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diff --git a/old/60108-0.txt b/old/60108-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 717eeac..0000000 --- a/old/60108-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2440 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Legend of the blemished king and other poems, by -James H. Cousins - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Legend of the blemished king and other poems - -Author: James H. Cousins - -Illustrator: Lewis H. Victory - -Release Date: August 16, 2019 [EBook #60108] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGEND OF THE BLEMISHED KING *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS, Bryan Ness and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - _THE LEGEND - - OF THE - - BLEMISHED KING - - AND OTHER POEMS._ - - - - - _A FEW COPIES REMAINING._ - - The Little Library--Vol. I. - - IDYLLS - - By LAURA JEAN DOUGLAS. - - -=MODERATOR= says:--“Some of the most exquisite prose we have read for many -a day.” - -=IRISH NEWS= (Belfast) says:--“In the ten ‘Idylls’ which Miss Douglas -contributes, we have a group of the sweetest prose poetry possible.... A -gallery of lovely pictures.... A thing of beauty and a joy for ever.... -The turn-out of the book is equal to anything of the same kind produced -in London.” - -=MRS. ALICE A. PITMAN=, author of “=TALES FROM LONDON LIFE=,” says:--“The -pictures are beautifully conceived, and elegantly portrayed.” - -=IRISH FIGARO= says:--“I am grateful to all who essay in a sincere spirit -the difficult task of making Dublin a book-producing place. In ‘The -Little Library,’ author, editor, publisher, and draughtsman have -combined in an honest endeavour to attain that desirable end. The writer -of ‘Idylls’ gives us ten short prose-poems, of which I take the liberty -to give the first in its entirety as a specimen. It is entitled, ‘A Rose -Garden.’... This is a beautiful picture.” - -=JAMES H. COUSINS= says:--“Beautiful prose fancies.” - -=IRISH DAILY INDEPENDENT= says:--“The book is beautifully produced, and a -credit to Dublin.” - -=SCOTTISH SOCIETY= says:--“The weirdly-covered little book with the -strange frontispiece which comes to us under the title of ‘Idylls,’ will -be read with great enjoyment by all whose sense of literary quality is -sufficiently educated to appreciate the extreme delicacy of -word-painting in water-colours, if it may be so expressed.... In every -sense of the word, they are perfect representations of the idyll in its -purest form,... impossible to criticise, and difficult properly to -praise.” - - - - - THE LITTLE LIBRARY.--VOL. 2. - - EDITED BY M. J. KEATS. - - The - Legend of the - Blemished King - - And Other Poems. - - BY - JAMES H. COUSINS. - - _WITH COVER DRAWN BY LOUIS H. VICTORY._ - - Dublin: - BERNARD DOYLE, FRANKLIN PRINTING WORKS, - 9 UPPER ORMOND QUAY. - - 1897. - - - - - [Illustration: Gaelic] - - AND - - TO THE COMPANION OF MY WANDERINGS - - AMONG MOST - - OF THE SCENES HEREIN MENTIONED, - - WHOSE PRESENCE - - GILDED THE SUN THAT SHINES UPON, - - AND PAINTED THE FLOWERS THAT BEDECK - - THE - - “FAIR HILLS OF HOLY IRELAND.” - - - - -CONTENTS. - - -THE LEGEND OF THE BLEMISHED KING-- PAGE - - PROLOGUE 19 - - CANTO I. 23 - - CANTO II. 30 - - CANTO III. 37 - - CANTO IV 42 - -THE LEGEND OF SAINT MAHEE OF ENDRIM 49 - -A SONG OF DECADENCE 65 - -THE RAILWAY ARCH 67 - -SCHAKHE 70 - -IN THE GIANT’S RING, BELFAST 74 - -THE BLIND FATHER 78 - -THE SOUTHERN CROSS 85 - -ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM MORRIS 87 - -COPERNICUS 89 - -TO ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 90 - -HEAVEN AND EARTH 91 - -ON SOME TWENTIETH CENTURY FORECASTS 92 - -IRELAND 93 - - - - -_EDITOR’S NOTE._ - - -Wordsworth, writing a sonnet, having for its subject the sonnet-form, -said:-- - - “To me, - In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound - Within the sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;” - -and all those who have essayed the task of composing in this particular -form will admit that Wordsworth’s definition--“scanty plot of -ground”--characterises the sonnet’s limitations precisely. - -As will be observed in the following pages, Mr. Cousins not only excels -as a sonneteer; but in “The Legend of the Blemished King” he performs -the remarkable feat of producing a poem of classical character, -containing forty-eight stanzas, cast perfectly in the no less difficult -mould known as the Spenserian stanza--eight heroic lines, followed by an -Alexandrine, rhyming thus:--1, 3; 2, 4, 5, 7; 6, 8, 9. - -The subject, however more than the technique, is remarkable. It will -have an especial attraction for all who are interested in the ancient -literature of Ireland; and, indeed it should be of universal interest, -because of the fact that this story of Fergus bears a strong resemblance -to the Scriptural narrative of Eden and the Fall of Man. It is a kind of -allegory common to all ancient races, containing in its heart an -unobtruded moral, wrapped in dramatic incident and decorated with -charming pictures of land and sea. - -It is, in short, what Fiona M’Leod would call a “legendary morality.” - -The other poems are equally admirable; and, indeed, however considered, -I think that this book should prove a valuable addition to the best -literary products of Ireland. - -RIGHT -M. J. K. - - - - - DEIRDRE. - - Illan, what King was he dwelt here of yore? - - ILLAN. - - Fergus, the son of Leide Lithe-o’-limb, - Ere yet he reigned at Eman, did dwell here. - - DEIRDRE. - - What, Fergus Wry-mouth? I have heard of him, - And how he came by his ill-favoured name. - Methinks I see him when he rose again - From combat with the monster, and his face, - That had that blemish till love wiped it off, - Serene and ample-featured like a King. - - ILLAN. - - Not love but anger, made him fight the beast. - - DEIRDRE. - - No, no, I will not have it anger. Love - Prompts every deed heroic. ’Tis the fault - Of him who did compose the tale at first, - Not to have shown ’twas love unblemished him. - . . . . . . - - FERGUS. - - All Erin, shore to shore, shall ring with it - And poets in the ages yet to come - Make tales of wonder of it for the world. - - “DEIRDRE.”--FERGUSON - - - - - The Legend of the - Blemished King. - - - - - Prologue: At Scrabo, Co. Down. - - - _The rugged rock against the sky - Heaves high a tower-topped crest, - Whence widens out beneath the eye - The realms of East and West. - Here lies a land but seldom sung,-- - This crude, majestic crown, - And that white sea that moves among - The fertile fields of Down!_ - - _Unsung!--save when an alien lyre - A moment’s space was strung, - And Browning fanned a little fire, - And Helen’s Tower was sung. - Yet storied homes of sept and clan - Are here, and,--dim and vague,-- - Anear and far, Ben Madighan, - And Keats-sung Ailsa Craig!_ - - _Unsung!--and wherefore? lovely land! - Hast thou not ample store - For song, from yonder ocean strand, - To Strangford’s shining shore? - Hast thou not throbbed to foamy flanks, - And sound of Saxon steel, - To crash of Cromwell’s rattling ranks, - And Clansmen of O’Neill?_ - - _And yet, not all thy songful crown - Is strife of right with wrong; - Here, limpid lark-streams trickle down - A hundred peaks of song; - There, silent sheep and lambkins lie-- - A white, uncertain thing-- - Like lingering snow that fain would spy - The secret of the spring._ - - _The roaming robber breezes catch, - And hither upward float, - A lusty lilt and vagrant snatch - From some far rustic throat; - And blustering bye, with strident shout, - From scenes of festive glee, - That libertine of flower and sprout, - The bacchanalian bee._ - - _All life is song:--and song is life - To souls with these akin, - Unfettered by yon city’s strife, - Unsullied by its sin! - Some part of these fair fields and coast, - Some waft of phantom wings, - Will haunt my heart, a welcome ghost, - A hint of higher things._ - - _Dear land of love and happy lot - Of merry maids and swains, - Worthy the martial muse of Scott, - Or Virgil’s pastoral strains; - Loved land, this tongue thy song would share - This votive soul is thine: - Thy lips are loud with praise and prayer,-- - Pray God they kindle mine!