Part 3

HOW THE MOUNTAINS CAME TO BE

A bird once came and said to me, "Hear how the mountains came to be. An angel from his crystal sphere Fell to the earth. A chilly fear Shot thro' his wings from tip to tip, For there was neither boat nor ship, Mountain nor stream, nor maid nor man, Far as the angel's eye could scan; Dead flatness far as he could see Before the mountains came to be. He stretched his wings to fly away, But round his feet the oozy clay Gripped fast, and held him to the ground. He stretched and strove until a sound Went thro' him from he knew not where And said, 'The only way is prayer.' He dropped his wings and raised his eyes, And sent his soul into the skies. He prayed and prayed, and as he prayed A wind among his plumage played And bore him upward toward his sphere. Around his feet from far and near There came a sound that seemed to say, 'Pray on! pray on! we too would pray. Thy prayer has touched the sleeping Powers: Pray on, thy prayer shall yet be ours; We too have wings that pine for flight, We too have eyes that long for light.' Upward he moved, and still his eyes Were fastened on the distant skies, And as he rose toward heaven dim He drew the earth up after him. About his feet the oozy clay Gripped fast, but could not stop or stay His course, till on his skyey stair He paused beyond the need for prayer, While from the air beneath, around, There rose a tumult of glad sound. The angel turned the sound to seek, And lo! his foot was on a peak That fell away to where the world Lay like a painted flag unfurled And shaken out from sea to sea,-- And thus the mountains came to be." So said the bird, and what the masque Of meaning hid, I meant to ask; But off he flew before I knew-- And yet I think the tale is true If one could only hear aright, And see with something more than sight.

LOVE IN ABSENCE

Hills crowned with age, And solemn seas, Are full of sage Philosophies. Yet, lacking thee, I am not wise: I need thine eyes That I may see!

Insect and bird Chant prose and verse, God's passion-stirred Interpreters. Howe'er I seek, Their meaning slips: I need thy lips That they may speak!

Long days that shine, Or richly weep; The dreamful mine Of happy sleep, Without thee, give A slender part: I need thy heart That life may live!

Hear then my cry, And hasten, sweet! The world and I Are incomplete; Poor with all pelf; Bound most when freed: Thy Self I need, To be my Self!

TREES IN WINTER

Gaunt and spare, The silly trees Strip them bare To winter's breeze;

Yet when July Sweltered red, Dressed unduly Heel to head!

Who will whisper Unto me, Why is this Perversity?

Bent his head A stately beech: Slowly said In gentle speech:

"Why, O man! not Find a moral (Though you cannot In the laurel,)

"In our vigour And our pelf, Type and figure Of yourself?

"Sun-kissed amity Conceals What calamity Reveals:

"Summer glozes Stain and scar; Winter shows us As we are.

"Well if thou, In trying hour, Stand, or bow, In naked power,

"Like the spare But sinewy trees Standing bare To winter's breeze!"

A SPRING CAPRICE BY A ROBIN

_Rubato_

Who, on such a day of spring, Would be careful how he sing? Let the overflowing heart Get a start, Who shall care if no one knows How to find a perfect close To his strain, When the brain-- Drunk with sun and hyacinth, Primroses and bursting oak, And the sower's puffs of smoke Over fields of brown-- Stumbling down A melodious labyrinth, Somehow, nohow, finds a way out, Has his say out-- And begins it all again, Caring nothing how he sing When the brain, Wild with Spring, Gives a start To his mad, melodious, overflowing heart?

_Kilcarberry, Wexford._

A SPRING RONDEL BY A STARLING

I clink my castanet, And beat my little drum; For spring at last has come, And on my parapet Of chestnut, gummy-wet, Where bees begin to hum, I clink my castanet, And beat my little drum.

"Spring goes," you say, "suns set." So be it! Why be glum? Enough, the spring has come; And without fear or fret I clink my castanet, And beat my little drum.

THE FAIRY RING

Enfolded in the Fairy Ring My loved one sleeping lies, To simple souls a dreadful thing, For half a hundred eyes Peep out from where among the grass Floats up a magic lay To call the souls of all who pass, To fairyland away.

But I who know her heart's desire, Fear neither spell nor frown; For not till fire shall stifle fire, Or water water drown, Or love hate love, can any harm In kindred hearts abide. Oh! she can combat charm with charm, My elfin-hearted bride!

And ye, whose minds are set to win Fame's leaf or fortune's prize! Beware the spell that lurks within The circle of her eyes; For she has power to blow like straws Earth's baubles from the hand, And call the souls of all who pause, Away to fairyland.

