,In a long iron sleep, as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone.At times our slumber was lightened. When the sun was on silver or gold;When brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dimness they love going by;When a glow-worm was green on a grass leaf, lured from his lair in the mould;Half wakening, we lifted our eyelids, and gazed on the grass with a sigh.So watched I when, man of the croziers, at the heel of a century fell,Weak, in the midst of the meadow, from his miles in the midst of the air,A starling like them that forgathered 'neath a moon waking white as a shell.When the Fenians made foray at morning with Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair.I awoke: the strange horse without summons out of the distance ran,Thrusting his nose to my shoulder; he knew in his bosom deepThat once more moved in my bosom the ancient sadness of man,And that I would leave the immortals, their dimness, their dews dropping sleep.O, had you seen beautiful Niam grow white as the waters are white,Lord of the croziers, you even had lifted your hands and wept:But, the bird in my fingers, I mounted, remembering alone that delightOf twilight and slumber were gone, and that hoofs impatiently stept.I cried, "O Niam! O white one! if only a twelve-houred day,"I must gaze on the beard of Finn, and move where the old men and young"In the Fenians' dwellings of wattle lean on the chessboards and play,"Ah, sweet to me now were even bald Conan's slanderous tongue!"Like me were some galley forsaken far off in Meridian isle."Remembering its long-oared companions, sails turning to thread-bare rags;"No more to crawl on the seas with long oars mile after mile,"But to be amid shooting of flies and flowering of rushes and flags."Their motionless eyeballs of spirits grown mild with mysterious thoughtWatched her those seamless faces from the valley's glimmering girth;As she murmured, "O wandering Usheen, the strength of the bell-branch is naught,"For there moves alive in your fingers the fluttering sadness of earth."Then go through the lands in the saddle and see what the mortals do,"And softly come to your Niam over the tops of the tide;"But weep for your Niam, O Usheen, weep; for if only your shoe"Brush lightly as haymouse earth's pebbles, you will come no more to my side."O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?""I saw from a distant saddle; from the earth she made her moan;"I would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn, for breast unto breast"We shall mingle no more, nor our gazes empty their sweetness lone."In the isles of the farthest seas where only the spirits come."Were the winds less soft than the breath of a pigeon who sleeps on her nest,"Nor lost in the star-fires and odours the sound of the sea's vague drum?"O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?"The wailing grew distant; I rode by the woods of the wrinkling bark,Where ever is murmurous dropping, old silence and that one sound;For no live creatures live there, no weasels move in the dark;In a reverie forgetful of all things, over the bubbling ground.And I rode by the plains of the sea's edge, where all is barren and gray,Gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away,Like an army of old men lounging for rest from the moan of the seas.And the winds made the sands on the sea's edge turning and turning go,As my mind made the names of the Fenians. Far from the hazel and oak,I rode away on the surges, where, high as the saddle bow,Fled foam underneath me, and round me, a wandering and milky smoke.Long fled the foam-flakes around me, the winds fled out of the vast,Snatching the bird in secret; nor knew I, embosomed apart,When they froze the cloth on my body like armour riveted fast,For Remembrance, lifting her leanness, keened in the gates of my heart.Till fattening the winds of the morning, an odour of new-mown hayCame, and my forehead fell low, and my tears like berries fell down;Later a sound came, half lost in the sound of a shore far away,From the great grass-barnacle calling, and later the shore-weeds brown.If I were as I once was, the strong hoofs crushing the sand and the shells,Coming out of the sea as the dawn comes, a chaunt of love on my lips,Not coughing, my head on my knees, and praying, and wroth with the bells,I would leave no saint's head on his body from Rachlin to Bera of ships.Making way from the kindling surges, I rode on a bridle-pathMuch wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made,Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the rath,And a small and a feeble populace stooping with mattock and spade.Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet;While in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their chieftains stood,Awaiting in patience the straw-death, croziered one, caught in your net:Went the laughter of scorn from my mouth like the roaring of wind in a wood.And because I went by them so huge and so speedy with eyes so bright,Came after the hard gaze of youth, or an old man lifted his head:And I rode and I rode, and I cried out, "The Fenians hunt wolves in the night,So sleep thee by daytime." A voice cried, "The Fenians a long time are dead."A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass,And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk;And the dreams of the islands were gone, and I knew how men sorrow and pass,And their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that glimmer like silk.And wrapping my face in my hair, I murmured, "In old age they ceased";And my tears were larger than berries, and I murmured, "Where white clouds lie spread"On Crevroe or broad Knockfefin, with many of old they feast"On the floors of the gods." He cried, "No, the gods a long time are dead."And lonely and longing for Niam, I shivered and turned me about,The heart in me longing to leap like a grasshopper into her heart;I turned and rode to the westward, and followed the sea's old shoutTill I saw where Maive lies sleeping till starlight and midnight part.And there at the foot of the mountain, two carried a sack full of sand,They bore it with staggering and sweating, but fell with their burden at length:Leaning down from the gem-studded saddle, I flung it five yards with my hand,With a sob for men waxing so weakly, a sob for the Fenian's old strength.The rest you have heard of, O croziered one; how, when divided the girth,I fell on the path, and the horse went away like a summer fly;And my years three hundred fell on me, and I rose, and walked on the earth,A creeping old man, full of sleep, with the spittle on his beard never dry.How the men of the sand-sack showed me a church with its belfry in air;Sorry place, where for swing of the war-axe in my dim eyes the crozier gleams;What place have Caolte and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair?Speak, you too are old with your memories, an old man surrounded with dreams.S. PATRICWhere the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stones is their place;Where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide hell,Watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on God's face,Between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell.USHEENPut the staff in my hands; for I go to the Fenians, O cleric, to chauntThe war-songs that roused them of old; they will rise, making clouds with their breathInnumerable, singing, exultant; the clay underneath them shall pant,And demons be broken in pieces, and trampled beneath them in death.And demons afraid in their darkness; deep horror of eyes and of wings,Afraid their ears on the earth laid, shall listen and rise up and weep;Hearing the shaking of shields and the quiver of stretched bowstrings,Hearing hell loud with a murmur, as shouting and mocking we sweep.We will tear out the flaming stones, and batter the gateway of brassAnd enter, and none sayeth "No" when there enters the strongly armed guest;Make clean as a broom cleans, and march on as oxen move over young grass;Then feast, making converse of wars, and of old wounds, and turn to our rest.S. PATRICOn the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the Fenians are tost;None war on the masters of Hell, who could break up the world in their rage;But kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lostThrough the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age.USHEENAh, me! to be shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain,Without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear;All emptied of purple hours as a beggar's cloak in the rain,As a hay-cock out on the flood, or a wolf sucked under a weir.It were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved of old there;I throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased,I will go to Caolte, and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast.