_ - - - - - The Legend of the Blemished King. - - -[NOTE:--I am indebted to “The Ecclesiastical History of Down and -Connor,” by Rev. James O’Laverty, for the story of the “Blemished King.” -Believing it to be comparatively unknown, and desiring, as far as lay in -my power, to spread a knowledge of the interesting stories and legends -which abound in Irish History and Literature, I translated it into -verse. I learn, however, that a poem on the same subject has been -written by the late Sir Samuel Ferguson, under the title of “Fergus -Wry-mouth.” I can only plead justification for running the inevitable -gauntlet of comparison between a giant and a pigmy, on the ground that I -had already committed myself to the publication of the present version -of the legend before I became aware of the fact mentioned. I have not -read the poem by Sir Samuel Ferguson, and I shall not do so until after -this volume is in print; but I have written Lady Ferguson on the matter, -and she very kindly refuses to see any possible objection to the -publication of my rendering of the story, seeing that it contains almost -as many stanzas as there are lines in Sir Samuel’s. - -The Loch of Rory ([Illustration: Gaelic]), the centre around which the -following story moves, is Dundrum Bay. That bay is still remarkable for -its roar, which has been frequently referred to by ancient writers. Even -a modern poet (S. K. Cowan, in “Sung by Six”) has written of the bay, -“where deep seas moan.” Other evidences point to the identity of Rory -and Dundrum, in opposition to the conjectures of some that the present -Belfast Lough was the scene of the incidents contained in the “Legend of -the Blemished King.”--THE AUTHOR.] - - - - - CANTO I. - - - I. - - Eastward in Eireann lay the Lough of Rory. - The Moon, like some pale huntress, landward led - Her white-toothed hounds betwixt the promontory - And its far twin. Thither King Fergus sped - Within his chariot. High his shaggy head - Clove thro’ the dusky clouds his chargers made; - And o’er his shoulders, far behind him, spread - Loose locks, and circling cloak, in which arrayed - He, with benignant arm, Ultonia’s sceptre swayed. - - - II. - - Beside him stood his suremost charioteer, - (Muëna, faithful bondsman of his lord, - Favoured in form, and swift of eye and ear), - Urging with well-skilled hand and timely word - The flying steeds. The seaward-soaring bird - Seemed fixed in Heaven, so swift they sped: the day - Lumbered behind, as high the sand they stirred, - And echoes of their wheels that edged the spray - Rolled thro’ the silent hills like thunder far away! - - - III. - - Onward they whirled. The billows on the beach - Drew backward in amaze, then, bolder grown, - Sprang forward to the chase, but far from reach - The phantom bounded on o’er sand and stone; - Till the low clouds that late-born winds had blown - About the hills, upon the chariot’s flight - Drew down their brows; or was it they had flown - Thro’ dalliant day into a former night - That now, with jealous hand, hid shore and sea from sight? - - - IV. - - Then when the day had rallied all its forces,-- - A splash of glory in a murky west,-- - Obedient, where it pleased (like men), the horses - Slackened their speed, and paused, and stood at rest. - “Thus far, O King! fulfilled is thy behest,” - Muëna said. To whom the King: “To thee - And me ’twere Heaven in Night’s soft arms carest - To sleep.”--They slept.--Without, that smith, the sea, - On adamantine anvils shaped new shores to be. - - - V. - - Who knoweth not the spell that lurks in twilight?-- - When mystic murmurs float across the world - From strange, vague forms that hate the brazen highlight - Of day, and sleep in hidden corners curled - Till, westward, day has nigh his banner furled. - Then fare they forth: rich spoil, in sooth, they found - Where Fergus had his mighty figure hurled - Upon the chariot’s floor. They drew around, - Plucked from its sheath his sword, and bore him to the ground, - - - VI. - - Thence to the verge of ocean. Fairy elves, - A thousand strong, the toilsome task essayed; - While twice a thousand, perched on rocky shelves, - A wierd accomp’niment of laughter made - (Timed to their phantom forms that swung and swayed). - So sweet the sound, ’twould seem the winds, at rest - For once from warring, ’mong the treetops played: - Till, lo, the King, so close they round him prest, - Woke, and a struggling trio clasped upon his breast. - - - VII. - - “Life for thy life,” they cried: “have mercy, King!” - Swift to his feet he sprang. The fairy throng - Vanished like vapour, save where, in the ring - Of his tight-clasping arms, as swift along - The dim-seen beach he strode the stones among, - The wriggling remnant of the elvish crew - Craved mercy.--“Mercy doth to thee belong, - And ours in turn to render service due.” - Clasping them in his arms he toward his chariot drew. - - - VIII. - - There lay Muëna, wrapt in peaceful sleep, - Nor woke the King his bondsman; but did say - To those he held his captives: “Through the deep, - And under, give me knowledge of the way, - Unfearful of the power of wave or spray. - This shall ye grant and live.” “O King, such boon,” - Thus said the elves, “sweeps not beyond our sway; - So shall be thine, ere swings another moon, - Skill meet to dare the depths of river and lagoon, - - - IX. - - “Save Rory, whence thou camest; that shalt thou - Ne’er ruffle with thy foot: within its wide - Impassioned breast, from day’s first dawn till now, - And still from now till dawn’s last day, has plied, - And still shall ply, the spirit of the tide - His secret craft. Nor thou nor human kind - Shall scan his face and live. All else beside - Is thine when Earth ’s again to Day resigned, - Whose advent now is blown on trumpets of the wind.” - - - X. - - So when the morn, like Virtue’s cheek red-blushing - For night’s black deeds, from couch of cloud arose, - Ere yet were heard hoarse caws and dark wings rushing - Athwart the sun, when trailing lines of crows - Hasten to haunts far off that no man knows, - Beside the sea stood King and charioteer - To take the waves’ great secret now from those - In promise bound, who stand apart, yet near, - Where wavelets lift and lay, as if some word to hear. - - - XI. - - Then spake the first of fairies: “O great King, - Thy life was ours--we spared it; ours was thine - And thou didst spare us, yet encompassing - Thy deed with obligation, line on line, - And promise holding promise,--me and mine - To do, and thou to do not. Now the hour - Hath come--as ne’er before--when billow and brine - Yield to a mortal every whit of power-- - Save one--how suns soe’er may shine or clouds may lower.” - - - XII. - - Low bowed the Monarch his assenting head. - The elfin chieftain swiftly drew anear - Doffing his hood, long-trailing, ruby red. - Lo! on the King ’tis placed. In either ear - They plant sweet spices, herbs, anointing clear; - And weird enchantments drown the muffled roar - Of throbbing ocean. Then the charioteer - Beholds his master pass the waters o’er, - And stands, a lonely man upon a lonely shore. - . . . . . . - - - XIII. - - Day brightened in the East, and o’er the waters - The round sun rose and threw across the wave - A lambent flame, blood-red, as though from slaughters - In Orient lands. The breaking surf did lave - Muëna’s feet: he, wrapt in wonderings grave, - Looked long and wistful, such as lovers do - To greet their love. At length the wondering slave - Saw on the deep a form that neared, and grew, - And stepped upon the beach--the King returned anew. - - - - - CANTO II. - - - XIV. - - Thenceforth, King Fergus, strong