🧚 Opening, part 10 · page 2

Faint as that blush which lights some matron’s cheek Tenderly pleased by gentle praise deserved-- That island’s winding coast from creek to creek Like curves of shells with dream-like beauty swerved: And midmost spread a lake; from mortal eyes Vanished this day like man’s lost paradise.48

Around that lake with oldest oakwoods shaded Were all things that to eye are witching most, Green slopes, dew drenched, and gray rocks ivy-braided; Yet speechless was the region as a ghost: No whisper shook those woods; no tendril stirred; Nor e’er beside the cave was ripple heard.49

A home for Spirits, not home for man, it seemed; Or Limbo meet for body-waiting Souls-- Of such in Pagan times the poets dreamed-- That stillness which invests the unmoving poles Above it brooded.50 In its circuit wide A second Darvra lived--but glorified.51

Upon its breast perpetual light there lay, Undazzling beam, and uncreated light; For lake and wood the sunshine drank all day, And breathed it softly forth to cheer the night, A silver twilight, pure from cloud or taint, Like aureole round the forehead of a saint.52

There dwelt those Swans; there louder anthems chanted; There first they sang by day--rapt song and hymn, Till all those birds the western coasts that haunted Came flying far o’er ocean’s purple rim, Scorning thenceforth wild cliff and beds of foam; And made, then first, that sacred isle their home.53

So passed three years.54 When dawned the third May morn The Four, while slowly rose the kindling mist Showing the first white on the earliest thorn, Heard music o’er the waters.55 List, O list! ’56 Twas sweet as theirs--more sweet--yet terrible At first; and sudden trembling on them fell.57

A second time it sounded.58 Terror died, And rapture came instead, and mystic mirth They knew not whence: and thus Finola cried: ‘Brothers! the Tailkenn treads our Erin’s earth!’59 And as the lifted mist gave view more large They saw a blue bay with a fair green marge.60

On that green marge there rose an Altar-stone: Before it, robed in white, with tonsured head, Stood up the kingly Tailkenn all alone: Not far behind, in reverence, not in dread, With low bent brows a princely senate knelt, Girding that altar as with golden belt.61

Marvelling, as on they sailed that Rite they saw: But, when a third time pealed that Tailkenn’s bell, They too their halleluias, though with awe, Blended with his.62 The Ill Spirits heard their knell, And shrieking fled to penal dungeons drear; And straight, since now those blissful Four drew near,63

Saint Patrick stretched above the wave his hand And thus he spake--and wind and wave were stilled-- ‘Children of Lir, re-tread your native land, For now your long sea-penance is fulfilled!’64 Then lo!65 Finola raised the funeral cry: ‘We tread our native land that we may die!’66

And thus she made the lay, and thus she sang: ‘Baptize us, priest, while living yet we be!’67 And louder soon her dirge-like anthem rang: ‘Lo, thus the Children’s burial I decree: Make fair our grave where land and ocean meet; And t’ward thy holy Altar place our feet.68

‘Upon my left, Fiacre; upon my right Let Aodh sleep; for such their place of rest, Secured to each by usage and by right: And lay my little Conn upon my breast: Then on a low sand pillow raise my head, That I may see his face though I be dead.’69

She spake; and on the sands they stept--the Four-- Then lo, from heaven there came a miracle: Soon as they left the wave, and trod the shore The weight of bygone centuries on them fell: To human forms they changed, yet human none;-- Dread, shapeless weights of wrinkles and of bone.70

A moment prone the wildered creatures lay; Then slowly up that breadth of tawny sand, Like wounded beast that can but crawl, made way With knee convulsed, and closed and clutching hand, Nine-centuried forms, still breathing mortal breath, Though shrouded in the cerements pale of death.71

That concourse on them gazed with many a tear; Yet no man uttered speech or motion made, Till now the Four had reached that altar-bier, Their ghastly pilgrimage’s goal, and laid Before its base their bodies, one by one, And faces glistening in the rising sun.72

