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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.) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="550" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span></p> - -<p class="nind"><i><big>THE LEGEND</big><br /><br /> -<small><span style="margin-left: 6em;">OF THE</span></small><br /><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><big>BLEMISHED KING</big></span><br /><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">AND OTHER POEMS.</span></i> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span> </p> - -<hr /> - -<p><b>A FEW COPIES REMAINING.</b></p> -<hr class="full1" /> - -<p class="cb">The Little Library—Vol. I.<br /><br /> -<big><big>IDYLLS</big></big><br /><br /> -By LAURA JEAN DOUGLAS.</p> - -<p><b>MODERATOR</b> says:—“Some of the most exquisite prose we have read for many -a day.”</p> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/leaf.png" width="24" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<p><b>IRISH NEWS</b> (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.”</p> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/leaf.png" width="24" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<p><b>MRS. ALICE A. PITMAN</b>, author of “<b>TALES FROM LONDON LIFE</b>,” says:—“The -pictures are beautifully conceived, and elegantly portrayed.”</p> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/leaf.png" width="24" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<p><b>IRISH FIGARO</b> 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.”</p> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/leaf.png" width="24" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<p><b>JAMES H. COUSINS</b> says:—“Beautiful prose fancies.”</p> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/leaf.png" width="24" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<p><b>IRISH DAILY INDEPENDENT</b> says:—“The book is beautifully produced, and a -credit to Dublin.”</p> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/leaf.png" width="24" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<p><b>SCOTTISH SOCIETY</b> 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span>”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c"><big>THE LITTLE LIBRARY.—VOL. 2.</big><br /> -<br /><span class="sans"> -EDITED BY M. J. KEATS.</span></p> - -<h1> -<img src="images/title.png" -alt="The -Legend of the -Blemished King -And Other Poems." -width="350" -/></h1> - -<p class="c"><small>BY</small><br /> -<b>JAMES H. COUSINS.</b><br /> -<br /> -<i>WITH COVER DRAWN BY LOUIS H. VICTORY.</i><br /> -<br /> -<b>Dublin</b>:<br /> -BERNARD DOYLE, FRANKLIN PRINTING WORKS,<br /> -<span class="smcap">9 Upper Ormond Quay</span>.<br /> -——<br /> -1897.<br /></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> </p> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/i_005.png" width="320" alt="" title="" /> -<br /> -AND<br /> -<br /> -TO THE COMPANION OF MY WANDERINGS<br /> -<br /> -AMONG MOST<br /> -<br /> -OF THE SCENES HEREIN MENTIONED,<br /> -<br /> -WHOSE PRESENCE<br /> -<br /> -GILDED THE SUN THAT SHINES UPON,<br /> -<br /> -AND PAINTED THE FLOWERS THAT BEDECK<br /> -<br /> -THE<br /> -<br /> -“FAIR HILLS OF HOLY IRELAND.”<br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><b><big><a name="contents" id="contents"></a> -<img src="images/i_007.png" -width="150" -alt="CONTENTS." -/></big></b></h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td><a href="#the_legend_of_the_blemished_king"><span class="smcap">The Legend of the Blemished King—</span></a></td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#prologue_at_scrabo_co_down"><span class="smcap">Prologue</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_19">19</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#canto_i"><span class="smcap">Canto I.</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_23">23</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#canto_ii"><span class="smcap">Canto II.</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_30">30</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#canto_iii"><span class="smcap">Canto III.</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_37">37</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="indd"><a href="#canto_iv"><span class="smcap">Canto IV</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_42">42</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#the_legend_of_saint_mahee_of_endrim"><span class="smcap">The Legend of Saint Mahee of Endrim</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_49">49</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#song_of_decadence"><span class="smcap">A Song of Decadence</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_65">65</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#the_railway_arch"><span class="smcap">The Railway Arch</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_67">67</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#schakhe"><span class="smcap">Schakhe</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_70">70</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#in_the_giants_ring_belfast"><span class="smcap">In the Giant’s Ring, Belfast</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_74">74</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#the_blind_father"><span class="smcap">The Blind Father</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_78">78</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#the_southern_cross"><span class="smcap">The Southern Cross</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_85">85</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#on_the_death_of_william_morris"><span class="smcap">On the Death of William Morris</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_87">87</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#copernicus"><span class="smcap">Copernicus</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_89">89</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#to_algernon_charles_swinburne"><span class="smcap">To Algernon Charles Swinburne</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_90">90</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#heaven_and_earth"><span class="smcap">Heaven and Earth</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_91">91</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#on_some_twentieth_century_forecasts"><span class="smcap">On Some Twentieth Century Forecasts</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_92">92</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#ireland"><span class="smcap">Ireland</span></a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_93">93</a></td></tr> - -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><i>EDITOR’S NOTE.</i></h2> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/i_009.png" width="23" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<p>Wordsworth, writing a sonnet, having for its subject the sonnet-form, -said:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">“To me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within the sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>It is, in short, what Fiona M’Leod would call a “legendary morality.”</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p class="r"> -M. J. K.<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5"><span class="smcap">Deirdre.</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Illan, what King was he dwelt here of yore?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5"><span class="smcap">Illan.</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Fergus, the son of Leide Lithe-o’-limb,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere yet he reigned at Eman, did dwell here.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5"><span class="smcap">Deirdre.</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">What, Fergus Wry-mouth? I have heard of him,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And how he came by his ill-favoured name.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Methinks I see him when he rose again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From combat with the monster, and his face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That had that blemish till love wiped it off,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Serene and ample-featured like a King.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5"><span class="smcap">Illan.</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Not love but anger, made him fight the beast.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5"><span class="smcap">Deirdre.</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">No, no, I will not have it anger. Love<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prompts every deed heroic. ’Tis the fault<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of him who did compose the tale at first,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not to have shown ’twas love unblemished him.<br /></span> -<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5"><span class="smcap">Fergus.</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">All Erin, shore to shore, shall ring with it<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And poets in the ages yet to come<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make tales of wonder of it for the world.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10">“<span class="smcap">Deirdre.</span>”—<span class="smcap">Ferguson</span><br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h1> -<img src="images/legend.png" width="310" alt="The Legend of the -Blemished King." /> -</h1> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="prologue_at_scrabo_co_down" id="prologue_at_scrabo_co_down"></a> -<img src="images/prologue.png" - -alt="Prologue: At Scrabo, Co. Down." -/></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanzaital"> -<span class="i0">The rugged rock against the sky<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Heaves high a tower-topped crest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whence widens out beneath the eye<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The realms of East and West.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here lies a land but seldom sung,—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This crude, majestic crown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that white sea that moves among<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The fertile fields of Down!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanzaital"> -<span class="i0">Unsung!—save when an alien lyre<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A moment’s space was strung,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Browning fanned a little fire,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And Helen’s Tower was sung.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet storied homes of sept and clan<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Are here, and,—dim and vague,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Anear and far, Ben Madighan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And Keats-sung Ailsa Craig!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanzaital"> -<span class="i0">Unsung!—and wherefore? lovely land!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hast thou not ample store<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For song, from yonder ocean strand,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To Strangford’s shining shore?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hast thou not throbbed to foamy flanks,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And sound of Saxon steel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To crash of Cromwell’s rattling ranks,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And Clansmen of O’Neill?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanzaital"> -<span class="i0">And yet, not all thy songful crown<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is strife of right with wrong;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here, limpid lark-streams trickle down<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A hundred peaks of song;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There, silent sheep and lambkins lie—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A white, uncertain thing—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like lingering snow that fain would spy<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The secret of the spring.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanzaital"> -<span class="i0">The roaming robber breezes catch,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And hither upward float,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lusty lilt and vagrant snatch<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From some far rustic throat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And blustering bye, with strident shout,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From scenes of festive glee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That libertine of flower and sprout,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The bacchanalian bee.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanzaital"> -<span class="i0">All life is song:—and song is life<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To souls with these akin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unfettered by yon city’s strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unsullied by its sin!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some part of these fair fields and coast,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some waft of phantom wings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will haunt my heart, a welcome ghost,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A hint of higher things.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanzaital"> -<span class="i0">Dear land of love and happy lot<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of merry maids and swains,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Worthy the martial muse of Scott,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or Virgil’s pastoral strains;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loved land, this tongue thy song would share<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This votive soul is thine:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy lips are loud with praise and prayer,—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Pray God they kindle mine!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="the_legend_of_the_blemished_king" id="the_legend_of_the_blemished_king"></a> -<img src="images/legend2.png" - -alt="The Legend of the Blemished King." -/></h2> - -<p>[<span class="smcap">Note</span>:—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.</p> - -<p>The Loch of Rory (<img src="images/gaelic22.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="85" -alt="Word in 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.”—<span class="smcap">The Author.