Part 2

Now the thick dark, that pressed Etain's calm face Like softest wool, thins out, and moves, and lifts; And like a memory's vague recovered trace The silent world, looming through cloudy rifts, Floats greyly on the grey abyss of space, Then slowly forms, and stands at last in light Built on the crumbled ruins of the night.

Soon on a cloud o'erhung with heliotrope Day's harp is lifted, wire on golden wire; And now great Dagda's burning fingers grope From string to string, then reaching high and higher Unto the utterance of some eager hope, Break through the vibrant silences, and spring Into one living voice of leaf and wing.

Somewhere the snipe now taps his tiny drum; The moth goes fluttering upward from the heath; And where no lightest foot unmarked may come, The rabbit, tiptoe, plies his shiny teeth On luscious herbage; and with strident hum The yellow bees, blustering from flower to flower, Scatter from dew-filled cups a sparkling shower.

The meadowsweet shakes out its feathery mass; And rumorous winds, that stir the silent eaves, Bearing abroad faint perfumes as they pass, Thrill with some wondrous tale the fluttering leaves, And whisper secretly along the grass Where gossamers, for day's triumphal march, Hang out from blade to blade their diamond arch.

Forth came Etain, and with a little cry Scattered the councils of the feathery brood; And faced unblenched the red sun's winkless eye That hawk-like hung above the quivering wood; And passed with stately step and head on high Toward a secluded place--where one doth wait Silent and imperturbable as fate.

Sweetly the wizard palms of morning sleek Her brow with spells; and when a butterfly Brushes with soft familiar wing her cheek, Through the deep woods she hears a ghostly sigh, As if a hidden god were fain to speak An ancient ageless love that, fold by fold, Wraps her with joy in throbbing arms of old.

Now is her sandalled foot upon the edge Of a loud-leaping stream, that flings its damp To cool the sorrel shaking on its ledge Under the squirrel's pine, and in a swamp Goes dumb among the heron-haunted sedge, Where the swift kingfisher, a moment seen, Flashes and fades, a flame of sudden green.

At length she stands within the appointed place, Where leafy boughs in odorous dusk are blent. But wherefore now across her trancéd face Pass the quick fingers of bewilderment, And doubt on doubt like shadows shadows chase? Faintly she speaks, "Ailill I came to see. Who art thou--for thou art yet art not he?"

From her soft eye no loosened glances tell Desire or dread, to him whose cloudless gaze Knows from what heights of old her footsteps fell Out of clear light, into this web of days And nights and mystery inscrutable, And marks how in the calm of inner power She moves unmoved to meet her destined hour.

"Etain," he whispered, and again, "Etain." Such utter love went throbbing through her name That nigh beyond her doubt her foot had gone; Yet stood she wavering like a lonely flame Outburning night, that feels the shake of dawn; Then said, "Thy name, that doubt aside he cast?" "Mider," he answered, "come for thee at last."

"Mider?" she echoed, "Mider?" and the sound Smote upon hidden doors, and roused from sleep Faint eyes that dreamed, vague hands that groped around The thought behind her thought, and from the deep Beneath her thought climbed upward, to the bound Whose shadowy marge like midnight gloom is cast Between the passing moment and the past.

Then Mider said, "For no poor worm's desire, Nor aught of earth, thou comest, O beloved! But for another's good thy thoughts conspire; And far from self thy feet have hither moved To the high purpose of the sacred fire That burns thine upward path through joy and pain, Through birth, through life, through death, to me again."

Then asked she all bewildered: "Who art thou Whose eyes have read my soul?" And answered he, "Thine am I by the immemorial vow That made thee mine, beloved! eternally, When for a bride-price, on thy peerless brow I set a diadem beyond the worth Of all the crowns of all the queens of earth."

Swiftly her thought divining, "Where, and when, And wherefore parted, thou, beloved! shalt know. That land which gleams in the rapt poet's ken, Set in a sea that has no ebb or flow, Beyond the spear-cast of the dreams of men, Is mine, and from all changings far withdrawn There spreads the realm of Mider--and Etain.

