🧚 Opening, part 10

The years ran on: the centuries three went by: Finola sang: ‘The second Woe is ended!’1 Obedient then, once more they soared on high; Next morn on Erin’s western coast descended, While sunrise flashed from misty isles far seen, Now gold, now flecked with streaks of luminous green.2

And there for many a winter they abode, Harbouring in precincts of the setting sun; And mourned by day, yet sang at night their ode As though in praise of some great victory won: Some conqueror more than man; some heavenly crown Slowly o’er all creation settling down.3

There once--what time a great sun in decline Had changed to gold the green back of a wave That showered a pasture fair with diamond brine, Then sank, anon uprising from its grave Went shouldering onward, higher and more high, And hid far lands, and half eclipsed the sky--4

There once a shepherd, Aibhric, high of race, Marked them far off, and marking them so loved That to the ocean’s verge he rushed apace With hands outspread.5 Shoreward the creatures moved; And when he heard them speak with human tongue That love he felt grew tenderer and more strong.6

Day after day they told that youth their tale: Wide-eyed he stood, and inly drank their words; And later, harping still in wood and vale, He fitted oft their sorrow to his chords; And thus to him in part men owe the lore[22] Of all those patient sufferers bare of yore.7

For bard he was; and still the bard-like nature Hath reverence, as for virtue, so for woe, And ever finds in trials of the creature The great Creator’s purpose here below To lift by lowering, and through anguish strange To fit for thrones exempt from chance or change.8

There first the Four had met that sympathy Yearned for so long: and yet, that treasure found, So much the more ere long calamity Tasked them, thus strengthened; tasked and closed them round, And higher yet fierce winds and watery shocks Dashed them thenceforth upon the pitiless rocks.9

At last from heaven’s dark vault a night there fell The direst they had known.10 The high-heaped seas Vanquished by frost, beneath her iron spell Abased their haughty crests by slow degrees: The swans were frozen upon that ice-plain frore; Yet still Finola sang, as oft before,11

‘Beneath my right wing, Aodh, make thy rest!12 Beneath my left, Fiacre!13 My little Conn, Find thou a warmer shelter ’neath my breast, As thou art wont: thou art my little son!14 Thou God that all things mad’st, and lovest all, Subdue things great!15 Protect the weak, the small!’16

But evermore the younger three made moan; And still their moans more loud and louder grew; And still Finola o’er that sea of stone For their sake fragments of wild wailings threw; And ever as she sang, the on-driving snow Choked the sweet strain; yet still she warbled low.17

Then, louder when she heard those others grieve, And found that song might now no more avail, She said: ‘Believe, O brothers young, believe In that great God, whose help can never fail!18 Have faith in God, since God can ne’er deceive!’19 And lo, those weepers answered: ‘We believe!’20

So thus those babes, in God’s predestined hour, Through help of Him, the Lord of Life and Death, Inly fulfilled with light and prophet power, Believed; and perfect made their Act of Faith; And thenceforth all things, both in shade and shine, To them came softly and with touch benign.21

First, from the southern stars there came a breeze On-wafting happy mist of moonlit rain; And when the sun ascended o’er the seas The ice was vanquished; and the watery plain And every cloud with rapture thrilled and stirred: And lo, at noon the cuckoo’s voice was heard!22

And since with that rough ice their feet were sore God for their sake a breeze from Eden sent That gently raised them from the ocean’s floor And in its bosom, as an ambient tent, Held them, suspense: and with a dew of balm God, while they slept, made air and ocean calm.23

Likewise a beam auroral forth he sped That flushed that tent aerial like a rose Each morn, and roseate odours o’er it shed The long day through.24 And still, at evening’s close, They dreamed of those rich bowers and alleys green Wherein with Lir their childish sports had been.25

And thrice they dreamed that in the morning gray They gathered there red roses drenched with dew: But lo! a serpent ’neath the roses lay: Then came the Tailkenn, and that serpent slew; And round the Tailkenn’s tonsured head was light That made that morning more than noonday bright.26

Thus wrapt, thus kindled, in sublimer mood Heaven-high they soared, and flung abroad their strain O’er-sailing huge Croagh-Patrick swathed in wood, Or Acaill,[23] warder of the western main, Or Arran Isle, that time heroic haunt, Since Enda’s day Religion’s saintlier vaunt.27

And many a time they floated farther south Where milder airs endear sea-margins bleak, To that dim Head far seen o’er Shenan’s mouth, Or Smerwick’s ill-famed cliff and winding creek, Or where on Brandon sleeps Milesius’ son With all his shipwrecked warriors round him--Donn.28

The centuries passed: her loud, exultant lay Finola sang, their time of penance done, And ended: ‘Lo, to us it seems a day; Not less the dread nine hundred years are run!29 Now, brothers, homeward be our flight!’30 And they Chanted triumphant: ‘Home, to Finnahá!’31

Up from the sea they rose in widening gyre, And hung suspended mid the ethereal blue, And saw, far-flashing in the sunset’s fire, A wood-girt lake whose splendour well they knew; And flew all night; and reached at dawn its shore-- Ah, then rang out that wail ne’er heard before!32

There where the towers of Lir of old had stood Lay now the stony heap and rain-washed rath; And through the ruin-mantling alder-wood The forest beast had stamped in mire his path; And desolate were their mother’s happy bowers, So fair of old with fountains and with flowers!33

More closely drew the orphans, each to each:-- ’Twas then Finola raised her dirge on high, As nearer yet they drifted to the beach In hope one fragment of past days to spy; ‘Upon our father’s house hath fallen a change; And as a dead man’s face this place is strange!34

‘No more the hound and horse; no more the horn!35 No more the warriors winding down the glen!36 Behold, the place of pleasaunce is forlorn, And emptied of fair women and brave men; The wine-cup now is dry; the music fled: Now know we that our father, Lir, is dead!’37

She sang, and ceased, though long the feathered throat Panted with passion of the unuttered song: At last she spake with voice that seemed remote Like echoed voice of one the tombs among: ‘Depart we hence!38 Better the exile’s pain!’39 And they: ‘Return we to rough waves again!’40

Yet still along that silver mere they lingered Oaring their weeping way by lawn and cape, Till evening, purple-stoled and dewy-fingered, O’er heaven’s sweet face had woven its veil of crape; And tenderer came from darkening wood and wild The voice far off of woman or of child.41

And when, far travelling through the fields of ether, The stars successive filled their thrones of light, Still to that heaven the glimmering lake beneath her Gave meet response, with music answering light; For still, wherever sailed that mystic four, With minstrelsy divine that lake ran o’er.42

But when the rising sun made visible The night-mist hovering long o’er banks of reed They cast their broad wings on a gathering swell Of wind that, late from eastern sea-caves freed, Waved all the island’s oakwoods t’ward the West; And seaward swooped at eve, and there found rest.43

And since they knew their penance now was over, Penance that tasks true hearts to purify, Happier were they than e’er was mortal lover, Happy as Spirits cleansed that, near the sky, Feel, mid that shadowy realm expiatory, Warm on their lids the unseen yet nearing glory.44

Thenceforth they roamed no more, at Inisglaire Their change awaiting.45 In its blissful prime That island was, men say, as Eden fair, The swan-soft nurseling of a changeful clime, With amaranth-lighted glades, and tremulous sheen Of trees full-flowered on earth no longer seen.46

Not then the waves with that still site contended; On its warm sandhills pansies always bloomed; And ever with the inspiring sea-wind blended The breath of gardens violet-perfumed; And daisies whitened lawn and dell, and spread At sunset o’er green hills their under-red,47