</span>]</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span></p> - -<h3><a name="canto_i" id="canto_i"></a>CANTO I.</h3> - -<h4>I.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Eastward in Eireann lay the Lough of Rory.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Moon, like some pale huntress, landward led<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her white-toothed hounds betwixt the promontory<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And its far twin. Thither King Fergus sped<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Within his chariot. High his shaggy head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clove thro’ the dusky clouds his chargers made;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And o’er his shoulders, far behind him, spread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loose locks, and circling cloak, in which arrayed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He, with benignant arm, Ultonia’s sceptre swayed.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>II.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Beside him stood his suremost charioteer,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">(Muëna, faithful bondsman of his lord,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Favoured in form, and swift of eye and ear),<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Urging with well-skilled hand and timely word<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The flying steeds. The seaward-soaring bird<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seemed fixed in Heaven, so swift they sped: the day<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lumbered behind, as high the sand they stirred,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And echoes of their wheels that edged the spray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rolled thro’ the silent hills like thunder far away!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>III.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Onward they whirled. The billows on the beach<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Drew backward in amaze, then, bolder grown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sprang forward to the chase, but far from reach<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The phantom bounded on o’er sand and stone;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till the low clouds that late-born winds had blown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About the hills, upon the chariot’s flight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Drew down their brows; or was it they had flown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ dalliant day into a former night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That now, with jealous hand, hid shore and sea from sight?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>IV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then when the day had rallied all its forces,—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A splash of glory in a murky west,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obedient, where it pleased (like men), the horses<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Slackened their speed, and paused, and stood at rest.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“Thus far, O King! fulfilled is thy behest,”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Muëna said. To whom the King: “To thee<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And me ’twere Heaven in Night’s soft arms carest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To sleep.”—They slept.—Without, that smith, the sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On adamantine anvils shaped new shores to be.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>V.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Who knoweth not the spell that lurks in twilight?—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When mystic murmurs float across the world<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From strange, vague forms that hate the brazen highlight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of day, and sleep in hidden corners curled<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till, westward, day has nigh his banner furled.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then fare they forth: rich spoil, in sooth, they found<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where Fergus had his mighty figure hurled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the chariot’s floor. They drew around,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plucked from its sheath his sword, and bore him to the ground,<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>VI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thence to the verge of ocean. Fairy elves,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A thousand strong, the toilsome task essayed;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While twice a thousand, perched on rocky shelves,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A wierd accomp’niment of laughter made<br /></span> -<span class="i2">(Timed to their phantom forms that swung and swayed).<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So sweet the sound, ’twould seem the winds, at rest<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For once from warring, ’mong the treetops played:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till, lo, the King, so close they round him prest,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Woke, and a struggling trio clasped upon his breast.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>VII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Life for thy life,” they cried: “have mercy, King!”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Swift to his feet he sprang. The fairy throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vanished like vapour, save where, in the ring<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of his tight-clasping arms, as swift along<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The dim-seen beach he strode the stones among,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wriggling remnant of the elvish crew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Craved mercy.—“Mercy doth to thee belong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ours in turn to render service due.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clasping them in his arms he toward his chariot drew.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>VIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There lay Muëna, wrapt in peaceful sleep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor woke the King his bondsman; but did say<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To those he held his captives: “Through the deep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And under, give me knowledge of the way,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unfearful of the power of wave or spray.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This shall ye grant and live.” “O King, such boon,”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus said the elves, “sweeps not beyond our sway;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So shall be thine, ere swings another moon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Skill meet to dare the depths of river and lagoon,<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>IX.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Save Rory, whence thou camest; that shalt thou<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ne’er ruffle with thy foot: within its wide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Impassioned breast, from day’s first dawn till now,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And still from now till dawn’s last day, has plied,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And still shall ply, the spirit of the tide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His secret craft. Nor thou nor human kind<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shall scan his face and live. All else beside<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is thine when Earth ’s again to Day resigned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose advent now is blown on trumpets of the wind.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>X.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So when the morn, like Virtue’s cheek red-blushing<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For night’s black deeds, from couch of cloud arose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere yet were heard hoarse caws and dark wings rushing<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Athwart the sun, when trailing lines of crows<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hasten to haunts far off that no man knows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beside the sea stood King and charioteer<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To take the waves’ great secret now from those<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In promise bound, who stand apart, yet near,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where wavelets lift and lay, as if some word to hear.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then spake the first of fairies: “O great King,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thy life was ours—we spared it; ours was thine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thou didst spare us, yet encompassing<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thy deed with obligation, line on line,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And promise holding promise,—me and mine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To do, and thou to do not. Now the hour<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hath come—as ne’er before—when billow and brine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yield to a mortal every whit of power—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save one—how suns soe’er may shine or clouds may lower.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Low bowed the Monarch his assenting head.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The elfin chieftain swiftly drew anear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doffing his hood, long-trailing, ruby red.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lo! on the King ’tis placed. In either ear<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They plant sweet spices, herbs, anointing clear;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And weird enchantments drown the muffled roar<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of throbbing ocean. Then the charioteer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beholds his master pass the waters o’er,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stands, a lonely man upon a lonely shore.<br /></span> -<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Day brightened in the East, and o’er the waters<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The round sun rose and threw across the wave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lambent flame, blood-red, as though from slaughters<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In Orient lands. The breaking surf did lave<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Muëna’s feet: he, wrapt in wonderings grave,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Looked long and wistful, such as lovers do<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To greet their love. At length the wondering slave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Saw on the deep a form that neared, and grew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stepped upon the beach—the King returned anew.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3><a name="canto_ii" id="canto_ii"></a>CANTO II.</h3> - -<h4>XIV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thenceforth, King Fergus, strong in power new born,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Recked not a restful hour, but, passion-fired,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And strong in strength un’customed, night and morn<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Probed to the farthest deeps his soul desired.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At such swift speed too soon his soul acquired<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sum of knowledge granted. “All below,”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">So spake the King, “to which I have aspired<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is mine,—that earth or ocean can bestow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save one, whose secret fain my mind would grasp and know.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So chafe Restriction’s fetters. So within<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dwelleth for ever ancient Adam’s will.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet though the tasted fruit, the fruit unseen,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or seen but yet forbid, is sweeter still.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lord of the land, of river, vale, and hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">King Fergus stood, and “Wherefore,” thus said he,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“This circumscription? What of greater ill<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dwelleth within the breast of mine own sea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Than those whose farthest caves have felt the foot of me?<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XVI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“I <i>will</i> descend to Rory: haply there<br /></span> -<span class="i2">May dwell some secret whose resistless charms,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bent to my kindred’s service, danger, care<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shall put apart, and shield from hurt or harm<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In council grave or battle’s loud alarm.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What ho, Muëna. Haste my charioteer.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Who boasts that weak has grown my kingly arm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To sweep its path of all restriction clear?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fergus is Fergus still—and Fergus knows no fear!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XVII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Muëna heard, and answered word by deed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Soon rolled the chariot round the palace hall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Eastward toward the ocean; steed by steed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Stretched to the task his limbs; their hoofs did fall<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like rain on summer noons. The curlews’ call<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gave token of the near-approaching end,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And soon before their eyes the ocean wall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shouldered the shock of waters that extend<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To meet the sky. The King did to the marge descend.