Part 1

Chapter 13,871 wordsPublic domain

SEA SPRAY: VERSES AND TRANSLATIONS BY T. W. ROLLESTON

THE LADY OF THE RING

Thanks are due to Messrs. Harrap & Co., London, for permission to include in this volume three poems which are introduced into the writer’s forthcoming prose book, “The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland.” The poems in question are _Cois na Teineadh_, _Midir the Proud_, and the _Song of Finn_. Some others have appeared in the _Spectator_, the _Irish Homestead_, and the _Westminster Gazette_, to the editors of which acknowledgments are due.

CONTENTS

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SEA SPRAY 7 MARCH WINDS 10 MIDIR THE PROUD INVITES QUEEN ETAIN TO FAIRYLAND 12 THE SPELL-STRUCK 14 COIS AN TEINEADH 15 WILLIAM MORRIS 17 TO JOHN O’LEARY 18 THE GRAVE OF RURY 19 SONG OF MAELDUIN 21 THE SHANNON AT FOYNES 22 SONNET 23 A RAILWAY JOURNEY 24 CYCLING SONG 28 BALLADE OF THE “CHESHIRE CHEESE” 31 DORA 33 A RING’S SECRET 34 MOONRISE IN THE ELSTER TANNEN-WALD 35 AFTER ALL 36 EVENSONG 37 IN MEMORIAM: J. T. C. H. 39

TRANSLATIONS

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THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS 43 THE DEAD AT CLONMACNOIS 47 SONG OF FINN IN PRAISE OF MAY 48 WENN ICH AN DEINEM HAUSE 50 EIN FICHTENBAUM STEHT EINSAM 51 ZWEI KAMMERN HAT DAS HERZ 52 LADY ISLAND 53 THE THREE RINGS 54

SEA SPRAY

What shall we do with our day? you ask-- A June day fair to the heart’s desire-- Lie in the meadow, and lounge and bask Over books and tobacco? Or do you aspire To conquer the summit that yesterday We marked for our own ere your visit end? Or shall we go riding, or fishing? Nay, For the scent of the sea’s on the air, my friend. We shall go to the head of the reedy lake, And there, in a brake by a fir-grove, find Two long canoes with arching deck, Sea-riders, strong for a day of wind; And oh, what a song shall the bright wind sing us When clear of the shallows and clear of the sedge, While the narrowing stream and the ebb-tide swing us ’Twixt sea and mountain to Wicklow Bridge!

But here beware! for the ebb goes roaring Through half the arches, and half are dry, And stakes and stones are ready for goring Your Rob-Roy’s timbers as down you fly. And beyond the Bridge, in the deep sea-current, Where the rope-maze crosses from quay to quay, You’ll need your head and your arm I warrant, To fight the eddies and find your way. There lifts your prow with the long pulsation That tells how near us the glad seas are! There lifts the heart with the old elation, To meet the surf at the harbour-bar!

The North wind marshals the ranks of ocean, And on they sweep with a strength serene, Till the tide-race ruffles the mighty motion And curls the crests of the rollers green. The breakers flash on the sand-bank yonder, And the cavern’d curve of the rock-walled bay Is loud with clamour of hoarse sea-thunder As the wave recoils in a blast of spray.

And I know a cleft among grim rock-masses, Where if wind blow strong and the light come fair, When the sea-cave roars and the spray-jet flashes, A rainbow floats in the sunny air.

At the Head’s wild verge, where the tideways quicken, And eddies hollow the smooth sea-caves, Our Rob-Roys plunge as the breakers thicken, And bury their decks in the rearing waves. We round the Point in the surge and welter Of clashing billows and blinding foam-- Then mile on mile, in the cliff-wall’s shelter, In calm new seas to the South we roam.

O bays of Wicklow, and gorse-crown’d headlands Whose scent blows far on the seaward breeze, How oft have I yearned in the tranquil midlands For one brave shock of your lifting seas! How oft it may be in days hereafter Shall rise the thought of you, phantom-fair, Shall steal the sound of the sea-waves’ laughter On ears grown dull with time and care! Waves, wash my spirit, and lonely places, If well I loved you, and aught you knew, Mark deep my heart with immortal traces Of shining days when I dwelt with you!