in power new born, - Recked not a restful hour, but, passion-fired, - And strong in strength un’customed, night and morn - Probed to the farthest deeps his soul desired. - At such swift speed too soon his soul acquired - The sum of knowledge granted. “All below,” - So spake the King, “to which I have aspired - Is mine,--that earth or ocean can bestow, - Save one, whose secret fain my mind would grasp and know.” - - - XV. - - So chafe Restriction’s fetters. So within - Dwelleth for ever ancient Adam’s will. - Sweet though the tasted fruit, the fruit unseen, - Or seen but yet forbid, is sweeter still. - Lord of the land, of river, vale, and hill, - King Fergus stood, and “Wherefore,” thus said he, - “This circumscription? What of greater ill - Dwelleth within the breast of mine own sea - Than those whose farthest caves have felt the foot of me? - - - XVI. - - “I _will_ descend to Rory: haply there - May dwell some secret whose resistless charms, - Bent to my kindred’s service, danger, care - Shall put apart, and shield from hurt or harm - In council grave or battle’s loud alarm. - What ho, Muëna. Haste my charioteer. - Who boasts that weak has grown my kingly arm - To sweep its path of all restriction clear? - Fergus is Fergus still--and Fergus knows no fear!” - - - XVII. - - Muëna heard, and answered word by deed. - Soon rolled the chariot round the palace hall, - And Eastward toward the ocean; steed by steed - Stretched to the task his limbs; their hoofs did fall - Like rain on summer noons. The curlews’ call - Gave token of the near-approaching end, - And soon before their eyes the ocean wall - Shouldered the shock of waters that extend - To meet the sky. The King did to the marge descend. - - - XVIII. - - Know you the Loch of Rory? Sages tell - How, when the sons of Adam felt the force - Of watery judgments, came a vagrant swell - And burst round shores of Eireann. Man and horse, - King, chief, and clansman, in the widening course - Of high, resistless billows, sank from sight - ’Mong cries from throats in sudden anguish hoarse - That called, and called, and ceased when fell the night,-- - And on a stranger shore soft broke the morning’s light. - - - XIX. - - Across this shore Ultonia’s King now passed. - The waves that rattled up the pebbled strand - Rose in their ranks, then low before him cast - Themselves, and stood aside on either hand. - The King moved forward. Never magic wand - More swift compelled submission. Thro’ the spray, - As tho’ he trod upon the level land, - He took, ’twixt watery walls, a deepening way, - Till o’er his head the waves shut out the light of day. - - - XX. - - Forward he fared. No swimmer’s opened eye - E’er scanned so sweet a sight. In glimmering green - Slow lightening upward to the watery sky - That arched the watery world, in softer sheen - Than mortals wot of, lay the fairy scene:-- - Fantastic rocks, sea-flowers that rose and fell - As brushed by silent shapes that moved between - Him and the darkening distance, fairy cell, - And beds of ocean bloom more sweet than Asphodel. - - - XXI. - - There sat the King adown to scan the world - Of more than wonder. Thither came to sue - For explanation things that swam, and curled, - Then circled round, and passed away from view. - Here stood as ’twere a camp, and there a few - Forms, not of ocean, human arms outspread. - King Fergus wept to make the sad review - Where those who faced the flood, now dumb and dead, - Slept out the tale of time upon the ocean’s bed. - - - XXII. - - Short space he sat when, from athwart the deep, - There came a sound of horror! Far and near - A wild commotion rose, as things that creep, - Or climb, or swim, smitten with sudden fear, - Darkened the depths that erst had been so clear. - King Fergus started upward to his feet, - And saw, but dimly, toward him quickly steer - A dreadful shape that came like lightning fleet, - And chilled the monarch’s blood such fearful foe to meet. - - - XXIII. - - It was the Muirdris!! Nought that men have known - Could match its awful visage: high upheld - On ogrish limbs, one moment ape-like grown, - It flew along, till, lo! it sank, and swelled - To size gigantic, while it yelped and yelled - In sound that spake of fury, fiendish ire. - In tremulous awe the King the beast beheld - Bent in its course on devastation dire, - While from its eyeballs streamed malignant lines of fire. - - - XXIV. - - Round turned the King, and flew as ’twere from Death! - Swift sped the beast within his foamy track. - Wreathed round his form the King could feel its breath, - Nor dared he glance one smallest moment back. - Behind the twain, like tempest-driven rack, - Spread clouds of foam, pointing the path of each. - Above, white billows lashed the shore. His neck - Muëna, wondering, strained,--till on the beach - Swooned the swift-fleeing King beyond the monster’s reach. - - - XXV. - - But tho’ Muëna wondered as he saw - His King, ’mid foamy spray, make sudden flight, - Far more he wondered as he scanned the flaw - Upon the King’s wan face, that made the sight - More dreadful than some horror-haunted night. - Lo! wide apart, and stretched from ear to ear, - In sudden aspect of tremendous fright, - Gaped, like a cave, his jaws: the eyes, once clear, - Stared as upon a sight of overmastering fear. - - - XXVI. - - Muëna bore the King upon his breast - Into the chariot. There he laid him, dazed, - On ample couch, his fevered form to rest, - Soft shaded from the sun, that burned and blazed - High overhead,--then whipt the steeds, as crazed - From some pursuing phantom. Might and main - In lightning alternation high they raised - Sure-stepping foot, and over hill and plain - Toward far Emania’s walls their swiftest strength they strain. - - - - - CANTO III. - - - XXVII. - - Not far the sun had fallen, when he drew - The chargers’ reins beside the circling sweep - Of Royal walls. The gathering clansmen knew - From foam and steam no slow and leisured creep - Had been their pace. Their thought took leap on leap - From sight to meaning. Then upon the floor - They spied the King recumbent as in sleep, - And as the form was borne within the door, - In others’ eyes they sought the secret o’er and o’er. - - - XXVIII. - - Straightway into the council-room of chiefs - And sages was the limp-limbed body borne. - Then spake Muëna: “Lo! a grief of griefs, - Ultonia’s hearts are kingless and forlorn, - For know ye not how spake the wiseman, born - To wisdom?--‘Ne’er shall King with blemish marred - Reign’: and behold! alas! since this sad morn - King Fergus, from Ambition evil-starred, - Lies now before your eyes in visage sorely scarred. - - - XXIX. - - “Choose ye a King, to reign within his stead.” - He ceased, but answer came not; rather, round - The silent throng flew questioning glance that said - Unstable vacillation. Not a sound - Broke cover till one bolder spirit wound - The trumpet-horn of speech; then left and right, - Leapt forth the hounds of thought, and roof and ground - Echoed impassioned tongues, and feet bedight - With thong and sandal, plied with each loud speaker’s might. - - - XXX. - - Then spake the sons of wisdom, they who stood - Apart in silent conclave, while the din - Of ineffectual babblings drew no rood - More near conclusion: “Hear, Ultonian kin! - What arm so strong Ultonia’s wars to win, - Foster the strength of strong, inspire the weak? - Lives there a soul full fit to stand within - The Monarch’s room? What worthier do you seek - To guide the reins of peace, or would ye other? Speak!” - - - XXXI. - - “None! none!” the multitudinous answer rang - Unanimous. (King Fergus, with a sigh, - Turned in his sleep. Perchance he dreamed there sang - Some bard of deeds their fathers did.) The cry - Thrilled through the chamber’s walls, and far and nigh - Found answer in a thousand throats, that gave - Their yet unmeaning plaudits to the sky; - And as, in sound like shoreward-shrieking wave - They shout, the