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XVIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Know you the Loch of Rory? Sages tell<br /></span> -<span class="i2">How, when the sons of Adam felt the force<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of watery judgments, came a vagrant swell<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And burst round shores of Eireann. Man and horse,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">King, chief, and clansman, in the widening course<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of high, resistless billows, sank from sight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">’Mong cries from throats in sudden anguish hoarse<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That called, and called, and ceased when fell the night,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on a stranger shore soft broke the morning’s light.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XIX.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Across this shore Ultonia’s King now passed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The waves that rattled up the pebbled strand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rose in their ranks, then low before him cast<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Themselves, and stood aside on either hand.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The King moved forward. Never magic wand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More swift compelled submission. Thro’ the spray,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As tho’ he trod upon the level land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He took, ’twixt watery walls, a deepening way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till o’er his head the waves shut out the light of day.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XX.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Forward he fared. No swimmer’s opened eye<br /></span> -<span class="i2">E’er scanned so sweet a sight. In glimmering green<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slow lightening upward to the watery sky<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That arched the watery world, in softer sheen<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Than mortals wot of, lay the fairy scene:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fantastic rocks, sea-flowers that rose and fell<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As brushed by silent shapes that moved between<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Him and the darkening distance, fairy cell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And beds of ocean bloom more sweet than Asphodel.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There sat the King adown to scan the world<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of more than wonder. Thither came to sue<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For explanation things that swam, and curled,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then circled round, and passed away from view.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Here stood as ’twere a camp, and there a few<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forms, not of ocean, human arms outspread.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">King Fergus wept to make the sad review<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where those who faced the flood, now dumb and dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slept out the tale of time upon the ocean’s bed.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Short space he sat when, from athwart the deep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">There came a sound of horror! Far and near<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A wild commotion rose, as things that creep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or climb, or swim, smitten with sudden fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Darkened the depths that erst had been so clear.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">King Fergus started upward to his feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And saw, but dimly, toward him quickly steer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A dreadful shape that came like lightning fleet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And chilled the monarch’s blood such fearful foe to meet.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It was the Muirdris!! Nought that men have known<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Could match its awful visage: high upheld<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On ogrish limbs, one moment ape-like grown,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">It flew along, till, lo! it sank, and swelled<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To size gigantic, while it yelped and yelled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sound that spake of fury, fiendish ire.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In tremulous awe the King the beast beheld<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bent in its course on devastation dire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While from its eyeballs streamed malignant lines of fire.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXIV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Round turned the King, and flew as ’twere from Death!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Swift sped the beast within his foamy track.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wreathed round his form the King could feel its breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor dared he glance one smallest moment back.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Behind the twain, like tempest-driven rack,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spread clouds of foam, pointing the path of each.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Above, white billows lashed the shore. His neck<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Muëna, wondering, strained,—till on the beach<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swooned the swift-fleeing King beyond the monster’s reach.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But tho’ Muëna wondered as he saw<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His King, ’mid foamy spray, make sudden flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far more he wondered as he scanned the flaw<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Upon the King’s wan face, that made the sight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">More dreadful than some horror-haunted night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo! wide apart, and stretched from ear to ear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In sudden aspect of tremendous fright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gaped, like a cave, his jaws: the eyes, once clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stared as upon a sight of overmastering fear.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXVI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Muëna bore the King upon his breast<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Into the chariot. There he laid him, dazed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On ample couch, his fevered form to rest,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Soft shaded from the sun, that burned and blazed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">High overhead,—then whipt the steeds, as crazed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From some pursuing phantom. Might and main<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In lightning alternation high they raised<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sure-stepping foot, and over hill and plain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toward far Emania’s walls their swiftest strength they strain.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3><a name="canto_iii" id="canto_iii"></a>CANTO III.</h3> - -<h4>XXVII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Not far the sun had fallen, when he drew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The chargers’ reins beside the circling sweep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Royal walls. The gathering clansmen knew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From foam and steam no slow and leisured creep<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Had been their pace. Their thought took leap on leap<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From sight to meaning. Then upon the floor<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They spied the King recumbent as in sleep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as the form was borne within the door,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In others’ eyes they sought the secret o’er and o’er.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXVIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Straightway into the council-room of chiefs<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And sages was the limp-limbed body borne.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then spake Muëna: “Lo! a grief of griefs,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ultonia’s hearts are kingless and forlorn,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For know ye not how spake the wiseman, born<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To wisdom?—‘Ne’er shall King with blemish marred<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Reign’: and behold! alas! since this sad morn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">King Fergus, from Ambition evil-starred,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lies now before your eyes in visage sorely scarred.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXIX.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Choose ye a King, to reign within his stead.”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He ceased, but answer came not; rather, round<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The silent throng flew questioning glance that said<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unstable vacillation. Not a sound<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Broke cover till one bolder spirit wound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trumpet-horn of speech; then left and right,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Leapt forth the hounds of thought, and roof and ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Echoed impassioned tongues, and feet bedight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With thong and sandal, plied with each loud speaker’s might.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXX.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then spake the sons of wisdom, they who stood<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Apart in silent conclave, while the din<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of ineffectual babblings drew no rood<br /></span> -<span class="i2">More near conclusion: “Hear, Ultonian kin!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What arm so strong Ultonia’s wars to win,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Foster the strength of strong, inspire the weak?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lives there a soul full fit to stand within<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Monarch’s room? What worthier do you seek<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To guide the reins of peace, or would ye other? Speak!”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXXI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“None! none!” the multitudinous answer rang<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unanimous. (King Fergus, with a sigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turned in his sleep. Perchance he dreamed there sang<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some bard of deeds their fathers did.) The cry<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thrilled through the chamber’s walls, and far and nigh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Found answer in a thousand throats, that gave<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their yet unmeaning plaudits to the sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as, in sound like shoreward-shrieking wave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They shout, the secret they in others’ faces crave.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXXII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Without, the crowd swayed back and forth, with din<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Low-muffled, as the sea doth surge and sway<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In silken swell, from storm gone past. Within<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Was calm, and brows determined sought a way<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through that old law to write emphatic “Nay!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then quoth the wisemen’s chief: “Our path is plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our hearts upon our tongues have said their say,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Fergus o’er Ultonia’s host shall reign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If but to meet our thoughts your constant strength ye strain.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXXIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Let fools and babblers take their journey far,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And silent sit as sent’nel to your speech.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What wots the King of that which him doth mar<br /></span> -<span class="i2">If but the knowledge in the breast of each<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Be locked beyond a thought’s long-arméd reach<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till forced forgetfulness doth rust the key<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or haply lose it. E’en your art let teach<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The water to forget his form to see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or give it back, when to ablution cometh he.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXXIV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Approval shone within their eyes. Their tongues<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In loud assent gave forth: “Fergus is King!