Part 4

Lady, through grasses stiff with rime And wraith-hung trees I wander Where the red sun at pitch of prime Half of his might must squander; Narrow the track As I look back On traces green behind me,— I go alone To think upon A face, where none Shall find me.

Birds peal; but each grim grove its shroud Retains, as to betoken Though the young lawn should wave off cloud These would have Night unbroken,— Desire no plash Of the Lake awash— No gold but gold that’s glinted In still device From the breast of ice Whose summer cries Have stinted.

But in a great and glittering space The black Elm doth restore me To you. Empower’d with patient grace Musing she stands before me,— Her webs divine Ghosted with fine Remembrance few can capture; Her very shade On greenness laid Is white,—is made Of rapture!

THE NUTTER

1

I am the Autumn. Rising from the throne I watch the pageant of my courtiers pass; Chestnuts’ canary-feather’d beauty strown— The lime’s gold tribute at his foot amass— Then fragile jewels from the larches blown Enrich with disarray the trembling grass, Until the beggar’d elms, too proud to bend, Emblaze a hundred winds with my rash kingdom’s end.

2

But look! within the beech’s burning house Some Nutter, deaf to shouts of fellow-thieves, Hath flung him with his crook to dream and drowse Flush-cheek’d, alone, upon the mounded leaves. The curious squirrel headlong from his eaves Creeps down to mark: then drops with sudden souse; The still-come culvers burst away—and flits The beechmast-feasting multitude of shadowy tits.

3

Where are thy friends? Gone on to sack the glades, My rooms of tatter’d state, not to return. No moth-bright brambles and no rainy braids Of ivy, mid the sheen and smoke of fern, Could trammel-up the tempest of their raids. Up, boy! pursue them down the misty burn! But on his bosom tann’d, in slumber fast, Patter’d the mimic shower of ever-dropping mast.

4

What, lad? The last of my poor banquet lose To thy wild kin of air? For them the dell O’er-briar’d hath lean rose-berries and yews And scarlet fruits of ash, that ere they swell The missel-thrushes, fluttering, poise to choose,— Privet is theirs and briony as well, And redwings wait for the frost-mellow’d sloe, Their orchard is the spinney-side—Awake, and go!

5

Leaf-driven, my young October in a while Awoke bemazed—on ragged knee arose Snatch’d at his crook, and hid a shaméd smile Vaulting the ruddy brambles. As he goes Far off I hear his voice; so freshet flows Warbling to wander many a forest mile— So Dryad may her rooty pool forsake Afraid, or antler’d shadow melt into the brake.

6

And I go too,—ah! not with mortal things Naked of riches here to flutter down— But soar and tremble in a million wings Above the fen, the coastland, and the town Forth by the dark sea’s sunken islands boune Sweeping to choir Apollo where he sings Unslain! The midsea lamp, that hears the sky Roaring all night with passage, knows that it is I.

SHAKESPEARE

If many a daring spirit must discover The chartless world, why should they glory lack? Because athwart the skyline they sank over Few, few, the shipmen be that have come back.

Yet one, wreck’d oft, hath by a giddy cord The rugged head of Destiny regain’d— One from the maelstrom’s lap hath swum aboard— One from the polar sleep himself unchain’d.

But he, acquainted well with every tone Of madness whining in his shroudage slender, From storm and mutiny emerged alone Self-righted from the dreadful self-surrender:

Rich from the isles where sojourn long is death Won back to cool Thames and Elizabeth, Sea-weary, yes, but human still, and whole,— A circumnavigator of the soul.

NOTES

_Deirdre Wed._ This episode of thirty hours, delivered by the Three Voices, does not occur in any of the versions of the famous “Tragical tale of the Sons of Usnach.” But the manner of Deirdre’s wooing of Naois is based on an incident in a Gaelic version of that tale, in which, on a day (not her marriage day) Deirdre and her women companions “were out on the hillock behind the house enjoying the scene and drinking in the sun’s heat. What did they see coming but three men a-journeying. Deirdre was looking at the men that were coming, and wondering at them. When the men neared them, Deirdre remembered the language of the huntsmen and she said to herself that these were the three sons of Usnach, and that this was Naois, he having what was above the bend of his two shoulders above the men of Erin all.” The three brothers went past without taking any notice of them, and without even glancing at the young girls on the hillock. “What happened but that love for Naois struck the heart of Deirdre, so that she could not but follow after him. She trussed her raiment and went after the three men that went past the base of the knoll, leaving her women attendants there. Aillean and Ardan had heard of the women that Connachar, King of Ulster, had with him, and they thought that if Naois their brother saw her he would have her himself, more especially as she was not married to the king.” They perceived the woman coming and called on one another to hasten their steps as they had a long distance to travel and the dusk of night was coming on. They did so. She cried three times “Naois, son of Usnach, wilt thou leave me?” “What cry is that which it is not well for me to answer, and not easy for me to refuse?” Twice the brothers put him off with excuses. “But the third time Naois and Deirdre met, and Deirdre kissed Naois three times and a kiss to each of his brothers.” All other incidents in the episodic poem _Deirdre Wed_ are new.

_Fintan_; _Urmael_; _Cir_. These were old bards. I have myself found and explored a tomb like that of Cir, caverned through a hill-ridge, not far from Eman and Armagh, just as it is described in the poem. But the curious may rediscover it for themselves.

_Connachar._ This king, or terrestrial divinity, is generally known as Conchobar, or Conor, King of Ulster (Uladh) and Arch-King of Ireland. He is chronicled as reigning about the time of the Incarnation of Christ.

_Eman_, or Emain Macha, was the chief palace of Connachar. It is still seen and named in the “Navan Ring”—enormous earthworks on a hill about two miles west of Armagh. The people from the town and country side still go up to dance there on holidays. Traces of the Lake of Pearls—where jewels were cast in on a sudden flight, lie in a marsh under Eman. The _Callan_, or “loud-sounding” river, runs not very far off.

_Dun Aengus._ A prehistoric stone fortress—singularly vast—on the edge of the cliffs of Arran Môr, an island in the Atlantic, west of Galway. The walls are very massive, and lie half-circle-wise, as if half had broken off and fallen into the sea.

PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS, EDINBURGH

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

71 With volcelest over the hills of With voiceless over the hills of morn morn

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.