"LABORARE EST ORARE,"

A RONDEAU OF FIELD-LABOURERS

"To labour is to pray." We heave The heavy clay; we dig and cleave; And knees and hands deep in the sod, Search out and shape the Will of God Creation's purpose to achieve.

Slant showers may wound, sharp winds bereave-- We lift no soiled and suppliant sleeve: (Sure God and Mary bless the rod:) To labour is to pray.

And so we are content to leave Prayers for long-headed folk to weave. We work His Will in ear and pod; And when His harvest-eyes applaud, We know--what others but believe-- To labour is to pray.

_Ballymore, Donegal._

PARAPHRASES AND INTERPRETATIONS

DAEDALUS AND ICARUS

_The Builder of the Cretan Labyrinth and his Son_

Quote Daedalus to Icarus: "With rule and plumbline,--thus, and--thus, We space and build our labyrinth, And build, besides, a graven plinth To bear the future fame of Us," Quote Daedalus to Icarus.

Quoth Icarus to Daedalus: "Before these Cretans make a fuss, And set our names up with a shout, Perhaps we'd better first get out, And show the master-mind of Us," Quoth Icarus to Daedalus.

Then round and round went Daedalus, And out and in went Icarus. They parted for an hour's whole space.... They met upon the selfsame place! "I think we're stuck," quoth Icarus, "I think we are," quoth Daedalus.

In short, to be perspicuous, Like this old tale of Daedalus; 'Spite of our mouths with freedom filled, From life's poor trivial things we build A maze about the feet of us That shuts us in like Daedalus.

But Daedalus and Icarus Made wings, and set them--thus, and--thus; And that blind maze that hemmed them in They sloughed, as drops the snake its skin: And so at last shall all of us, Like Daedalus and Icarus.

A PARAPHRASE

_From the Prose of Jeremy Taylor_

As the silk-worm, shut from sight, Cuts a pathway into light; Makes on mottled leaves repast Till its wormy coat is cast; Winds itself in silken weed; Sheds the future's pearly seed; Leaves behind its dower of silk, And with wings as white as milk Spread for flight, completes its span; So evolves the soul of man.

HOSPITALITY

_From the Irish, Seventh to Tenth Century_

O king of stars that watch the night! Whether my house be dark or bright, Its door to none shall barréd be, Lest Christ should close his house to me.

And if thy house shall hold a guest, And aught from him thou hast suppressed, Not all to him the wrong is done: Thou hast concealed from Mary's Son.

THE STUDENT

_From the Irish, Seventh to Tenth Century_

High on my hedge of bush and tree A blackbird sings his song to me, And far above my linéd book I hear the voice of wren and rook.

From the bush-top, in garb of grey, The cuckoo calls the hours of day. Right well do I--God send me good!-- Set down my thoughts within the wood.

AT A HOLY WELL

He dragged his knees from flag to flag, And prayed for health with awe-struck brow, Then hung his ill's discarded rag On the o'erhanging hawthorn bough.

And in the adoring hush that fell, I, from the form set inly free, Knelt at my heart's most holy well And worshipped mine own mystery.

_Templemanaghan, Kerry._

THE PRIEST'S LAKE

Beneath the bridge, with noisy rout, The Atlantic fills the quiet lake ... A pause ... a turn ... then with a shout Seaward the brimming waters break.

"Open thy gates," the Spirit saith, "O Soul! My wave thy shore shall sweep, Then back across the pause of death Draw thee with shoutings to the deep!"

_Ardbear, Connemara._

SONNETS

A PAPER-SELLER

Clearly, and iterant as a swinging bell, I heard across the surges of the Strand A woman's voice, and saw a woman's hand With "Votes for Women." A sudden vision fell Across my path, and made my pulses swell With agony of joy: I seemed to stand At some far hill, from whence was faintly fanned A whisper, "He descended into Hell."

Sister! with foot in gutter, foot on kerb, Tasting humiliations's bitter herb In thy great calm of self laid wholly down! Thine are the thorns of Christly souls who bend To lift the world; and thou too shalt ascend To thine own Heaven and everlasting crown!

_Strand, London._

TO ONE IN PRISON

Dear! on Love's altar thou hast laid thee down, Priestess and Victim of such Sacrifice As might melt praise from very hearts of ice, But wins the scoff of sycophant and clown. Yet in that band, whose glory is the frown Of sceptred tyranny and stained device, Thou hast a place; and thee it shall suffice To tread with them the path to high renown.