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And once again without, untutored lungs<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Caught up the cry, nor knew what meant the thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">’Till, like a mighty bird, on fresh-plumed wing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Royal chariot once again did shake<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Rampart and roof, as champing steeds did fling<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their heads on high, and sped by mount and brake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To scenes of less surprise when Fergus should awake.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span></p> - -<h4>XXXV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">What need to sing of deeds within the scope<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of thrice a dozen moons? What need to tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How fared the King when, by the sanded slope<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where twice a day the sea-waves fret and swell,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He woke? Or devious deeds that oft befell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clansman and chief in those high-sounding days<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of war-girt peace—a Heaven ringed round with Hell—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or battle’s loud-lunged shout, or conquest’s blaze,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or how the blemished King ne’er on his fault did gaze.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3><a name="canto_iv" id="canto_iv"></a>CANTO IV.</h3> - -<h4>XXXVI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">’Twas thus—and thus, when thrice a year had sped<br /></span> -<span class="i2">King Fergus of his blemish happed to know:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“I go to mine ablutions (so he said<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unto his bond-maid), girl, the task you know<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of preparation. Haste you, for I go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On mighty mission!” P’r’aps ’twas Fate’s decree<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The maiden’s arm in service seemed full slow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Fergus, strained of nerve, was swift to see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In microscopic faults, some slight of majesty.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXXVII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Howbeit,—the fire to firelike will give blaze,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And progeny of one small word or deed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Count thousand-thousand. Half in wide amaze,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And half in wild vexation that slow heed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The maiden gave to that his will decreed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He strode into her presence: then on high<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He raised the stinging lash his stout-skinned steed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oft felt, and flinched, and, drawing swiftly nigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its serpent hiss was drowned in the smit’ maiden’s cry.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXXVIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“A curse upon your laggard form!” he hissed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The smitten girl swift raised her flashing eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In scarlet indignation, nor was missed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The blemish on the Monarch’s face. She cries:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“King Fergus, heartless coward! I loathe, despise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your craven hand, nor e’en a word would deign,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But that I deem your spirit’s shape and size<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must match your brute-like visage.” Purpling plain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With rage, he drew his sword and cut the maid in twain.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XXXIX.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A maddened moment’s deed! And when the storm<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Was past, the King in calm the wreck surveyed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of his own making. Towering o’er the form<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Prostrate and purple, holding still the blade<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Wet with her life, he stood as sore dismayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Muttering: “Visage! Visage!” still the word<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beat inward on his ’wildered brain, nor stayed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till that grim truth, long hid, to sight restored,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Burst on his mind. He turned, still clasping tight the sword.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XL.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Three steps beyond the portal of the room<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where lay the maid, he stopped and cast a look<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Backward,—a look portentous of dark doom<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To all beneath its ban. Aloft he shook<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The bleeding blade; then cried, till every nook,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">E’en to the farthest of the farthest halls,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Trembled; and, as he called, his way he took<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down corridors that held his foot’s swift falls<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till cry and footfall blent without the castle walls.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XLI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The cry was: “Visage! Visage! Death and blood<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To what has wrought the ruin of yon maid,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hideous habitant of Rory’s flood<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Who plies—mayhap not long—his secret trade;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And mine ambition that such depths essayed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As strained the strength of me. Yet, not for nought<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The fiend was found, tho’ fled I sore dismayed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some lesson yet is there, tho’ anguish-taught;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some profit yet remains, tho’ it in blood be bought.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XLII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">One falleth—that foul spirit: then is past<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Temptation of ambition; but, perchance<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mine arm may fail: sobeit, then is cast<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Away the secret.” On did he advance.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And one who saw his eyeballs’ lightning glance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And marked his mood and manner, thro’ the crowd<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Spread rumouring words, keen, swift as strong-threwn lance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That drew them forth, a multitude, all browed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With wonderment that grew with each swift stride, till, loud<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XLIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And deep before them, Rory swells and swings.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Behold! the King nor pauses, nor aside<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turns in his track.—Not mine to tell of things<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Run riot in those minds that edged the tide,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where late the billows did King Fergus hide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor gave of him a token, save the swell<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of giant strivings in the waters wide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And one wild wave that, as from heart of Hell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leaped for the shore and ’mong the wondering warriors fell.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XLIV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And thereupon arose confusion, such<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As ne’er was seen before, and ne’er again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall e’er be seen. With tops that seemed to touch<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The heights of Heaven arose the strenuous main<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In wild tumultuous strivings, till the brain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of those beholders whirled, and they that spake<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In terror seemed all voiceless, for in vain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Speech called at its own ears. All heaven did make<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sound at whose dreadful voice all earth did seem to shake.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XLV.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And far across the world a tempest bore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sounds of a conflict such as never yet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Man’s eyes beheld,—e’en to the cloudy shore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of distant Britain: there did they beget<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Vague words of wonder. Ere the sun had set<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within a stormy west nor man nor maid<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of all Ultonia but with spray was wet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As, lo! from each far hill, each distant glade<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long thousands shoreward drew with wide-eyed wonder swayed.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XLVI.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And when it seemed as if the heavens swam<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In wild bewilderment,—each starry sphere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would topple earthward, straightway fell a calm<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That laid a hush upon the heart of fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And soothed both sea and sky, till softest tear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would drop with sound of cataracts in the glen.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And thus they waited what should next appear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Uncounted thousands of full-armëd men,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bards, chieftans, clansmen, women, maids, youths, children:—then<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XLVII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As if the sea had stolen half the glow<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of the sunk sun, the quiet Loch flushed red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lengthened day, e’en tho’ the day did go<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To other lands. “Some portent this,” they said,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“Of the fight’s finish: one hath joined the dead—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which, shall appear full soon.”—Lo! on the sea<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What form is yon that waves a hideous head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within its hand? They gaze, they shout: “<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tis he,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fergus, Ultonia’s King. Fergus hath victory!”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4>XLVIII.</h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then that red glory brightened, and they scanned<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The King’s marred visage—marred?—nay, pure and bright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As erst in youth! He called: “With this right hand<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nerved with the fury of revengeful might,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I fought—and won! I’ve lived my day; now night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doth wrap its blackness round me: I but pay<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The price of mine own deed.” And from their sight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sank beneath the waters of the bay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which rolled in waves of blood for many a devious day!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="the_legend_of_saint_mahee_of_endrim" id="the_legend_of_saint_mahee_of_endrim"></a> -<img src="images/mahee.png" - -alt="The Legend of St. Mahee of Endrim." -/></h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><img src="images/mahee2.png" - -alt="The Legend of Saint Mahee of Endrim." -/></h2> - -<p class="c">To J. A. Gregg.<br />—— -</p> - -<p>[<span class="smcap">Note.</span>—Saint Mahee -(<img src="images/gaelic51a.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="65" -alt="Word in Gaelic" -/>) was born about 420 <small>A.D.</small>, -founded the Abbey of Endrim (<img src="images/gaelic51b.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="78" -alt="Word in 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 (<img src="images/gaelic51c.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="45" -alt="Word in 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.</p> - -<hr style="width:10%;" /> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span> -of Ollav Fola -(<img src="images/gaelic52a.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="105" -alt="Word in Gaelic" -/>, the lawgiver of Erin), -and the martial deeds of De Courcey.</p> - -<p>Ballydrain, about half-way between Comber and Mahee Island, is so-called -from -<img src="images/gaelic52b.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="50" -alt="Word in Gaelic" -/>, a townland, and -<img src="images/gaelic52c.png" -style="vertical-align:middle;" -width="75" -alt="Word in 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.</p> - -<p>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.