"And there we loved, till that Almighty Power Who set the heavens wheeling with a nod, Blew thee, a butterfly, from flower to flower, Until beyond our realm, a splendid God Knew thee and cherished in a blossomy bower, And nightly thy fair form in purple laid, And at thy side his couch of slumber made.

"But thee again the breath of tempest found, And swept thee forth, and whirled from field to field, And dashed thee where a roar of festal sound Shook brazenly doffed helm and resting shield, And flung thee in a cup that passed around To one who drank it deep in bridal mirth-- And thou wert born a daughter of the earth.

"From year to year life's pleasures round thee played, And fell behind the question of thine eyes That searched the mysteries of leafy shade, And the blue heron sailing in the skies Cutting the silence with the rusty blade His voice, and sought to spy the subtile might That killed your gathered iris in a night.

"Ah, soon I saw sweet longing on thy face, And love's compelling poppy on thy mouth, And watched thee robe thy maiden blossoming grace And dream a king came riding from the south; Yet in thy sigh in Eochaidh's royal place, Unseen I saw the waft of hidden wings Set past these perishing substantial things.

"For thou wert born for love whose windless sail Moves on great deeps beyond life's shallow range. Love linked in flesh with failing flesh shall fail: Love knit in thought with changing thought shall change, Nor all desire against slow Time prevail; For that old worm all dreams shall gnaw and rend, And love that finds an end--itself shall end.

"Oh! not for thee the little irking chain That frets the bark on life's expanding bole; Nor love that maketh free, though it contain All earth's white loves and thee supreme and sole Beloved beneath all heaven; for who shall gain, Since between love and love most subtly mixed Untrodden silence stands forever fixed?

"My love would brood upon the holy thing Within thine inmost being folded far, Till it at length come forth on perfect wing To brush with sweet eclipse the morning star, And in high heaven its utter rapture sing, Filling the universe with golden sound Of love immortal, measureless, unbound!

"How shall immortal love find mortal bliss, Or measureless be bound in narrow speech, Or free and forge the bondage of a kiss? Nay, but its end is ever out of reach, Its life, of fairer life the chrysalis; And all its days, desirable and fleet, But prints of unseen Beauty's passing feet.

"Ah! Love is thine whose all-transfusing sun Burns out the mystery of life and death; And all thine hours but blossom unto one That us in utter bondage compasseth. Now to that timeless hour Time's footsteps run To rear our throne, whose foot shall never know The chafe of life's eternal ebb and flow.

"And he whose heart long time was scarred and swept By hungering winds that robbed him of repose, Wrapt in deep joy, beyond his joy has slept Into a passionless calm, that wakes and knows Love's highest bliss in honour stainless kept. Farewell, and when a little while has flown I come again." He ceased. She stood alone.

Far through the morn the horn of Eochaidh blew, Outspeeding runners hot with glad return. From post to post goes welcoming halloo: Far off the shouldered spear-heads dance and burn Through smother of wheels, and marching men that strew Their wake with dust and song, and storm at last Round dun and liss, their prosperous journey past.

And all that day go question and reply, Twin bodkins looping up the stuff of life: And all that dusk, warm cheek and glancing eye Blow up love's ruddy peat in man and wife: And all that night, harps throb and warpipes cry Around the king, enthroned in joy complete, Etain beside him, Ailill at his feet.

But through the songs of praise that round him swell, One voice to him has music sweeter far. Close to his heart she now the tale doth tell Of duty done, and love escaped a scar;-- But not of that deep hour, unspeakable With visitation from beyond the world, Shut in her heart, a blossom closely curled.

On Eochaidh's royal brow sits glad content That she, fate's minister to Ailill's pain, Who dared in faith the perilous descent, Now stands more white against averted stain. And Ailill, all his heart in service spent, Fills their glad hours with tender friendship's light Sweet as the beam that silvers quiet night.

VI

Now at life's wheel Etain the day-long sings; Not loud, but low as one who musing waits An hour, whose promise in her deep eye springs In keen transfiguring light that contemplates The mystery of small, familiar things Made great with gleams from past the verge of sight, And strange with rumours of the infinite.

In that bright realm glimpsed through the shade of this She sees great peace resolve earth's little strife; And deepening vision sounds a deeper bliss, Till joy rolls round the fretted shores of life; And in swift stroke of hate, and love's long kiss, She marks one law work out one hidden Will, And life and death one happy doom fulfil.