And I--even I, unworthy though I be-- For these my wounds of utter loneliness, Tired head and sleepless eyes, some part would claim In the deep rubric of thy mystery; So may I, in proud years that rise to bless, Stand in the shadow of thine honoured name.

_Nov. 23--Dec. 23, 1910._

A HOME-COMING

What flags are these?... what trumpets?... Oh! what drums? What pride august?... what solemn minstrelsy? Hush! drums, ecstatic drums: say who is she That in the midst majestically comes. Is she some queen whose haughty eye benumbs Proud potentates; whose word can lift the sea Of shattering war, and fling red misery Across the world?... Speak, drums! Oh! aching drums!

Hush! hush! wild drums, drums in my happy heart! Not thus she comes, my life's exalted queen, But in sweet silence far outlauding praise. Her's not the flaming sword that puts apart, But Right's resistless blade, whose stroke unseen Wounds but to heal, and crown with Freedom's bays!

LOVE, THE DESTROYER

Come from behind those eyes, that I may see Thyself, beloved! not lip, or hand, or brain. These are not thou. These are the servile train That crowd me from thine inmost mystery. Show me thy naked soul!... or it may be That, lacking this, I shall, in Love's mad strain, Shatter the form, and sift it grain by grain To find thine utter Self--thee--very Thee!...

Ah! Love, forgive!... Be this my penitence That in my passion I have glimpsed the goal Of all calamity, and surely scanned In flood and flame, earthquake and pestilence, Love raging forth, to find Love's inmost soul, With bridal gifts in Ruin's awful hand!

ENVOY

_THE LOVING CUP_

_I_

_I raise to you, O Queen, this Loving Cup, this Mether, Filled with Mead Made from honey of the heather, Brought by many a humming wing, And with water from the spring; Mixed by cunning hands together In a foamy ferment Thou would lead Sullen tongues to song, If along Harpstrings now a rousing air went._

_II_

_But in this our souls' espousal Axe nor skeen Throb and bleed For the spear-clash of carousal, Spoils of slaughter Ravening: No, for peace has mixed our mether, With its Mead, O my Queen, Made from honey of the heather, And with water From the spring._

_III_

_Ah! but what avail Song and ale, If beneath our quaffing Moves not something deeper than our laughing?_

_IV_

_So to you, O Queen, Here with hands unseen I raise my Heart's deep Mether, Where together, Sweetness brought on Fancy's wing From the flowers Of happy hours, And a draught from Thought's cool spring, Blend in song's melodious ferment, With an undertone Caught in deeper hours alone, When along Life's solemn harp the Spirit's air went._

NOTES

_Etain the Beloved_:--This poem is founded on an ancient Irish myth. It is not a translation from the Gaelic; but rather is an attempt at transfiguration, by seeking to "unfold into light" the spiritual vision that was the inspiration, and is the secret of the persistence and resilience, of the Celt. Such modifications as I have made in the story have neither archæological nor philological significance: they arise entirely from whatever measure of insight into artistic necessity, on the side of pure literature, has been granted to me; and also from obedience to a view of the universe which is embodied in the ancient Irish mythology, and whose operations the personages of the story body forth as Psyche bodied forth the soul of humanity to the Greek.

The names of the personages may be pronounced thus: Etain--Etawn', Eochaidh--Yo'hee, Ailill--Al'yil, Mider--Mid'yir.

Dagda is the Irish God of Day, Balor the Irish God of Night.

A dun is a fortified dwelling, a liss is a place for domestic animals.

_Death and Life_:--On Friday, August 13, 1909, the author went by currach from Dunquin to the Great Blasket Island, Kerry, to visit Miss Eveleen Nicolls, M.A., who was spending a holiday on the island. Instead of joining her, as was intended, in music and conversation amongst the islanders, he had to participate in an endeavour, alas! unsuccessful, to restore her to life. She had been bathing with a fisher-girl. The latter got into difficulties in the strong Atlantic current, and an effort by Miss Nicolls to save the girl ended in the heroic sacrifice of her own life.

_A Schoolboy plays Cuchulain_:--Cuchulain, the supreme hero of Celtic romance, who, single-handed, defended his province against the army of Queen Maeve. Maeve had chosen for a foray the time when the Ulster chiefs lay in weakness under a curse by the warrior Goddess, Macha.

_Hospitality_: _The Student_:--Put into verse from the literal translations of Kuno Meyer in "Ancient Irish Poetry."

_To One in Prison_: _A Home-coming_:--Occasioned by the imprisonment of the author's wife for taking part in the active movement for the political enfranchisement of women.

_BOOKS BY JAMES H. COUSINS_

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.