—<span class="smcap">The -Author.</span>]</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Lo! right and left, in calm repose,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Are spread unnumbered isles,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between whose shores the bluff breeze blows,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And sungilt Strangford smiles.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shoreward way our feet have left<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Below, still winds along<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where strenuous waves, in eddy and cleft,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Croon low their iterant song.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>II.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Bright in the passionate, tremulous rays<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From cloudy towers of day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yon crumbling castle seems to gaze<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At castles far away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like parted friends of other years<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Who meet, nor waste a word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wondering stand, and smile thro’ tears<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From depths unfathomed stirred.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>III.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Here may we rest, and make our seat<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On this high rock-strewn mound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Put off our shoes from off our feet”—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We tread on holy ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The haunts where many a sandalled sole<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Trod out life’s lust and woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, stedfast set to one high goal,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Went down in dust below.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>IV.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">No stone is theirs engraven large<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With record born of strife,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No gilded scroll, no carven marge,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No legend loud with life.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far other deeds than men applaud<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their holy hands essayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In life viceregent here of God,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In death still undismayed.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>V.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">No fluctuant favours—servile spouse<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of princes’ transient smile—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Did e’er bedeck their sacred brows,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their saintly souls defile:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No life-warm lips their own had kissed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">(Earth’s hope-inspiring dove)—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their life was one long Eucharist<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Eternalised in love.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VI.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The workers went; the works remain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Time here small kingship owns.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ ’whelming winds, thro’ sun and rain,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Have lived these lichened stones,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that brief tower upreared by those<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose dread was from the deep,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In strife their strength, in peace repose,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their guardian now in sleep.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VII.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thine eyes, old tower, have scanned the scroll<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And palimpsest of Earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fain would we thy thoughts unroll<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thro’ years of bliss or dearth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thou from thy calm height dost look<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With sage, dispassionate eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To where the star of day-dawn shook<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Within a youthful sky.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VIII.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We deem thee old; but age is not<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A toll of hours and days,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mean measure of our little lot<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And arbitrary ways.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We run our little round of change<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thro’ years of less or more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Time to thee holds nought of strange,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Unheard, unseen before.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>IX.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Down paths of night no starrier balls<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No new Milanion throws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ no transfigured day’s high halls<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Th’ itinerant breeze still blows;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Belligerent ever, baffled still,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Th’ importunate surges swing;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still dear as dawn th’ ecstatic thrill<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And prophet power of Spring.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>X.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Wrapt in a dream of ancient days<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thou stand’st aloof from ours,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet nought hast thou of battle’s blaze<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or blighting iron showers;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For well-beloved art thou of moon,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And sun, and winds, and stars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forever in thy heart attune<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To every statelier bars<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>XI.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Than aught my highest hope could know<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In this inspiring breath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where wilding blossoms bloom and blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As life blooms out of death;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet fain, withal, my lips would wed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To song, for modern ears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This chord from lyric days long dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This dream from epic years:<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h4><span class="smcap">The Legend.</span></h4> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Quoth good Saint Mahee of Endrim,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“I shall build for Christ my master<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Here a church, and here defend him<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And His cause from all disaster.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seven score youths cut beam and wattle,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seven score hands unseared in battle<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their unstinted aid did lend him,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Fast and ever faster.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">But tho’ arm, and voice loud-ringing,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To a test of toil defied him,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Right and left the wattles flinging,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Not a tongue could dare deride him<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, before them all, he stood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Finished, waiting. Not a rood<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From the spot a bird was singing<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In a thorn beside him.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Sang no bird in ancient story<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Half so sweet or loud a strain:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Seaward to the Lough of Rory,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Landward then, and back again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swelled the song, and trilled and trembled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O’er the toiling youths assembled,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Rang around ’mid Summer glory<br /></span> -<span class="i4">There at Ballydrain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Far more beautiful the bird was<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Than the bright-plumed Bird of Bliss<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the Abbot’s feeling stirred was<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To its deepest depths, I wis;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">’Till, as from the fiery splendour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moses saw, in accents tender<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Spake the bird, and lo, the word was:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“Goodly work is this!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">“True,” quoth Saint Mahee of Endrim,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tis required by Christ my master<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Here to build, and here defend Him<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And His cause from all disaster;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But my blood mounts high with weening<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of this goodly word the meaning?”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nearer then the bird did tend him,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Fast and even faster.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">“I shall answer. I descended<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From mine angel-soul’s compeers,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From my home serene and splendid<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To this haunt of toil and tears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Came to cheer thee with a note<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From an angel’s silvern throat.”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then he sang three songs: each, ended,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Made a hundred years.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">There, thro’ days that dawned and darkened,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With his wattles by his side,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Stood the island Saint and hearkened<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To that silvery-flowing tide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stood entranced, and ever wondr’éd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till had circled thrice a hundred<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Years o’er fields, life-lade or stark, and<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Strangford’s waters wide.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Then when came the final number,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Ceased the angel-bird its strain,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And, unheld by ills that cumber<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Mortals, sought the heavenly plain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then the Saint, in mute amaze,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round him turned an anxious gaze,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And from that far land of slumber<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Came to Earth again.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Low his load, mid weed and flower,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lay beside him all unbroken,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till, with thrice augmented power,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From his holy dream awoken,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up he bore it to his shoulder—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Broad and not a hand’s breath older.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Scarce, thought he, had passed an hour<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Since the bird had spoken.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Toward his island church he bore it.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lo, an oratory gleaming,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And “To Saint Mahee,” writ o’er it!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“Now,” quoth he, “in faith I’m dreaming!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Say, good monk, at whose consistory<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall I solve this mighty mystery,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And to form of fact restore it<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From this shadowy seeming?”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Thus he spake to one who faced him<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With a look of mild surprise,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">One who swiftly brought and placed him<br /></span> -<span class="i4">’Neath the Abbot’s searching eyes.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leave him there: not mine to rhyme of<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deeds that filled the latter time of<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Him who, fain tho’ years would waste him,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Ages not, nor dies.