secret they in others’ faces crave. - - - XXXII. - - Without, the crowd swayed back and forth, with din - Low-muffled, as the sea doth surge and sway - In silken swell, from storm gone past. Within - Was calm, and brows determined sought a way - Through that old law to write emphatic “Nay!” - Then quoth the wisemen’s chief: “Our path is plain. - Our hearts upon our tongues have said their say, - And Fergus o’er Ultonia’s host shall reign, - If but to meet our thoughts your constant strength ye strain. - - - XXXIII. - - “Let fools and babblers take their journey far, - And silent sit as sent’nel to your speech. - What wots the King of that which him doth mar - If but the knowledge in the breast of each - Be locked beyond a thought’s long-arméd reach - Till forced forgetfulness doth rust the key - Or haply lose it. E’en your art let teach - The water to forget his form to see - Or give it back, when to ablution cometh he.” - - - XXXIV. - - Approval shone within their eyes. Their tongues - In loud assent gave forth: “Fergus is King!” - And once again without, untutored lungs - Caught up the cry, nor knew what meant the thing, - ’Till, like a mighty bird, on fresh-plumed wing, - The Royal chariot once again did shake - Rampart and roof, as champing steeds did fling - Their heads on high, and sped by mount and brake - To scenes of less surprise when Fergus should awake. - - . . . . . . - - - - XXXV. - - What need to sing of deeds within the scope - Of thrice a dozen moons? What need to tell - How fared the King when, by the sanded slope - Where twice a day the sea-waves fret and swell, - He woke? Or devious deeds that oft befell - Clansman and chief in those high-sounding days - Of war-girt peace--a Heaven ringed round with Hell-- - Or battle’s loud-lunged shout, or conquest’s blaze, - Or how the blemished King ne’er on his fault did gaze. - - - - - CANTO IV. - - - XXXVI. - - ’Twas thus--and thus, when thrice a year had sped - King Fergus of his blemish happed to know:-- - “I go to mine ablutions (so he said - Unto his bond-maid), girl, the task you know - Of preparation. Haste you, for I go - On mighty mission!” P’r’aps ’twas Fate’s decree - The maiden’s arm in service seemed full slow, - And Fergus, strained of nerve, was swift to see - In microscopic faults, some slight of majesty. - - - XXXVII. - - Howbeit,--the fire to firelike will give blaze, - And progeny of one small word or deed - Count thousand-thousand. Half in wide amaze, - And half in wild vexation that slow heed - The maiden gave to that his will decreed, - He strode into her presence: then on high - He raised the stinging lash his stout-skinned steed - Oft felt, and flinched, and, drawing swiftly nigh, - Its serpent hiss was drowned in the smit’ maiden’s cry. - - - XXXVIII. - - “A curse upon your laggard form!” he hissed. - The smitten girl swift raised her flashing eyes - In scarlet indignation, nor was missed - The blemish on the Monarch’s face. She cries: - “King Fergus, heartless coward! I loathe, despise - Your craven hand, nor e’en a word would deign, - But that I deem your spirit’s shape and size - Must match your brute-like visage.” Purpling plain - With rage, he drew his sword and cut the maid in twain. - - - XXXIX. - - A maddened moment’s deed! And when the storm - Was past, the King in calm the wreck surveyed - Of his own making. Towering o’er the form - Prostrate and purple, holding still the blade - Wet with her life, he stood as sore dismayed, - Muttering: “Visage! Visage!” still the word - Beat inward on his ’wildered brain, nor stayed - Till that grim truth, long hid, to sight restored, - Burst on his mind. He turned, still clasping tight the sword. - - - XL. - - Three steps beyond the portal of the room - Where lay the maid, he stopped and cast a look - Backward,--a look portentous of dark doom - To all beneath its ban. Aloft he shook - The bleeding blade; then cried, till every nook, - E’en to the farthest of the farthest halls, - Trembled; and, as he called, his way he took - Down corridors that held his foot’s swift falls - Till cry and footfall blent without the castle walls. - - - XLI. - - The cry was: “Visage! Visage! Death and blood - To what has wrought the ruin of yon maid,-- - That hideous habitant of Rory’s flood - Who plies--mayhap not long--his secret trade; - And mine ambition that such depths essayed - As strained the strength of me. Yet, not for nought - The fiend was found, tho’ fled I sore dismayed: - Some lesson yet is there, tho’ anguish-taught; - Some profit yet remains, tho’ it in blood be bought. - - - XLII. - - One falleth--that foul spirit: then is past - Temptation of ambition; but, perchance - Mine arm may fail: sobeit, then is cast - Away the secret.” On did he advance. - And one who saw his eyeballs’ lightning glance, - And marked his mood and manner, thro’ the crowd - Spread rumouring words, keen, swift as strong-threwn lance, - That drew them forth, a multitude, all browed - With wonderment that grew with each swift stride, till, loud - - - XLIII. - - And deep before them, Rory swells and swings. - Behold! the King nor pauses, nor aside - Turns in his track.--Not mine to tell of things - Run riot in those minds that edged the tide, - Where late the billows did King Fergus hide, - Nor gave of him a token, save the swell - Of giant strivings in the waters wide, - And one wild wave that, as from heart of Hell, - Leaped for the shore and ’mong the wondering warriors fell. - - - XLIV. - - And thereupon arose confusion, such - As ne’er was seen before, and ne’er again - Shall e’er be seen. With tops that seemed to touch - The heights of Heaven arose the strenuous main - In wild tumultuous strivings, till the brain - Of those beholders whirled, and they that spake - In terror seemed all voiceless, for in vain - Speech called at its own ears. All heaven did make - Sound at whose dreadful voice all earth did seem to shake. - - - XLV. - - And far across the world a tempest bore - Sounds of a conflict such as never yet - Man’s eyes beheld,--e’en to the cloudy shore - Of distant Britain: there did they beget - Vague words of wonder. Ere the sun had set - Within a stormy west nor man nor maid - Of all Ultonia but with spray was wet - As, lo! from each far hill, each distant glade - Long thousands shoreward drew with wide-eyed wonder swayed. - - - XLVI. - - And when it seemed as if the heavens swam - In wild bewilderment,--each starry sphere - Would topple earthward, straightway fell a calm - That laid a hush upon the heart of fear, - And soothed both sea and sky, till softest tear - Would drop with sound of cataracts in the glen. - And thus they waited what should next appear, - Uncounted thousands of full-armëd men, - Bards, chieftans, clansmen, women, maids, youths, children:--then - - - XLVII. - - As if the sea had stolen half the glow - Of the sunk sun, the quiet Loch flushed red, - And lengthened day, e’en tho’ the day did go - To other lands. “Some portent this,” they said, - “Of the fight’s finish: one hath joined the dead-- - Which, shall appear full soon.”--Lo! on the sea - What form is yon that waves a hideous head - Within its hand? They gaze, they shout: “’Tis he, - Fergus, Ultonia’s King. Fergus hath victory!” - - - XLVIII. - - Then that red glory brightened, and they scanned - The King’s marred visage--marred?--nay, pure and bright - As erst in youth! He called: “With this right hand - Nerved with the fury of revengeful might, - I fought--and won! I’ve lived my day; now night - Doth wrap its blackness round me: I but pay - The price of mine own deed.” And from their sight - He sank beneath the waters of the bay - Which rolled in waves of blood for many a devious day! - - - - - The Legend of St. Mahee - - of Endrim. - - - - - The Legend of Saint Mahee of Endrim. - - - - - TO J. A. GREGG. - - -[NOTE.