So pass her days in labour sped with peace. And now the king, heart-eased in her repose, Gathers warm love about him like a fleece; And through the land his joy wide-circling goes, Stirring swift hands that bid the earth increase Her gift of good, till wealth and fatness throng Their duns with praise, and fill their mouths with song.

Life's labour widely shared the lightlier lies Along the days; and when its tumults cease, Free brain and limb are swift in rivalries Upon the bloodless battlefields of peace In thought's affray, or deed of strength whose prize Scarce more adorneth him whose power prevails, Than him who strongly dares and greatly fails.

And in long nights, when age and childhood sleep, Bright eyes that flicker round the rushlit board Mark how the chess-players, in silence deep, Meet skill with skill, until delight is roared At cunning scheme, or swift unreckoned leap: But, cute as fox or quick as tern awing, No hand is found to mate King Eochaidh's king.

Loudly his fame rolls through the echoing land; But in his dreams, in some high tourney met, He feels a strong inexorable hand Counter his craft with calm unwavering threat By an unseen far-seeing player planned, That haunts his thoughts with hint of some deep strife Waged vastly on the board of death and life.

Then from his couch, with apprehensive eye, Forth goes the king for solace. Mile on mile His happy realms in dawn's pale radiance lie Secure in his great strength; so with a smile He tramples out the night's thin troubling cry, Then toward his palace turns, lo! at its door There stands a chieftain never seen before.

Straightly he stands, nor from his pride's full height Bends he from neck to knee one purple fold; Nor dips his spear, nor casts his shield whose light Glinting from snowy boss and bead of gold, Strikes from the king some memory of the night, So that his quickened eye is swift to trace A touch of challenge in the stranger's face.

"Welcome, O stranger! and doubly were thy name To me revealed." "Mider: to thee unknown. No far-sung dun is mine, lineage or fame; Yet in my realm I keep a steadfast throne, And for my pleasure play a subtle game With pawn and puissant knight and watching queen. Fame trumpets far thy skill: now be it seen."

On swift-set piece and jewelled chessboard break Slant arrows from the scarcely risen sun. Rank faces rank. "Play, king!"... "Not without stake I play; nor bate the forfeit quickly won,-- Thine?" "Fifty steeds whose hooves shall Erin shake." Then Eochaidh, lightly at light-seeming task, "And mine," he smiled, "whatever thou shalt ask!"

Matchless in skill, King Eochaidh moves elate ... One moment ... then ... straight lip and slow-drawn breath Yield sullenly to sure on-coming fate. Behind his eyes vast shapes of Life and Death Move hand to hand.... Soon ends the struggle--"Mate!" The stranger calls.... King Eochaidh's boast is gone! "The stake?" he vaguely asks.... "Thy wife, Etain."

Now like a spider wrapped in his own snare, The king turned to and fro to rend the spell Of ghastly loss. Pride stricken to despair Tugged at life's roof-tree. Round him ruining fell Puffed hopes and brittle joys that broke in air; And high desires, reined short in sight of goal, Stumbled to earth and snapped life's chariot-pole.

Then in that other's eye some glance revealed Faint pity.... "Nay, not this!" King Eochaidh cried. "Take thou the treasures won on hard-fought field, Spoils of the furrow, tribute of the tide: These for thy forfeit here I freely yield; Not her whose smile makes festive life's poor crust, But lost would turn its glories into dust!"

The stranger calmly answered, "King, the bird Poised on a little trick within the brain, Soars sunward. Kings on honour's lightest word Unshaken, rear a realm that shall remain. Snaps a small string: lo! all the song that stirred With beauty and joy, sinks like storm-swallowed ships, And bards unborn harp a high-king's eclipse.

"But fear not thou. Thy fame shall feel no wind Of cold rebuke; for when these shadows lift, Thou in life's loss the Spirit's gain shalt find: Thou to thyself shalt give thine utmost gift; And know thou only hast what is resigned. I go--but come on one clear-omened day, And thou shalt pay thy debt." He went away.