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Such the wondrous old-time story<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the bird’s long, lethal strain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sung thro’ Summers hot and hoary,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Winters white on mount and main<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the monks, to mark the mission<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the bird,—so tells tradition,—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Built a church to God’s great glory<br /></span> -<span class="i4">There at Ballydrain.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>XII.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The song has ceased, the dream is done,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lo, nought but shattered shrine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And weed-clad walls greet now the sun<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That sparkles in the brine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet these no remnant are of dead<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Insalutary days,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vicarious blood of morning, shed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For more than Memphian haze.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>XIII.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The fires of worship, and of war,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">De Courcey’s marshalled hosts,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rude sea-rovers from afar<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Have vanished from our coasts;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And out of these an ampler field<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Found Freedom, mind and hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toward unattempted ends to wield<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A world-enchanting wand.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>XIV.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">What tho’ in oft ignoble cause<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The wave of war still rolls,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hate of sects, the clutching claws,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The strife of armoured souls;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What tho’ the thousands, born to fail,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In darkness come and go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Be ours no pessimistic wail<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of fear for larger woe;<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>XV.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For even now the dawn doth give<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some promissory gleams,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tho’ most ’tis ours in night to live,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Participant in dreams<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of some broad-beamed and brighter morn,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some elemental balm,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some purer peace, of battle born,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some tempest-cradled calm!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_057.png" width="50" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_058.png" width="175" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="miscellaneous_poems" id="miscellaneous_poems"></a> -<img src="images/miscellaneous.png" - -alt="Miscellaneous Poems." -/></h2> - -<h2><a name="song_of_decadence" id="song_of_decadence"></a> -<img src="images/song.png" - -alt="Song of Decadence." -/></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I wonder if there still remain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some echoes from the songs of old;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or what the measure of the strain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The future shall unfold?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The voice that breathed across the years,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And came, and went, and passed the bar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sang the battle song of tears,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sounds small, and faint, and far;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And men have found another chord,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An offspring, not of heart, but head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gold is God, and lust is Lord,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And Love lies stricken dead!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ah, me! the race goes blindly on<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And leaves the old familiar ways;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still, earth-weighted, flowers the dawn<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To still ignoble days;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And men, as sheep within their folds,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Grope round their world with great sad eyes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And hate the hand that still withholds<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The secret of the skies;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or, deeming God an idle tale<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Withdrawn from lore of ancient shelves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Themselves would reckon by the scale<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And measure of themselves!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">How mean the stature of the song<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of our inglorious—glorious time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Attenuating, as along<br /></span> -<span class="i2">It moves from that great prime<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When Milton, in the midnight hours,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Lay waiting for the mystic breath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of God to touch his soul to flowers<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of song that smile at Death.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O singers of the years to come!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Be yours the large and liberal scope:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sing sweetly—or for aye be dumb—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of God, and Love, and Hope,<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Encircled by no little line<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of gain or loss, of time or sense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor, bent at Mammon’s soulless shrine,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Your birth-right part for pence;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But bend an arm across the past,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And finger all the vibrant years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till sunlight, on our shadows cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Makes rainbows of our tears.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="the_railway_arch" id="the_railway_arch"></a> -<img src="images/railway.png" - -alt="The Railway Arch." -/></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There it stands, as it has stood—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Theme for bards, and theme for seers—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mute to sun and tempests rude,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To the swift express of years;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Stretched across from bank to bank<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where the rabbits flash and go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the fir-trees, rank by rank,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Gaze upon the track below<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As the train, at man’s behest,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the calm or tempest’s teeth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Speeds with lightning in its breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the thunder underneath.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There in many a rift and rent,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Many a bird finds friendly cover;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the toiler, homeward bent,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whistles as he passes over;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And the children from the town<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Climb its parapets and strain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Half a hundred throats to drown<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With a cheer the passing train.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet how many children, toilers,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">List’ to what that arch would say<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the thousands of earth’s moilers?—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dull of ear and listless they!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ah! adown the track of time,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the world’s great sidings lying,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Many a theme for many a rhyme<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is unmarked by thousands, flying<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">After all the fen-fires, darting<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the damps and swamps of life;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fires of meeting and of parting,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hate and love, and strain and strife!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There it stands—O! how I love it;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For it speaks of weal, and woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the thousands pass above it;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For the thousands rush below;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And, attune to whirr and clatter,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Wide and wider does it span,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">High o’er time and sense and matter,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">High o’er life and death and man,<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Stretched from age to age unborn;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And above it in a stream<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pass, unceasing, night and morn,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shapes like those in Jacob’s dream<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">All the souls of all the ages,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All the ghosts of all the years,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Priests and prophets, saints and sages,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sweet-breathed bards and broad-browed seers,<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Who from many a cloudy station<br /></span> -<span class="i2">List’ the whirring of the wheels<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bounding on without cessation,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dragging progress at their heels;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Who, as children from the town,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Throng the parapets, and strain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Form and voice in flashing down<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Warning signals to the train<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Speeding on, at man’s behest,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the calm, or tempest’s teeth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the lightning in its breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the thunder underneath!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="schakhe" id="schakhe"></a> -<img src="images/schakhe.png" - -alt="Schakhe." -/></h2> - -<p class="c">(A Ballad of Armenia.)</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They had fought, they had failed, those women and now, in a wild-eyed throng,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They fled from the red destroyer, and they cried: “O Lord, how long?—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How long, O Lord, till the ending of the ghastly sounds and sights,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the dripping days be finished, and the thrice red-running nights,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the last cold corpse falls, severed from the last Armenian head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the last maid be dishonoured, and the last hot tear be shed?”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They had fled from the red destroyer, but he hastens around their track,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the fate they had flown is before them, and they turn in their pathway back.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, Northward and Southward and Eastward and Westward, and round and round,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come the gleam of the steely lightning, and the wild, soul-harrowing sound,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">As mother and sister and daughter, and the child at its mother’s breast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Go down in the surge of slaughter and the wreck of the great Opprest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now they are huddled together, as the death-cries rise and swell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the rock runs up to Heaven, and the gulf goes down to Hell,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the edge of a beetling hillock; when, lo! from the ’wildered crowd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On a peak of the rock steps Schakhe, and calls to her sisters, loud:—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“O sisters in nameless sorrow, baptised in a life of tears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before you two paths lie open: behind you a thousand years<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fade far in the dusky distance, one long, broad stream of blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That flows by the wreck and ruin of sword and fire and flood!