--Saint Mahee ([Illustration: Gaelic]) was born about 420 A.D., -founded the Abbey of Endrim ([Illustration: Gaelic]--the single ridge), -on the beautiful island bearing that name, about 450, and died in the -year 496 or 497. For several centuries the Abbey, in which education and -religion were combined, occupied a prominent position, and turned out a -number of subsequent founders of similar institutions. Between 974 and -1178 history is silent in regard to it, but it is certain that, from its -position on Cuan ([Illustration: Gaelic]--a lough, now Strangford), -which was infested by Danish marauders, it came in for a large share of -their devastating attentions. From the date of its affiliation with an -English educational establishment, 1178, it seems to have fallen on evil -days, and in 1450 it is simply noted as a Parish Church in the charge of -the Bishop of Down. - -The Island of Endrim--or, as it is now called, in memory of its Patron -Saint, Mahee--is situated most picturesquely on Strangford Lough, about -seven miles from Comber, Co. Down, and is approachable on foot or car by -a modern causeway-road, which crosses an intervening island. On the -shoreward end of the island may be seen many remnants of the stone -buildings which superseded the original wooden structures. These -remnants include the stump of a round tower; traces of extensive -foundations once laid bare by the late Bishop Reeves, but now almost -entirely hidden from view; the site of the harbour where anchored “ships -from Britain;” evidences of a hallowed God’s-acre, and a fairly complete -castle of a later period. The circuit of the island can be made on foot -leisurely in a couple of hours, and the walk affords a view of the -extensive waters of the once Dane-infested lough, the distant hoary -walls of Greyabbey, the haunts of Saint Patrick, the reputed scene of -the death of Ollav Fola ([Illustration: Gaelic], the lawgiver of Erin), -and the martial deeds of De Courcey. - -Ballydrain, about half-way between Comber and Mahee Island, is so-called -from [Illustration: Gaelic], a townland, and [Illustration: Gaelic], a -blackthorn tree; and the reader will observe the connection between this -place and the Island of Mahee. No trace of a church has yet been -discovered at Ballydrain. - -The idea contained in the Legend has been variously rendered by several -eminent authors. The incident in which it is here embodied may, however, -be fairly claimed as the oldest version--the original, in fact.--THE -AUTHOR.] - - - Lo! right and left, in calm repose, - Are spread unnumbered isles, - Between whose shores the bluff breeze blows, - And sungilt Strangford smiles. - The shoreward way our feet have left - Below, still winds along - Where strenuous waves, in eddy and cleft, - Croon low their iterant song. - - - II. - - Bright in the passionate, tremulous rays - From cloudy towers of day, - Yon crumbling castle seems to gaze - At castles far away, - Like parted friends of other years - Who meet, nor waste a word, - But wondering stand, and smile thro’ tears - From depths unfathomed stirred. - - - III. - - Here may we rest, and make our seat - On this high rock-strewn mound, - “Put off our shoes from off our feet”-- - We tread on holy ground - The haunts where many a sandalled sole - Trod out life’s lust and woe, - And, stedfast set to one high goal, - Went down in dust below. - - - IV. - - No stone is theirs engraven large - With record born of strife, - No gilded scroll, no carven marge, - No legend loud with life. - Far other deeds than men applaud - Their holy hands essayed, - In life viceregent here of God, - In death still undismayed. - - - V. - - No fluctuant favours--servile spouse - Of princes’ transient smile-- - Did e’er bedeck their sacred brows, - Their saintly souls defile: - No life-warm lips their own had kissed - (Earth’s hope-inspiring dove)-- - Their life was one long Eucharist - Eternalised in love. - - - VI. - - The workers went; the works remain. - Time here small kingship owns. - Thro’ ’whelming winds, thro’ sun and rain, - Have lived these lichened stones, - And that brief tower upreared by those - Whose dread was from the deep,-- - In strife their strength, in peace repose, - Their guardian now in sleep. - - - VII. - - Thine eyes, old tower, have scanned the scroll - And palimpsest of Earth, - And fain would we thy thoughts unroll - Thro’ years of bliss or dearth, - For thou from thy calm height dost look - With sage, dispassionate eye, - To where the star of day-dawn shook - Within a youthful sky. - - - VIII. - - We deem thee old; but age is not - A toll of hours and days,-- - Mean measure of our little lot - And arbitrary ways. - We run our little round of change - Thro’ years of less or more, - But Time to thee holds nought of strange, - Unheard, unseen before. - - - IX. - - Down paths of night no starrier balls - No new Milanion throws; - Thro’ no transfigured day’s high halls - Th’ itinerant breeze still blows; - Belligerent ever, baffled still, - Th’ importunate surges swing; - Still dear as dawn th’ ecstatic thrill - And prophet power of Spring. - - - X. - - Wrapt in a dream of ancient days - Thou stand’st aloof from ours, - Yet nought hast thou of battle’s blaze - Or blighting iron showers; - For well-beloved art thou of moon, - And sun, and winds, and stars, - Forever in thy heart attune - To every statelier bars - - - XI. - - Than aught my highest hope could know - In this inspiring breath - Where wilding blossoms bloom and blow, - As life blooms out of death; - Yet fain, withal, my lips would wed - To song, for modern ears, - This chord from lyric days long dead, - This dream from epic years: - - - THE LEGEND. - - Quoth good Saint Mahee of Endrim, - “I shall build for Christ my master - Here a church, and here defend him - And His cause from all disaster.” - Seven score youths cut beam and wattle, - Seven score hands unseared in battle - Their unstinted aid did lend him, - Fast and ever faster. - - But tho’ arm, and voice loud-ringing, - To a test of toil defied him, - Right and left the wattles flinging, - Not a tongue could dare deride him - For, before them all, he stood - Finished, waiting. Not a rood - From the spot a bird was singing - In a thorn beside him. - - Sang no bird in ancient story - Half so sweet or loud a strain: - Seaward to the Lough of Rory, - Landward then, and back again, - Swelled the song, and trilled and trembled - O’er the toiling youths assembled, - Rang around ’mid Summer glory - There at Ballydrain. - - Far more beautiful the bird was - Than the bright-plumed Bird of Bliss - And the Abbot’s feeling stirred was - To its deepest depths, I wis; - ’Till, as from the fiery splendour - Moses saw, in accents tender - Spake the bird, and lo, the word was: - “Goodly work is this!” - - “True,” quoth Saint Mahee of Endrim, - “’Tis required by Christ my master - Here to build, and here defend Him - And His cause from all disaster; - But my blood mounts high with weening - Of this goodly word the meaning?” - Nearer then the bird did tend him, - Fast and even faster. - - “I shall answer. I descended - From mine angel-soul’s compeers, - From my home serene and splendid - To this haunt of toil and tears; - Came to cheer thee with a note - From an angel’s silvern throat.” - Then he sang three songs: each, ended, - Made a hundred years. - - There, thro’ days that dawned and darkened, - With his wattles by his side, - Stood the island Saint and hearkened - To that silvery-flowing tide - Stood entranced, and ever wondr’éd, - Till had circled thrice a hundred - Years o’er fields, life-lade or stark, and - Strangford’s waters wide. - - Then when came the final number, - Ceased the angel-bird its strain, - And, unheld by ills that cumber - Mortals, sought the heavenly plain. - Then the Saint, in mute amaze, - Round him turned an anxious gaze, - And from that far land of slumber - Came to Earth again. - - Low his load, mid weed and flower, - Lay beside him all unbroken, - Till, with thrice augmented power, - From his holy dream awoken, - Up he bore it to his shoulder-- - Broad and not a hand’s breath older. - Scarce, thought he, had passed an hour - Since the bird had spoken. - - Toward his island church he bore it. - Lo, an oratory gleaming, - And “To Saint Mahee,” writ o’er it! - “Now,” quoth he, “in faith I’m dreaming! - Say, good monk, at whose consistory - Shall I solve this mighty mystery, - And to form of fact restore it - From this shadowy seeming?” - - Thus he spake to one who faced him - With a look of mild surprise, - One who swiftly brought and placed him - ’Neath the Abbot’s searching eyes.