GLOSSARY AND NOTES

The Pronunciation of the Irish Words.– When I wrote the greater number of these poems I had hardly considered the question seriously. I copied at times somebody's perhaps fanciful phonetic spelling, and at times the ancient spelling as I found it in some literal translation, pronouncing the words always as they were spelt. I do not suppose I would have defended this system at any time, but I do not yet know what system to adopt. The modern pronunciation, which is usually followed by those who spell the words phonetically, is certainly unlike the pronunciation of the time when classical Irish literature was written, and, so far as I know, no Irish scholar who writes in English or French has made that minute examination of the way the names come into the rhythms and measures of the old poems which can alone discover the old pronunciation. A French Celtic scholar gave me the pronunciation of a few names, and told me that Mr. Whitley Stokes had written something about the subject in German, but I am ignorant of German. If I ever learn the old pronunciation, I will revise all these poems, but at present I can only affirm that I have not treated my Irish names as badly as the mediæval writers of the stories of King Arthur treated their Welsh names.

Mythological Gods and Heroes.– I refer the reader for such names as Balor and Finn and Usheen to Lady Gregory's "Cuchulain of Muirthemne" and to her "Gods and Fighting Men."

The Ballad of Father Gilligan.– A tradition among the people of Castleisland, Kerry.

The Ballad of Father O'Hart.– This ballad is founded on the story of a certain Father O'Hart, priest of Coloony, Sligo, in the last century, as told by the present priest of Coloony in his History of Ballisodare and Kilvarnet. The robbery of the lands of Father O'Hart was a kind of robbery which occurred but rarely during the penal laws. Catholics, forbidden to own landed property, evaded the law by giving a Protestant nominal possession of their estates. There are instances on record in which poor men were nominal owners of immense estates.

The Ballad of the Foxhunter.– Founded on an incident, probably itself a Tipperary tradition, in Kickham's Knockagow.

Bell-branch.– A legendary branch whose shaking casts all men into a sleep.

The Countess Cathleen.– I found the story of the Countess Cathleen in what professed to be a collection of Irish folk-lore in an Irish newspaper some years ago. I wrote to the compiler, asking about its source, but got no answer, but have since heard that it was translated from Les Matinées de Timothè Trimm a good many years ago, and has been drifting about the Irish press ever since. Léo Lespès gives it as an Irish story, and though the editor of Folklore has kindly advertised for information, the only Christian variant I know of is a Donegal tale, given by Mr. Larminie in his West Irish Folk Tales and Romances, of a woman who goes to hell for ten years to save her husband, and stays there another ten, having been granted permission to carry away as many souls as could cling to her skirt. Léo Lespès may have added a few details, but I have no doubt of the essential antiquity of what seems to me the most impressive form of one of the supreme parables of the world. The parable came to the Greeks in the sacrifice of Alcestis, but her sacrifice was less overwhelming, less apparently irremediable. Léo Lespès tells the story as follows: —

Ce que je vais vous dire est un récit du carême Irlandais. Le boiteux, l'aveugle, le paralytique des rues de Dublin ou de Limerick, vous le diraient mieux que moi, cher lecteur, si vous alliez le leur demander, un sixpense d'argent à la main. – Il n'est pas une jeune fille catholique à laquelle on ne l'ait appris pendant les jours de préparation à la communion sainte, pas un berger des bords de la Blackwater qui ne le puisse redire à la veillée.

Il y a bien longtemps qu'il apparut tout-à-coup dans la vielle Irlande deux marchands inconnus dont personne n'avait ouï parler, et qui parlaient néanmoins avec la plus grande perfection la langue du pays. Leurs cheveux étaient noirs et ferrés avec de l'or et leurs robes d'une grande magnificence.

Tous deux semblaient avoir le même âge; ils paraissaient être des hommes de cinquante ans, car leur barbe grisonnait un peu.

Or, à cette époque, comme aujourd'hui, l'Irlande était pauvre, car le soleil avait été rare, et des récoltes presque nulles. Les indigents ne savaient à quel sainte se vouer, et la misère devenait de plus en plus terrible.

Dans l'hôtellerie où descendirent les marchands fastueux on chercha à pénétrer leurs desseins: mais ce fut en vain, ils demeurèrent silencieux et discrets.

Et pendant qu'ils demeurèrent dans l'hôtellerie, ils ne cessèrent de compter et de recompter des sacs de pièces d'or, dont la vive clarté s'apercevait à travers les vitres du logis.

Gentlemen, leur dit l'hôtesse un jour, d'où vient que vous êtes si opulents, et que, venus pour secourir la misère publique, vous ne fassiez pas de bonnes œuvres?

– Belle hôtesse, répondit l'un d'eux, nous n'avons pas voulu aller au-devant d'infortunes honorables, dans la crainte d'être trompés par des misères fictives: que la douleur frappe à la porte, nous ouvrirons.