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before you two paths lie open: one leads where dangers lurk,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the pain and the dumb dishonour from the merciless hand of the Turk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Choose ye! Will ye thread that pathway, prove false to the men ye love;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Prove false to the children ye bore them; prove false to the God above?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will ye sell yourselves to the spoilers of father and mother and child,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who butchered and then, like devils, at their cries for mercy smiled?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do ye think of the thousands rotting, flung down in a ghastly heap<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unblessed; whose dust commingles in their last unhallowed sleep?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do ye think of the blood, the sorrow, the wild, sky-rending cries,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the scarce-born babe was mangled to feast their fiendish eyes?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do you think of the brute defilement when, full in the flare of day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye were robbed of your dear-prized honour, and made the Moslem’s prey?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will ye choose that path, O sisters? ’Tis a path ye have often trod;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or throw yourselves on the mercy of the great, all-powerful God?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">What though He is veiled in silence, and behind our clouds grown dim;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If He come not down to help us, then we will go to Him.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">See! there is the other pathway, down, down to the home of Night.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jump! long ere the body be broken, the soul will have taken flight.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He will give His charge to His angels: in their hands they will bear thee up,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As ye tread the Saviour’s pathway, and drink the Saviour’s cup.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There,—lean on my breast, sweet infant, and good-bye to Earth and woe.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, sisters, the way lies open: I am weary and long to go!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They had fought: they had failed; and they followed brave Schakhe, a martyr throng;—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And soft o’er the corpse-strewn valley the winds sigh: “Lord, how long?”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="in_the_giants_ring_belfast" id="in_the_giants_ring_belfast"></a> -<img src="images/giant.png" - -alt="In the Giant’s Ring, Belfast." -/></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">No Shakespeare girdle this, whose girth<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Would compass with its arms<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sounding seas and snows of earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The fruitful fields and farms.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here priestly power has thrown around<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A circuit wide and high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bar where waves of human sound<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beat vainly, drop, and die.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Who dreams of war in such a scene<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of undisturbed repose?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who babbles here of spite and spleen?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Who rhymes of human woes?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nought here is heard of mingling cries,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of life’s unlovely jars<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nought here is seen but yonder skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And circling suns and stars!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O wise in wisdom of the fool!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O warped in sight and soul!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Arctic spirit, icy cool<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As passions of the Pole!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Is ’t but a dream of babe or bard<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That conjures grief and groans?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or is thy shrunken heart more hard<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Than those three standing stones?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I dreamed a dream when last I stood<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Within their sombre shade:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Time took my hand full many a rood<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beyond the tides of trade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond the sacerdotal rite,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And soul-absorbing creeds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond the narrow skirts of sight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And despicable deeds.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I soared above the brimming Earth;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I peered beneath its breast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I saw the founts of joy and mirth,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And seats of life’s unrest.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But in the ocean of its thought<br /></span> -<span class="i2">One current swelled and grew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on to seas with blessing fraught<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A thousand others drew.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">’Twas Love: and Time stood by, and said:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“Behold! a thousand spires<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Speak gilded words from hearts as dead<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As those old Druid fires.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But love lives on and leavens all<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In Earth’s expanding range,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The height and depth, the rise and fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The first and last of Change.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Kings pale and perish, dogmas die,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The world goes slowly on<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To greet an all-unclouded sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To kiss a purer dawn.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stript of the garb of mimic worth,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Freed from his brothers’ ban<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And circumscribing creeds, steps forth<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A newer, nobler man.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Twas thus God’s chosen race was bent<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beneath a tyrant yoke:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">’Twas thus the hated chains were rent,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The conqueror’s sceptre broke.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Babylon to Persia bowed,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thus Persia bent to Greece,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus Greece gave place to Rome the proud,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Goth broke Roman peace.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">These mighty stones, this giant ring<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Give token of a day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That died, as dies a dreamt-of thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And passed in dust away,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save these, for you—dear heart—and me<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To gaze on, muse, and rhyme:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Time conquers all, both bond and free,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But Love shall conquer Time!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_073.png" width="75" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="the_blind_father" id="the_blind_father"></a> -<img src="images/blind.png" - -alt="The Blind Father." -/></h2> - -<h3>I.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So, my son, you came this morning at the blinking of the day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“King, and heir for Uther,” riding swiftly shoreward on the spray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, within my face, comes blowing from a stranger sea and sky,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Felt, not seen—upon whose margin here, a sightless Merlin, I<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stand, and turn my head and harken to the whisper of the wind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Borne from seaward on to leeward,—dark before and dark behind.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>II.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And they say you’re like your father?—How can I know, for I look<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a dead eye into darkness; yet I’ve felt upon a book<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Something tell me: “In His form and with His likeness made He man:”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span><span class="i0">So you’re like your father, and he looks like God—but, ah! the ban,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A Damocles-blade, keeps hanging, as o’er ancient Adam’s head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O’er last moment’s latest Adam, just arisen from the dead.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>III.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ban! Who banned you? Is it God, or is it man suspends the knife?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God decreed you’d toil for bread, but man decrees you’ll die for life!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>IV.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“From the dead.”—You like the phrase not, wife; yet not from death he’s come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But from life, of all the ages past the product and the sum.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thine and mine,—yet neither mine nor thine, but heir of every hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drawing through thee from the world’s breast,—we the stem and he the flower.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ours, and yet not ours; the acorn from its parent will be broke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drop to earth, from earth to heaven stretch the fingers of the oak.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Acorn—oak, and back to acorn, hedging all the hills of time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On and on forever, housing birds of every wing and clime.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thus we die,—and thus we die not; mortal, yet immortal we;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Closely clasping crumbling fingers round the hand of the To Be;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flingling out along the ages tendrils that will grip, and twine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a slow attenuation down the long posterior line.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>V.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thus the generations, marching to an universal strain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Start, and stop; and in the starting from Da Capo sing again.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VI.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ah! not ours: yet ours the moulding of a future near or far;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ours to set a sun in heaven,—hurl in space a red-eyed star.—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I’m told, beyond my curtain there revolveth day and night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And among the stars there standeth one that winketh red with fight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And you say the glow that lights upon my cheek is from the sun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Guiding lightning-footed planets as they in their orbits run;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I’ve heard that all have sprung from atoms crowding God’s abyss,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mars, the evil-eyed and warlike; Sol, the pivot-point of bliss.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VII.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yes, a weakness, sprung from weakness, weaker waxes, and a strength<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On from strength to strength goes marching, grasping God’s right hand at length;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the mickle at the shoulder means the muckle at the hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the hair’s breadth on the compass means the ship upon the land.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>VIII.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Aye, wife; now I know the reason why you sighed so since we wed:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You have seen the world hang on you. Don’t you mind, dear, what you read<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of Cowper?—where he speaks of how the arrow on the wing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Falls at last far out of line though small the error at the string.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>IX.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There he’s: take him! You can rhyme of chubby cheeks, and laughy eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That have housed far down within them little patches of the skies;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">You can paint your glowing pictures, that a tear may wash away<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When a future Vandal stumbles through your dream some after day.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mine are coloured from th’ eternal, set by Love in Fancy’s mould,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Knowing nought of life’s mutations, Summer’s heat or Winter’s cold.