-- - Leave him there: not mine to rhyme of - Deeds that filled the latter time of - Him who, fain tho’ years would waste him, - Ages not, nor dies. - - . . . . . . - - Such the wondrous old-time story - Of the bird’s long, lethal strain - Sung thro’ Summers hot and hoary, - Winters white on mount and main - And the monks, to mark the mission - Of the bird,--so tells tradition,-- - Built a church to God’s great glory - There at Ballydrain. - - - XII. - - The song has ceased, the dream is done, - Lo, nought but shattered shrine - And weed-clad walls greet now the sun - That sparkles in the brine; - Yet these no remnant are of dead - Insalutary days, - Vicarious blood of morning, shed - For more than Memphian haze. - - - XIII. - - The fires of worship, and of war, - De Courcey’s marshalled hosts, - The rude sea-rovers from afar - Have vanished from our coasts; - And out of these an ampler field - Found Freedom, mind and hand, - Toward unattempted ends to wield - A world-enchanting wand. - - - XIV. - - What tho’ in oft ignoble cause - The wave of war still rolls, - The hate of sects, the clutching claws, - The strife of armoured souls; - What tho’ the thousands, born to fail, - In darkness come and go, - Be ours no pessimistic wail - Of fear for larger woe; - - - XV. - - For even now the dawn doth give - Some promissory gleams, - Tho’ most ’tis ours in night to live, - Participant in dreams - Of some broad-beamed and brighter morn, - Some elemental balm, - Some purer peace, of battle born, - Some tempest-cradled calm! - -[Illustration: text decoration] - -[Illustration: text decoration] - - - - - Miscellaneous Poems. - - - - - Song of Decadence. - - - I wonder if there still remain - Some echoes from the songs of old; - Or what the measure of the strain - The future shall unfold? - - The voice that breathed across the years, - And came, and went, and passed the bar, - And sang the battle song of tears, - Sounds small, and faint, and far; - - And men have found another chord, - An offspring, not of heart, but head; - And gold is God, and lust is Lord, - And Love lies stricken dead! - - Ah, me! the race goes blindly on - And leaves the old familiar ways; - And still, earth-weighted, flowers the dawn - To still ignoble days; - - And men, as sheep within their folds, - Grope round their world with great sad eyes; - And hate the hand that still withholds - The secret of the skies; - Or, deeming God an idle tale - Withdrawn from lore of ancient shelves, - Themselves would reckon by the scale - And measure of themselves! - - How mean the stature of the song - Of our inglorious--glorious time, - Attenuating, as along - It moves from that great prime - - When Milton, in the midnight hours, - Lay waiting for the mystic breath - Of God to touch his soul to flowers - Of song that smile at Death. - - O singers of the years to come! - Be yours the large and liberal scope: - Sing sweetly--or for aye be dumb-- - Of God, and Love, and Hope, - - Encircled by no little line - Of gain or loss, of time or sense, - Nor, bent at Mammon’s soulless shrine, - Your birth-right part for pence; - - But bend an arm across the past, - And finger all the vibrant years, - Till sunlight, on our shadows cast, - Makes rainbows of our tears. - - - - - The Railway Arch. - - - There it stands, as it has stood-- - Theme for bards, and theme for seers-- - Mute to sun and tempests rude, - To the swift express of years; - - Stretched across from bank to bank - Where the rabbits flash and go, - Where the fir-trees, rank by rank, - Gaze upon the track below - - As the train, at man’s behest, - In the calm or tempest’s teeth, - Speeds with lightning in its breast, - And the thunder underneath. - - There in many a rift and rent, - Many a bird finds friendly cover; - And the toiler, homeward bent, - Whistles as he passes over; - - And the children from the town - Climb its parapets and strain - Half a hundred throats to drown - With a cheer the passing train. - - Yet how many children, toilers, - List’ to what that arch would say - To the thousands of earth’s moilers?-- - Dull of ear and listless they! - - Ah! adown the track of time, - In the world’s great sidings lying, - Many a theme for many a rhyme - Is unmarked by thousands, flying - - After all the fen-fires, darting - In the damps and swamps of life; - Fires of meeting and of parting, - Hate and love, and strain and strife! - - There it stands--O! how I love it; - For it speaks of weal, and woe, - For the thousands pass above it; - For the thousands rush below; - - And, attune to whirr and clatter, - Wide and wider does it span, - High o’er time and sense and matter, - High o’er life and death and man, - - Stretched from age to age unborn; - And above it in a stream - Pass, unceasing, night and morn, - Shapes like those in Jacob’s dream - - All the souls of all the ages, - All the ghosts of all the years, - Priests and prophets, saints and sages, - Sweet-breathed bards and broad-browed seers, - - Who from many a cloudy station - List’ the whirring of the wheels - Bounding on without cessation, - Dragging progress at their heels; - - Who, as children from the town, - Throng the parapets, and strain - Form and voice in flashing down - Warning signals to the train - - Speeding on, at man’s behest, - In the calm, or tempest’s teeth, - With the lightning in its breast, - And the thunder underneath! - - - - - Schakhe. - - (A Ballad of Armenia.) - - - They had fought, they had failed, those women and now, - in a wild-eyed throng, - They fled from the red destroyer, and they cried: “O Lord, how long?-- - How long, O Lord, till the ending of the ghastly sounds and sights, - Till the dripping days be finished, and the thrice red-running nights,-- - Till the last cold corpse falls, severed from the last Armenian head, - Till the last maid be dishonoured, and the last hot tear be shed?” - - They had fled from the red destroyer, but he hastens around their track, - Till the fate they had flown is before them, and they turn - in their pathway back. - But, Northward and Southward and Eastward and Westward, - and round and round, - Come the gleam of the steely lightning, and the wild, - soul-harrowing sound, - As mother and sister and daughter, and the child at its mother’s breast - Go down in the surge of slaughter and the wreck of the great Opprest. - And now they are huddled together, as the death-cries rise and swell, - Where the rock runs up to Heaven, and the gulf goes down to Hell,-- - On the edge of a beetling hillock; when, lo! from the ’wildered crowd, - On a peak of the rock steps Schakhe, and calls to her sisters, loud:-- - - “O sisters in nameless sorrow, baptised in a life of tears; - Before you two paths lie open: behind you a thousand years - Fade far in the dusky distance, one long, broad stream of blood, - That flows by the wreck and ruin of sword and fire and flood! - Before you two paths lie open: one leads where dangers lurk, - And the pain and the dumb dishonour from the merciless hand of the Turk. - - Choose ye! Will ye thread that pathway, prove false to the men ye love; - Prove false to the children ye bore them; prove false to the God above? - Will ye sell yourselves to the spoilers of father and mother and child, - Who butchered and then, like devils, at their cries for mercy smiled? - Do ye think of the thousands rotting, flung down in a ghastly heap - Unblessed; whose dust