MARCH WINDS

Wind, O wind of the Spring, thine old enchantment renewing, How at the shock of thy might wakens within me a cry! Out of what wonderful lands, never trodden by man, never told of, Lands where never a ship anchored or trafficker fared, Comest thou, breathing like flame till the brown earth flames into blossom, Quick’ning the sap of old woods swayed in thy stormy embrace, Rousing in depths of the heart wild waves of an infinite longing, Longing for freedom and life, yearning for Springs that are dead! Surely the far blue sea, foam-fleck’d with the speed of thy coming Brighten’d in laughter abroad, sang at the feet of the isles, Sang in a tumult of joy as my soul sings trembling with passion, Trembling with passion and hope, wild with the spirit of Spring. Ah, what dreams re-arise, half pain half bliss to remember, Hearing the storm of thy song blown from the height of the skies:-- _Something remains upon earth to be done, to be dared, to be sought for, Up with the anchor once more--out with the sails to the blast! Out to the shock of the seas that encircle the Fortunate Islands, Vision that burns in the blood, home of the Wind of the Spring._

MIDIR THE PROUD INVITES QUEEN ETAIN TO FAIRYLAND[1]

Come with me, Etain, O come away, To that Oversea Land of mine! Where music haunts the happy day, And rivers run with wine. Careless we live, and young and gay, And none saith ‘mine’ or ‘thine.’

Golden curls on the proud young head, And pearls in the tender mouth-- Manhood, womanhood, white and red, And love that grows not loth When all the world’s desires are dead, And all the dreams of youth.

Away from the cloud of Adam’s sin! Away from grief and care! This flowery land thou dwellest in Seems rude to us and bare, For the naked strand of the Happy Land Is twenty times as fair.

Come, Etain, come to thine ancient home, And let these mortals be, Whose world is a glimmer of rainbow foam On the breast of a boundless Sea! We shall watch it go, as we watch’d it come, From the Kingdom of Faëry.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This poem is based on an Irish original in “The Courtship of Etain.” See Leahy’s _Heroic Romances of Ireland_, vol. i., p. 26.

THE SPELL-STRUCK

She walks as she were moving Some mystic dance to tread, So falls her gliding footstep, So leans her list’ning head; For once to fairy harping She danced upon the hill, And through her brain and bosom The music pulses still.

Her eyes are bright and tearless, But wide with yearning pain: She longs for nothing earthly, But oh, to hear again The sound that held her breathless Upon her moonlit path-- The golden fairy music That filled the lonely rath!

Her lips have felt strange kisses And drunk the wine of death, Nor earthly love nor laughter Shall stir their tender breath. She’s dead to all things living Since that November Eve, And when They call her earthward, No living thing will grieve.

COIS NA TEINEADH

Where glows the Irish hearth with peat There lives a subtle spell-- The faint blue smoke, the gentle heat The moorland odours tell

Of white roads winding by the edge Of bare untamèd land, Where dry stone wall or ragged hedge Runs wide on either hand

To cottage lights that lure you in From rainy Western skies; And by the friendly glow within Of simple talk, and wise,

And tales of magic, love or arms From days when princes met To listen to the lay that charms The Connacht peasant yet.

There Honour shines through passions dire, There beauty blends with mirth-- Wild hearts, ye never did aspire Wholly for things of earth!

Cold, cold this thousand years--yet still On many a time-stained page Your pride, your truth, your dauntless will, Burn on from age to age.

And still around the fires of peat Live on the ancient days; There still do living lips repeat The old and deathless lays.

And when the wavering wreaths ascend, Blue in the evening air, The soul of Ireland seems to bend Above her children there.

WILLIAM MORRIS

† _Oct. 4, 1896_

Singer of Jason’s quest and Sigurd’s doom! Teller of vision-haunted wanderings! Who touched a strange new music from the strings Of old Romance--a space amidst the gloom Of cloudy centuries thou didst illume; And there thy word a dreamlike splendour flings On crown and helm--and even the tears of things Brighten thy morning world’s immortal bloom.