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>X.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So you’ve only come this morning, courier dove with pinions white?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What’s the news from God, what message from the hidden heart of Night?<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_078.png" width="55" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span></p> - -<h2><img src="images/sundry.png" -width="400" -alt="Sundry Songs -and Sonnets." -/> -</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="the_southern_cross" id="the_southern_cross"></a> -<img src="images/southern.png" - -alt="The Southern Cross." -/></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Afar from his wife and his sons and his daughters,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The fisherman grapples for gain or loss;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath him the silent midnight waters;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Above him the blaze of the Southern Cross:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ever his thoughts on the breeze hie homeward,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As he calls to the watcher again and again,—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“O what of the night: is it dark or bright?”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And ever there cometh the old refrain,—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The midnight shadows fly.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The Cross is bending, the night is ending,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The day is drawing nigh.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Again, on the storm-swept winter waters,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He battles the billows that tumble and toss;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he thinks of the weeping of wives and daughters,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As the clouds fly over the Southern Cross.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah, then in the hour of his heart’s despairing,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When sheets are rending and cables strain,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">How sweet to his ear come the words of cheer,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the sound of the watcher’s old refrain,—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The midnight shadows fly.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The Cross is bending, the night is ending,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The day is drawing nigh.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="idtts">. . . . . .<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Far out, far out on Life’s wild waters,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where storms are howling, where breakers toss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How many of earth’s fair sons and daughters<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Are drifting and dragging to gain or loss!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ever the Stars of Hope are shining,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through calm and tempest, through wind and rain;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And soft through the night, be it dark or bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The heart still echoes the old refrain,—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The midnight shadows fly.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The Cross is bending, the night is ending.<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The day is drawing nigh.”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="on_the_death_of_william_morris" id="on_the_death_of_william_morris"></a> -<img src="images/morris.png" - -alt="On the Death of William Morris." -/></h2> - -<h3>I.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Mine eyes beheld thee—but not nigh: mine ear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Close to thy page, could feel the beat, beat, beat,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That told thy great, good heart: now strangers’ feet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have borne thee out. Thee? Nay, I have thee here<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forever young; nor less that eye, so clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beams brotherhood, nor can the years that fleet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Leave me more lonely. No hot tear—full meet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From widowed Friendship—drop I on thy bier.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some earth-stained page mars oft fair Friendships’s book;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And happier I, who saw thro’ Fancy’s light<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Kin only of the sacred singing race,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blameless of all that mars familiar sight!—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then wherefore should I weep, who skyward look,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And mark a god move Godward to his place?<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h3>II.</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Perfume of eld, more sweet than all the scent<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of late-blown roses squandered on the air,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sweetens the tawny forest of thy hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there shall dwell till all the years be spent.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To thee war’s call with hint of song is blent,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And time sits easy on the brows of care;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Love lifts a white affirming hand to swear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thee hero of thy heroes,—thou, who went<br /></span> -<span class="i6">To the frore Past. Lo! in its eyes did dance<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Reflection of a day within the wake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of some unrisen, kindlier star; and thou<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Didst cry: “Behold, with goodlier days the Now<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is great, as forests wave in seeds to break,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And countless thousands pulse in Love’s first glance!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_084.png" width="50" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="copernicus" id="copernicus"></a> -<img src="images/copernicus.png" - -alt="Copernicus." -/></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They deemed, self-centred souls! that those great eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which star the night, in amorous orbit turned<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And, ever boldly bashful, sighed and burned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For one earth kiss, and stood within the skies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eternally expectant. O most wise<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In your great selves! that rude iconoclast<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His stones of Truth among your dreamings cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And robbed your wisdom of its dear disguise.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He stood, a Sampson of Titanic force,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">’Twixt men and God, and swiftly grasped and hurled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His bolts at callow thoughts of centuries,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And pivoted th’ unreckoned universe,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And marked the rhythmic orbit of a world,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And changed chaotic chords to harmonies!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="to_algernon_charles_swinburne" id="to_algernon_charles_swinburne"></a> -<img src="images/algernon.png" - -alt="To Algernon Charles Swinburne." -/></h2> - -<p class="hang">(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.)</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Moulder of mighty measures and sublime;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose flower of song—how dead soe’er the ground—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Blossoms: whose feet, from no great depth profound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By cloudy slopes to cloudier summits climb!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What though thou art, in this thy world-broad prime,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Great King of Song, sceptred and robed and crowned;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Be it not thine to scorn the narrow round<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whence broadened out the bounds of later time.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not all the message of that far-off chime<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The strident strains of this our day have drowned:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Forget not, Singer, whence hath sprung thy rhyme,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or whence thy tongue its lofty power hath found;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor squander all thy store in mocking mime,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Niggard of sense and prodigal of sound.”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="heaven_and_earth" id="heaven_and_earth"></a> -<img src="images/heaven.png" - -alt="Heaven and Earth." -/></h2> - -<p><i>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.</i>—<span class="smcap">Legend Of South Sea Islands.</span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Truth in untruth; wisdom on Folly’s tongue,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And substance in a shadow!—Hear ye this:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Erewhile, ’mid transports of primeval bliss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In starry ears a bridal song was sung,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Heav’n and Earth, in mutual rapture, strung<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ethereal harps, and took one reeling kiss,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">’Till, seated with much joy, Earth grew remiss:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, love was rife, and, ah! the Earth was young.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O trembling tears of dawn in Nature’s eyes!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Forget your sadness. Lo! methinks the hour<br /></span> -<span class="i4">When recreant Love turns loveward, thrills the dome;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Earth lifts mute praying hands in tree and flower,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Heav’n, in all the windows of the skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Hangs nightly lamps to light the wand’rer home!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="on_some_twentieth_century_forecasts" id="on_some_twentieth_century_forecasts"></a> -<img src="images/forecasts.png" - -alt="On Some Twentieth Century forecasts." -/></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O imperturable and silent years,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That reck not all the riot of our time<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose fevered feet, with inharmonious rhyme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Royster around thy high phantasmal tiers!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How mean our mockings of the silent seers<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To read the riddle of th’ Eternal Soul!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We list’ the thundering life within thy bole,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And count the hidden harvest that anears,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And dream our dreams, and smile to see them wrecked!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, vain insurgence on the unrevealed:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Enough to map the paths our fathers tracked<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not, mother-like, kiss yet the face concealed.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Age ages not the elemental law,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we are thou in hope, thou we anew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still beneath are depths whence Shakspere drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And still above are stars that Milton saw!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="ireland" id="ireland"></a> -<img src="images/ireland.png" - -alt="Ireland." -/></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Somewhat of Autumn’s splendour round her lies;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet deem not thou ’tis preface of her death,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For there is that within her heart which saith<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This word that buds and blossoms in her eyes:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Reck not the portent of the season’s skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Nor deem yon darkling clouds aught but a breath<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sundrawn from half a world that offereth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its votive incense to the year that flies.”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The hand that bevels down the shortening day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is one with that which quickens leaf and wing,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">So prophecy of pregnance in decay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou hast, and in thine Autumn germs of Spring;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To vindicate these lips, that late have said:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“They dreamed a lie who deemed thee wholly dead!”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/i_090.png" width="500" alt=" - -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." -/> -</div> - -<div class="footnotes"><p class="cb">FOOTNOTE:</p> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> -</p> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">...Put a Girdle round the earth<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In forty minutes.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Legend of the blemished king and other -poems, by James H. 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