commingles in their last unhallowed sleep? - Do ye think of the blood, the sorrow, the wild, sky-rending cries, - As the scarce-born babe was mangled to feast their fiendish eyes? - Do you think of the brute defilement when, full in the flare of day, - Ye were robbed of your dear-prized honour, and made the Moslem’s prey? - Will ye choose that path, O sisters? ’Tis a path ye have often trod; - Or throw yourselves on the mercy of the great, all-powerful God? - - What though He is veiled in silence, and behind our clouds grown dim; - If He come not down to help us, then we will go to Him. - See! there is the other pathway, down, down to the home of Night. - Jump! long ere the body be broken, the soul will have taken flight. - He will give His charge to His angels: in their hands - they will bear thee up, - As ye tread the Saviour’s pathway, and drink the Saviour’s cup. - There,--lean on my breast, sweet infant, and good-bye to Earth and woe. - Now, sisters, the way lies open: I am weary and long to go!” - - They had fought: they had failed; and they followed - brave Schakhe, a martyr throng;-- - And soft o’er the corpse-strewn valley the winds sigh: “Lord, how long?” - - - - - In the Giant’s Ring, Belfast. - - - No Shakespeare girdle this, whose girth - Would compass with its arms - The sounding seas and snows of earth, - The fruitful fields and farms.[A] - Here priestly power has thrown around - A circuit wide and high, - A bar where waves of human sound - Beat vainly, drop, and die. - - “Who dreams of war in such a scene - Of undisturbed repose? - Who babbles here of spite and spleen? - Who rhymes of human woes? - Nought here is heard of mingling cries, - Of life’s unlovely jars - Nought here is seen but yonder skies, - And circling suns and stars!” - - O wise in wisdom of the fool! - O warped in sight and soul! - O Arctic spirit, icy cool - As passions of the Pole! - - Is ’t but a dream of babe or bard - That conjures grief and groans? - Or is thy shrunken heart more hard - Than those three standing stones? - - I dreamed a dream when last I stood - Within their sombre shade: - Time took my hand full many a rood - Beyond the tides of trade, - Beyond the sacerdotal rite, - And soul-absorbing creeds, - Beyond the narrow skirts of sight - And despicable deeds. - - I soared above the brimming Earth; - I peered beneath its breast; - I saw the founts of joy and mirth, - And seats of life’s unrest. - But in the ocean of its thought - One current swelled and grew - And on to seas with blessing fraught - A thousand others drew. - - ’Twas Love: and Time stood by, and said: - “Behold! a thousand spires - Speak gilded words from hearts as dead - As those old Druid fires. - - But love lives on and leavens all - In Earth’s expanding range, - The height and depth, the rise and fall, - The first and last of Change. - - “Kings pale and perish, dogmas die, - The world goes slowly on - To greet an all-unclouded sky, - To kiss a purer dawn. - Stript of the garb of mimic worth, - Freed from his brothers’ ban - And circumscribing creeds, steps forth - A newer, nobler man. - - “’Twas thus God’s chosen race was bent - Beneath a tyrant yoke: - ’Twas thus the hated chains were rent, - The conqueror’s sceptre broke. - Thus Babylon to Persia bowed, - Thus Persia bent to Greece, - Thus Greece gave place to Rome the proud, - The Goth broke Roman peace.” - - These mighty stones, this giant ring - Give token of a day - That died, as dies a dreamt-of thing, - And passed in dust away, - Save these, for you--dear heart--and me - To gaze on, muse, and rhyme: - “Time conquers all, both bond and free, - But Love shall conquer Time!” - -[Illustration: text decoration] - - - - - The Blind Father. - - - I. - - So, my son, you came this morning at the blinking of the day, - “King, and heir for Uther,” riding swiftly shoreward on the spray - That, within my face, comes blowing from a stranger sea and sky,-- - Felt, not seen--upon whose margin here, a sightless Merlin, I - Stand, and turn my head and harken to the whisper of the wind - Borne from seaward on to leeward,--dark before and dark behind. - - - II. - - And they say you’re like your father?--How can I know, for I look - With a dead eye into darkness; yet I’ve felt upon a book - Something tell me: “In His form and with His likeness made He man:” - So you’re like your father, and he looks like God--but, ah! the ban, - A Damocles-blade, keeps hanging, as o’er ancient Adam’s head, - O’er last moment’s latest Adam, just arisen from the dead. - - - III. - - Ban! Who banned you? Is it God, or is it man suspends the knife? - God decreed you’d toil for bread, but man decrees you’ll die for life! - - - IV. - - “From the dead.”--You like the phrase not, wife; - yet not from death he’s come, - But from life, of all the ages past the product and the sum. - Thine and mine,--yet neither mine nor thine, but heir of every hour, - Drawing through thee from the world’s breast,--we the - stem and he the flower. - Ours, and yet not ours; the acorn from its parent will be broke, - Drop to earth, from earth to heaven stretch the fingers of the oak. - Acorn--oak, and back to acorn, hedging all the hills of time, - On and on forever, housing birds of every wing and clime. - Thus we die,--and thus we die not; mortal, yet immortal we; - Closely clasping crumbling fingers round the hand of the To Be; - Flingling out along the ages tendrils that will grip, and twine - In a slow attenuation down the long posterior line. - - - V. - - Thus the generations, marching to an universal strain, - Start, and stop; and in the starting from Da Capo sing again. - - - VI. - - Ah! not ours: yet ours the moulding of a future near or far; - Ours to set a sun in heaven,--hurl in space a red-eyed star.-- - For I’m told, beyond my curtain there revolveth day and night, - And among the stars there standeth one that winketh red with fight; - And you say the glow that lights upon my cheek is from the sun - Guiding lightning-footed planets as they in their orbits run; - And I’ve heard that all have sprung from atoms crowding God’s abyss,-- - Mars, the evil-eyed and warlike; Sol, the pivot-point of bliss. - - - VII. - - Yes, a weakness, sprung from weakness, weaker waxes, and a strength - On from strength to strength goes marching, grasping - God’s right hand at length; - For the mickle at the shoulder means the muckle at the hand, - And the hair’s breadth on the compass means the ship upon the land. - - - VIII. - - Aye, wife; now I know the reason why you sighed so since we wed: - You have seen the world hang on you. Don’t you mind, dear, what you read - Out of Cowper?--where he speaks of how the arrow on the wing - Falls at last far out of line though small the error at the string. - - - IX. - - There he’s: take him! You can rhyme of chubby cheeks, and laughy eyes - That have housed far down within them little patches of the skies; - You can paint your glowing pictures, that a tear may wash away - When a future Vandal stumbles through your dream some after day. - Mine are coloured from th’ eternal, set by Love in Fancy’s mould, - Knowing nought of life’s mutations, Summer’s heat or Winter’s cold. - - - X. - - So you’ve only come this morning, courier dove with pinions white? - What’s the news from God, what message from the hidden heart of Night? - -[Illustration: text decoration] - - - - - Sundry Songs - and Sonnets. - - - - - The Southern Cross. - - - Afar from his wife and his sons and his daughters, - The fisherman grapples for gain or loss; - Beneath him the silent midnight waters; - Above him the blaze of the Southern Cross: - And ever his thoughts on the breeze hie homeward, - As he calls to the watcher again and again,-- - “O what of the night: is it dark or bright?” - And ever there cometh the old refrain,-- - “The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing, - The midnight shadows fly. - The Cross is bending, the night is ending, - The day is drawing