Yet some, great Craftsman, reverence thee more That Beauty, coldly throned among the stars, Came at thy lure to tread the homely earth: And, sweet and kindly as in days of yore, Played with our children, graced our household cares, And knelt content by many a quiet hearth.

TO JOHN O’LEARY

_Dedication of a Book of Irish Verses by various hands_[2]

Because you suffered for the Cause; Because you strove with voice and pen To serve a Law above all laws That purifies the hearts of men;

Because you failed, and grew not slack, Not sullen, not disconsolate, Nor stooped to seek a lower track, But showed your soul a match for Fate;

Because you hated all things base, And held your country’s honour high; Because you wrought in Time and Space Not heedless of Eternity;

Because you loved the nobler part Of Erinn,--so we bring you here Words such as once the Irish heart On Irish lips rejoiced to hear:

Strains that have little chance to live With those that Davis’ clarion blew, But all the best we have to give To Mother Erinn and to you.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] “Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, 1888.”

THE GRAVE OF RURY

Clear as air, the western waters evermore their sweet unchanging song Murmur in their stony channels round O’Conor’s sepulchre in Cong.

Crownless, hopeless, here he lingered; felt the years go by him like a dream, Heard the far-off roar of conquest murmur faintly like the singing stream.

Here he died, and here they tomb’d him, men of Fechin, chanting round his grave. Did they know, ah, did they know it, what they buried by the babbling wave?

Now above the sleep of Rury holy things and great have passed away; Stone by stone the stately Abbey falls and fades in passionless decay.

Darkly grows the quiet ivy, pale the broken arches glimmer through; Dark upon the cloister-garden dreams the shadow of the ancient yew.

Through the roofless aisles the verdure flows, the meadow-sweet and foxglove bloom; Earth, the mother and consoler, winds soft arms about the lonely tomb.

Peace and holy gloom possess him, last of Gaelic monarchs of the Gael, Slumbering by the young, eternal river-voices of the western vale.

Ruraidh O’Conchobhar, last High King of Ireland, spent the closing fifteen years of his life in the monastery of St. Fechin at Cong, Co. Mayo. His grave is still shown in that most beautiful and pathetic of Irish ruins. Some accounts have it that his remains were afterwards transferred to Clonmacnois by the Shannon.

SONG OF MAELDUIN

There are veils that lift, there are bars that fall, There are lights that beckon and winds that call-- Goodbye! There are hurrying feet, and we dare not wait; For the hour is on us, the hour of Fate, The circling hour of the flaming Gate-- Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

Fair, fair they shine through the burning zone, Those rainbow gleams of a world unknown-- Goodbye! And oh, to follow, to seek, to dare, When step by step in the evening air Floats down to meet us the cloudy stair-- Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

The cloudy stair of the Brig o’ Dread Is the dizzy path that our feet must tread-- Goodbye! O all ye children of Nights and Days That gather and wonder and stand at gaze, And wheeling stars in your lonely ways-- Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

The music calls and the Gates unclose, Onward and upward the wild way goes-- Goodbye! We die in the bliss of a great new birth. O fading phantoms of pain and mirth, O fading loves of the old green Earth, Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

THE SHANNON AT FOYNES

Into the West, where o’er the wide Atlantic The lights of sunset gleam, From its high sources in the heart of Erinn Flows the great stream.

Yet back in stormy cloud or viewless vapour The wandering waters come, And faithfully across the trackless heaven Find their old home.

But ah, the tide of life that flows unceasing Into the luring West Returns no more, to swell with kindlier fulness The Mother’s breast!

SONNET

_On reading a Dublin newspaper in the train, April 16, 1904_

Night falls: the emerald pastures turn to grey, Young stars appear, a mystic beauty thrills The dusk above the line of far-off hills, Where late the splendours of the end of Day, Sad and majestic, flamed and passed away. In dust and thunder speeding to the Sea The train flies on, yet eve’s serenity, Great and untroubled, holds the world in sway.