Le lendemain, quand on sut qu'il existait deux opulents étrangers prêts à prodiguer l'or, la foule assiégea leur logis; mais les figures des gens qui en sortaient étaient bien diverses. Les uns avaient la fierté dans le regard, les autres portaient la honte au front. Les deux trafiquants achetaient des âmes pour le démon. L'âme d'un vieillard valait vingt pièces d'or, pas un penny de plus; car Satan avait eu le temps d'y former hypothèque. L'âme d'une épose en valait cinquante quand elle était jolie, ou cent quand elle était laide. L'âme d'une jeune fille se payait des prix fous: les fleurs les plus belles et les plus pures sont les plus chères.

Pendant ce temps, il existait dans la ville un ange de beauté, la comtesse Ketty O'Connor. Elle était l'idole du peuple, et la providence des indigents. Dès qu'elle eut appris que des mécréants profitaient de la misère publique pour dérober des cœurs à Dieu, elle fit appeler son majordome.

– Master Patrick, lui dit elle, combien ai-je de pièces d'or dans mon coffre?

– Cent mille.

– Combien de bijoux?

– Peur autant d'argent.

– Combien de châteux, de bois et de terres?

– Pour le double de ces sommes.

– Eh bien! Patrick, vendez tout ce qui n'est pas or et apportez-m'en le montant. Je ne veux garder à moi que ce castel et le champ qui l'entoure.

Deux jours après, les ordres de la pieuse Ketty étaient exécutés et le trésor était distribué aux pauvres au fur et à mesure de leurs besoins.

Ceci ne faisait pas le compte, dit la tradition, des commis-voyageurs du malin esprit, qui ne trouvaient plus d'âmes à acheter.

Aidés par un valet infâme, ils pénétrèrent dans la retraite de la noble dame et lui dérobèrent le reste de son trésor … en vain lutta-t-elle de toutes ses forces pour sauver le contenu de son coffre, les larrons diaboliques furent les plus forts. Si Ketty avait eu les moyens de faire un signe de croix, ajoute la légende Irlandaise, elle les eût mis en fuite, mais ses mains étaient captives – Le larcin fut effectué. Alors les pauvres sollicitèrent en vain près de Ketty dépouillée, elle ne pouvait plus secourir leur misère; – elle les abandonnait à la tentation. Pourtant il n'y avait plus que huit jours à passer pour que les grains et lea fourrages arrivassent en abondance des pays d'Orient. Mais, huit jours, c'était un siècle: huit jours nécessitaient une somme immense pour subvenir aux exigences de la disette, et les pauvres allaient ou expirer dans les angousses de la faim, ou, reniant les saintes maximes de l'Evangile, vendre à vil prix leur âme, le plus beau présent de la munificence du Seigneur tout-puissant.

Et Ketty n'avait plus une obole, car elle avait abandonné son châteux aux malheureux.

Elle passa douze heures dans les larmes et le deuil, arrachant ses cheveux couleur de soleil et meurtrissant son sein couleur du lis: puis elle se leva résolue, animée par un vif sentiment de désespoir.

Elle se rendit chez les marchands d'âmes.

– Que voulez-vous? dirent ils.

– Vous achetez des âmes?

– Oui, un peu malgré vous, n'est ce pas, sainte aux yeux de saphir?

– Aujourd'hui je viens vous proposer un marché, reprit elle.

– Lequel?

– J'ai une âme a vendre; mais elle est chère.

– Qu'importe si elle est précieuse? l'âme, comme le diamant, s'apprécie à sa blancheur.

– C'est la mienne, dit Ketty.

Les deux envoyés de Satan tressaillirent. Leurs griffes s'allongèrent sous leurs gants de cuir; leurs yeux gris étincelèrent – l'âme, pure, immaculée, virginale de Ketty!.. c'était une acquisition inappréciable.

– Gentille dame, combien voulez-vous?

– Cent cinquante mille écus d'or.

– C'est fait, dirent les marchands: et ils tendirent à Ketty un parchemin cacheté de noir, qu'elle signa en frissonnant.

La somme lui fut comptée.

Des qu'elle fut rentrée, elle dit au majordome:

– Tenez, distribuez ceci. Avec la somme que je vous donne les pauvres attendront la huitaine nécessaire et pas une de leurs âmes ne sera livrée au démon.