nigh.” - - Again, on the storm-swept winter waters, - He battles the billows that tumble and toss; - And he thinks of the weeping of wives and daughters, - As the clouds fly over the Southern Cross. - Ah, then in the hour of his heart’s despairing, - When sheets are rending and cables strain, - How sweet to his ear come the words of cheer, - And the sound of the watcher’s old refrain,-- - “The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing, - The midnight shadows fly. - The Cross is bending, the night is ending, - The day is drawing nigh.” - - . . . . . . - - Far out, far out on Life’s wild waters, - Where storms are howling, where breakers toss, - How many of earth’s fair sons and daughters - Are drifting and dragging to gain or loss! - But ever the Stars of Hope are shining, - Through calm and tempest, through wind and rain; - And soft through the night, be it dark or bright, - The heart still echoes the old refrain,-- - “The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing, - The midnight shadows fly. - The Cross is bending, the night is ending. - The day is drawing nigh.” - - - - - On the Death of William Morris. - - - I. - - Mine eyes beheld thee--but not nigh: mine ear, - Close to thy page, could feel the beat, beat, beat, - That told thy great, good heart: now strangers’ feet - Have borne thee out. Thee? Nay, I have thee here - Forever young; nor less that eye, so clear, - Beams brotherhood, nor can the years that fleet - Leave me more lonely. No hot tear--full meet - From widowed Friendship--drop I on thy bier. - Some earth-stained page mars oft fair Friendships’s book; - And happier I, who saw thro’ Fancy’s light - Kin only of the sacred singing race, - Blameless of all that mars familiar sight!-- - Then wherefore should I weep, who skyward look, - And mark a god move Godward to his place? - - - II. - - Perfume of eld, more sweet than all the scent - Of late-blown roses squandered on the air, - Sweetens the tawny forest of thy hair, - And there shall dwell till all the years be spent. - To thee war’s call with hint of song is blent, - And time sits easy on the brows of care; - Love lifts a white affirming hand to swear - Thee hero of thy heroes,--thou, who went - To the frore Past. Lo! in its eyes did dance - Reflection of a day within the wake - Of some unrisen, kindlier star; and thou - Didst cry: “Behold, with goodlier days the Now - Is great, as forests wave in seeds to break, - And countless thousands pulse in Love’s first glance!” - -[Illustration: text decoration] - - - - - Copernicus. - - - They deemed, self-centred souls! that those great eyes - Which star the night, in amorous orbit turned - And, ever boldly bashful, sighed and burned - For one earth kiss, and stood within the skies - Eternally expectant. O most wise - In your great selves! that rude iconoclast - His stones of Truth among your dreamings cast, - And robbed your wisdom of its dear disguise. - He stood, a Sampson of Titanic force, - ’Twixt men and God, and swiftly grasped and hurled - His bolts at callow thoughts of centuries, - And pivoted th’ unreckoned universe, - And marked the rhythmic orbit of a world, - And changed chaotic chords to harmonies! - - - - - To Algernon Charles Swinburne. - - (To remind him that the Genius of Ireland, nigh twenty centuries - ago, taught the dull ears of the world the subtleties and charms of - the rhyme of which he is now acknowledged master.) - - - Moulder of mighty measures and sublime; - Whose flower of song--how dead soe’er the ground-- - Blossoms: whose feet, from no great depth profound, - By cloudy slopes to cloudier summits climb! - What though thou art, in this thy world-broad prime, - Great King of Song, sceptred and robed and crowned; - Be it not thine to scorn the narrow round - Whence broadened out the bounds of later time. - Not all the message of that far-off chime - The strident strains of this our day have drowned: - “Forget not, Singer, whence hath sprung thy rhyme, - Or whence thy tongue its lofty power hath found; - Nor squander all thy store in mocking mime, - Niggard of sense and prodigal of sound.” - - - - - Heaven and Earth. - -_In the beginning the Heaven and the Earth were wedded together, and -then was the golden age of joy and beauty. But something occurred which -destroyed the union, and the Heaven and the Earth were parted amid the -tears of Nature, which men call the dew._--LEGEND OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. - - - Truth in untruth; wisdom on Folly’s tongue, - And substance in a shadow!--Hear ye this: - Erewhile, ’mid transports of primeval bliss, - In starry ears a bridal song was sung, - And Heav’n and Earth, in mutual rapture, strung - Ethereal harps, and took one reeling kiss, - ’Till, seated with much joy, Earth grew remiss: - But, love was rife, and, ah! the Earth was young. - - O trembling tears of dawn in Nature’s eyes! - Forget your sadness. Lo! methinks the hour - When recreant Love turns loveward, thrills the dome; - Earth lifts mute praying hands in tree and flower, - And Heav’n, in all the windows of the skies, - Hangs nightly lamps to light the wand’rer home! - - - - - On Some Twentieth Century forecasts. - - - O imperturable and silent years, - That reck not all the riot of our time - Whose fevered feet, with inharmonious rhyme, - Royster around thy high phantasmal tiers! - How mean our mockings of the silent seers - To read the riddle of th’ Eternal Soul! - We list’ the thundering life within thy bole, - And count the hidden harvest that anears, - And dream our dreams, and smile to see them wrecked! - Oh, vain insurgence on the unrevealed: - Enough to map the paths our fathers tracked - Not, mother-like, kiss yet the face concealed. - Age ages not the elemental law, - And we are thou in hope, thou we anew, - And still beneath are depths whence Shakspere drew, - And still above are stars that Milton saw! - - - - - Ireland. - - - Somewhat of Autumn’s splendour round her lies; - Yet deem not thou ’tis preface of her death, - For there is that within her heart which saith - This word that buds and blossoms in her eyes:-- - “Reck not the portent of the season’s skies, - Nor deem yon darkling clouds aught but a breath - Sundrawn from half a world that offereth - Its votive incense to the year that flies.” - The hand that bevels down the shortening day - Is one with that which quickens leaf and wing, - So prophecy of pregnance in decay - Thou hast, and in thine Autumn germs of Spring; - To vindicate these lips, that late have said: - “They dreamed a lie who deemed thee wholly dead!” - -[Illustration: THE LITTLE LIBRARY. - -THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES WILL APPEAR IN DUE COURSE:-- - -1. - -The King’s Oak and Other Stories, - -By ROBERT CROMIE, - -Author of “The Crack of Doom,” “A Plunge into Space,” &c. - -These Stories are amongst the best things from the pen of this brilliant -and popular Irish Author. - - -2. - -[_Immediately._ - -SOCIALISM: ITS STRUCTURAL STUPIDITIES, - -By IGNOTUS. - -A pungent criticism and confutation of Fabian fallacies. - - -3. - -The Eve of the World’s Tragedy; - -OR, THE THOUGHTS OF A WORM, - -By LOUIS H. VICTORY, - -Author of “Lady Rosalind,” “Collected Verses,” “Poems,” “The Higher -Teaching of Shakespeare,” &c., &c. - - -4. - -A VOLUME OF POEMS - -By the world-renowned - -SAMUEL K. COWAN, M.A., T.C.D., - -Author of “Poems,” “Roses and Rue,” “Idylls of Ireland,” “Play,” “Laurel -Leaves,” &c., &c. - - -5. - -A BOOK OF PROSE - -By one of the greatest Irish Writers of his time, - -W. B. YEATS, - -Author of “The Countess Kathleen,” “Celtic Twilight,” “The Secret Rose,” -&c., &c. - - -OTHERS TO FOLLOW.] - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[Footnote A: - -...Put a Girdle round the earth - In forty minutes. -] - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Legend of the blemished king and other -poems, by James H. 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