There lying, loud they raised the self-same cry, As Patrick o’er them signed the conquering Sign, ‘Baptize us, holy Tailkenn, for we die!’73 The saint baptized them in the Name Divine, And, swift as thought, their happy spirits at last To God’s high feast and singing angels passed.74

Now hear the latest wonder.75 While, low-bowed, That concourse gazed upon the reverend dead Behold, like changeful shapes in evening cloud, Vanished those time-worn bodies; and, instead, Inwoven lay four children, white and young With silver-lidded eyes and lashes long.76

Finola lay, once more an eight years’ child: Upon her right hand Aodh took his rest, Upon her left Fiacre;--in death he smiled: Her little Conn was cradled on her breast: And all their saintly raiment shone as bright As sea-foam sparkling on a moonlit night;77

Or as their snowy night-clothes shone of old When now the night was past, and Lir, their sire, Upraised them from the warm cot’s silken fold, And bade them watch the sun’s ascending fire, And watched himself its beam, now here now there, Flashed from white foot, blue eyes, or golden hair.78

The men who saw that deathbed did not weep, But gazed till sunset upon each fair face; And then with funeral psalm, and anthems deep, Interred them at that sacred altar’s base, And graved their names in Ogham characters On one white tomb; and, close beneath them, Lir’s.79

Those Babes were Erin’s Holy Innocents, And first-fruits of the land to Christ their Lord, Though born within the unbelievers’ tents: Figured in them the Gael his God adored, That later-coming, holier Gael, who won Through Faith the birthright, though the younger son.80

THE81

FORAY OF QUEEN MEAVE82

OR83

‘THE TAIN BO CUAILGNÉ’84

_FIVE FRAGMENTS OF AN ANCIENT IRISH EPIC_85

TO86

SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON87

THIS POEM IS DEDICATED,88

IN TOKEN OF GRATITUDE89

FOR ‘CONGAL,’ AND FOR MANY POEMS BESIDE,90

THAT ILLUSTRATE ARIGHT91

THE LEGENDS OF ANCIENT IRELAND.92

PROLOGUE.93

Senchan, the king of bards, when centuries six Had flowered and faded since the Birth Divine, Summoned in synod all the island bards, Demanding; ‘Is there who can yet recite That first of Erin’s songs, “The Tain”?’94 Not one Could sing it, save in fragments.95 Then arose Marbhan, and spake; ‘Send prayer to Erin’s Saints That, bowed o’er Fergus’ grave, they lift their hands For Erin at her need.’96 Five Saints obeyed And o’er that venerable spot three days Fasting made prayer while knelt the bards around.97 Then on the third day as the sun uprose Behold! a purple mist engirt that grave; And from it, fair as rainbow backed by cloud, Shone out a kingly Phantom robed in green, With red-brown locks, close clustered, drenched in dew, And golden crown, and golden-hilted sword;-- His hand was on it.98 They who saw that Shape Well knew him, Fergus Roy, the Exile-King.99 Gracious as in the old days, that king rehearsed The Tale so long desired, though many an age, And that grey empire of departed Souls, Had quelled at last the strong ones of that strain, Record half jest, half earnest.100 Marbhan spoke Once more; ‘Lest Erin lose again this Tale Through fraud of demons or all-wasting time, Amid yon Saints elect some scribe, their best, And pray that scribe to write it.’101 Straight, with help It may be, of the bards, Saint Kiaran wrote The Heroic Song on parchment fine, the skin Of one he loved, his ‘little heifer grey’ That gave the book its name.102 Six centuries passed; Then in Saint Kiaran’s House at Clonmacnoise That book was found, and on it; ‘Reader, here Are histories old with later fables blent, Fancies full fair with idle Pagan vaunts: Now therefore, since old things have in them worth And teach by what they hold and what they lack Whoso shall read this book, and know to choose ’Twixt Good and Ill, my blessing on him rest!’103