In that same hour the hungry nestling's cheep Floods Etain's drowsing ear with gentle woe. Sleep stirred by waking, waking soothed by sleep, Around her heart in linking eddies flow; Till at some passing wind that shakes the deep Of dream, she wakes with eyes that strain to see A haunting face behind life's mystery.

And in lone hours of many a moonless night, Through jetting poplars and the shooting snags Of wrinkled oaks, the king doth seek a light From his heart's questionings, whose purpose flags Before her face, lest in her eye's clear sight One thought of faithlessness a moment read Should bring to birth the thing he most doth dread.

VII

Strong in the strength that finds in gentleness A way to peace, King Eochaidh on the throne Of Erin sits. Around his footstool press High cares of sovereignty, that crowd his own Like gossips out of doors, and ease the stress Of storming thought which, held from question clear, Fears its mute doubt, yet vaguely doubts its fear.

In silent step, hushed pulse, and listening gaze, He marks expectancy behind her smile, Like some faint gleam from half-remembered days Ere the high Gods had blown them to this isle Among inscrutable divided ways, Some hidden destiny to mar or make In hands as strong to give as quick to take.

Now to the king the hollow moments haste Across his heart to some heart-emptied hour: And now he frets to leap with sinews braced Through lagging days and meet the threatening power. Yet from his conflict, inner lips now taste The mingled wine of sweet and bitter fate-- Strength to withstand, Endurance to await.

These not as gifts the shadowy troublers bear, But on his table spread what is his own. So mused the king: "Not all from spade and share The harvest comes: seed to its fruit has grown, Self-shaped, though stirred by smart of sun and air; And in life's myriad hands beaten and pressed, Man is not made, but man made manifest."

So finding gain in threatened loss, his mind Self-poised, through sorrow and joy makes even way, Content if, toiling past, his fingers find Her fingers, and in trembling silence say, "Here in unstable circumstance entwined We two have kissed, and whither we may tend, Once mixed, must find each other at the end."

And she within her heart's most secret place Has nursed a thought that grew from day to day, Like wind-borne seed that on a rocky face Finds root and strength to shatter ancient sway, A thought of Love that chafes at time and space, And moves from Love that was through Love to be To some exalted end no eye can see.

Yet nought of this was uttered each to each; But when, like forest monarchs strong and proud, A silver birch beside a sinewy beech, They stood at feast to hail the gathering crowd, Swift winds of joy came full of happy speech, And through the host light raptures laughed and played, Witless of yellowing leaf or sodden shade.

Then came a day when on the bare flag-stone The slow snail crawled; the chestnut's candles turned Downward as dead; the wolf-hound with a groan Gazed in King Eochaidh's eyes through eyes that burned Great threat; the spear-grass hither and thither blown Bent on the sand and traced its rings awry, And sun and moon slid sideways down the sky.

Swiftly to Eochaidh the dread omens tell The day of forfeiture; yet to Etain No word he speaks. Her eyes so softly well With wondrous beauty, all his heart is drawn In love to hold her from the coming spell. Pushed past its hour, the unspoken doom may break, And love and honour stand without a shake.

On windy gap and boggy mountain path He sets his watchers. Knee-deep where the fists Of bracken fronds are clenched in tiny wrath, Stern guards now stand, and where in sculptured cists Old kings are harvested in Death's long swathe. Closed from alarm the shingled roofs now rise Ringed through the dark with flaming searching eyes.

The word has passed, "The king shall have his whim: No stranger looks upon the queen to-night." Around the feasting board men great of limb Shut fast each door, and blind the hope of sight With shining shields that turn the torches dim. Throned firm in strength defying power or guile, He joys, and hopes--yet fears Etain's faint smile.

Now harp and song have touched their utmost height, And fall in sudden silence at a sound Deeper than sound, and pale before a light Clearer than light. Above, beneath, around, All heaven and earth are shaken with a might Past might, swift chariots clash, and mixed with these, Far thunderings and the roar of distant seas!

And in their midst is Mider, a shining God From whose majestic presence swiftly spreads Peace not of earth. Before his face, unflawed By shadow of taint, brave warriors bow their heads. And now the king, snapping his silver rod Of power, with sudden eyes made clear, with cheeks Flamed by swift vision, through the silence speaks.

"Now have I seen the shining hand of Him Who sifts the world for His divine desire; And gathers, and within His quern's wide rim Grinds all things meet for His transforming fire, And kneads them to a purpose far and dim; Who fashions all things to His growing plan, And breaks ... and moulds ... and breaks the heart of man.

"Take Thou Thy will--so it be her's?..." A hope Shoots a faint arrow instantly--no more. A blinding fire falls from night's glimmering slope. Flame-like the twain meet on the rushy floor-- And vanish. King and clansmen blindly grope Into cool air. Across the sky two swans Fly slowly toward the day that palely dawns.

POEMS AND LYRICS

DEATH AND LIFE

_To the memory of Eveleen Nicolls_

I

The long, dark slope is topped with mist, But here the sun is on the grass: Beneath, the sea-waves break, and twist Backward like snakes of molten glass.

Across an ancient sand-heaped wall The foot thro' graves forgotten goes, And stops where old, old voices call Thro' generations of repose.

But where a sorrow of to-day Has set a freshly-fashioned mound, A bird slides down his airy way And makes the silence ring with sound.

II

What gloom might now our spirits balk Fades out before that high reproof; And thro' the fabric of your talk Go light and shadow, warp and woof,

With something deeper than the word,-- Some stately certitude of faith Whose eye at Life had never blurred, Nor quivered at the eye of Death,

But saw, in that swift, woman's way, Thro' changings to the changeless Whole, And Life and Death as waves that sway Across the ocean of the Soul.

III

Then when the hill was lost in mist, And in the sea the sky was glassed, We wandered home in amethyst; And you upon the morrow passed

On that last journey to the West Whose end was in the Atlantic wave, Where, on your youth's triumphant crest, One stroke, another's life to save,

With glory crowned your life complete, Proud as the horsed and pluméd seas That laid your body at my feet-- A wonder past Praxiteles.

IV

Oh! bear her by the weeping crest, And past the fields of fallen ears, On her last journey from the West, This holy Lady Day of tears.

But yet, tho' heads are bared and bowed, And down the road the keeners keen, Some spirit-music, deep and proud, Slips out their thin, shrill cries between

And, like the bird that other day, That made the silence ring with sound, It floats along the sun-set way, A joy above our sorrow's mound.

V

What grief might now our spirits balk Fades out before that high reproof; And thro' the hushed and wavering talk That fills the streets from roof to roof,

A fire from your high altar shines, And kindles thro' our dusk of strife A faith whose inner eye divines That Death is minister to Life,

And all our years a moment's dream In one great Mind that grasps the whole, And Life and Death but waves that gleam Along the ocean of the Soul.

A SCHOOLBOY PLAYS CUCHULAIN

'Way there! for one who hastens forth To guard the Marches of the North, Where Connacht's hosts with flame and brand Hurl menace toward his native land, And Macha's Curse on arm and will Hangs dreadfully from hill to hill.

'Way there! Four valorous feet of height, Twelve long, long years of age and fight, He fronts without a thought of fear Ten thousand with his wooden spear. Soon shall he fling the charging field Back on his puissant pasteboard shield, And soon shall haughty Maeve bend down A vassal to his tinsel crown.

'Way there! Who laughs has hardly heard A hidden trumpet's secret word, Or glimpsed through those poor arms he bears The weapons that the spirit wears. In that wild breast a thousand years Rise up from ineffectual tears, And kindle once again the flame Of Freedom at a burning name.

What if for him no flag unfurled Should shake red battle on the world; On other fields, in other mood, The ancient conflict is renewed, And Michael and his warring clan Tramp onward through the heart of man. At Life's loud fires he shall anneal A subtler blade than transient steel, When Love, invincible in Faith, Shall smile upon the face of Death, And Will and Heart, as one, conspire To dare the utmost of desire. Then shall be, with his spirit's lance, Unhorse cold Pride and Circumstance, Shake Wrong's old strongholds to the ground, And Right's victorious trumpet sound, And light Earth's ramparts with the gleam Of Ireland's unextinguished Dream That burned in him who hastened forth To guard the Marches of the North, When Macha's Curse on arm and will Hung dreadfully from hill to hill.