Then, turning from that realm of lofty life, Again my eyes upon the printed page Fall, and again I hear but cries of rage, Brawlers and bigots, every word a knife; While Thought, the fair land’s fairest heritage, Lies drowned in clamour of ignoble strife.

A RAILWAY JOURNEY

We’ve cleared the station--free at last From darkness, din, and worry; By red-brick villas, shady roads And garden-plots we hurry. And now green miles of pasture-land Flit by, with budding hedges, And far to Southward I can see The purple mountain ridges.

My fellow-travellers pretermit, Seeing there is no danger, That anxious glance with which we greet The presence of a stranger. Whom have we? First, some man of means (I guess), brow-wrinkled, dull-eyed, His face the index of a soul By cares unworthy sullied.

And then a lady, whom I deem Some mask of Fashion merely; And last, a maid of nineteen years, Who, since I’ve seen her clearly, Has won the careless glance I gave To linger, as delighted As with some green-rimmed waterspring In midst of deserts blighted.

What is her charm? Not very fair, Nor luring to the senses-- And yet her frank and girlish grace, Her lack of small pretences, Her clear, unconscious hazel eyes, Pure lips, and simple neatness, Fill my heart as I gaze on her With deep and tender sweetness. · · · · · ·

The train has rolled without a break For half an hour or more, perhaps; My wealthy cit has fall’n asleep, Will soon begin to snore, perhaps; Kind Morpheus touch’d him as he scanned The last returns of traffic-- The lady clad in furs and silks Is trifling with her _Graphic_.

The maiden looks with dreaming eyes As wood and field and river Flash past our roaring carriage-wheels In whirling dance forever. What are the thoughts that smooth her brows To such content, I wonder, While clangs about our silent group The railroad’s rhythmic thunder?

But now more slow the landscape moves-- We reach a little station-- And how the maiden’s face has changed, Lit up with expectation! A brother, with his sister’s eyes, Brown-cheeked from sun and heather, Awaits her; and with half a sigh I watch them leave together.

The heavy train regathers speed, And minute after minute The country station drops behind-- Some spell is surely in it! For now my fellow-travellers seem No mark for peevish scorning-- Those withered lives had surely once The innocence of morning.

But ah, the world’s use, soon or late, Dispels the early glamour, And faint the spheral music rings In this incessant clamour! Save when, at times, in some strange lull Of tyrannous self-seeking, The heart of memory is thrilled By ancient voices speaking.

And then the cloud in which we walk Rolls by us, and from dreaming We wake to see the primal world In beauty round us gleaming; Then common things to common eyes Their secret life surrender, And glow beneath the light of day With visionary splendour.

· · · · · · ·

What wrought me so? I only know I bowed in homage ardent Before some high mysterious Power A heart a little hardened. That glory flashed upon a soul By doubt and self o’erladen, When all I saw in very sooth Was but a simple maiden.

CYCLING SONG

In the airy whirling wheel is the springing strength of steel, And the sinews grow to steel, day by day, Till you feel your pulses leap at the easy swing and sweep As the hedges flicker past upon the way. Then it’s out to the kiss of the morning breeze, And the rose of the morning sky, And the long brown road, where the tired spirit’s load Slips off as the leagues go by!

Black-and-silver, swift and strong, with a pleasant undersong From the steady rippling murmur of the chain-- Half a thing of life and will, you may feel it start and thrill With a quick elastic answer to the strain, As you ride to the kiss of the morning breeze, And the rose of the morning sky, And the long brown road, where the tired spirit’s load Slips off as the leagues go by!

Miles a hundred you may run from the rising of the sun To the gleam of the first white star; You may ride through twenty towns, meet the sun upon the downs And the wind on the mountain scaur. Then it’s out to the kiss of the morning breeze And the rose of the morning sky, And the long brown road, where the tired spirit’s load Slips off as the leagues go by!

Down the fragrant country-side, through the woodland’s summer pride You have come in your forenoon spin; And you never would have guessed how delicious is the rest In the shade by the wayside inn, When you’ve sought the kiss of the morning breeze And the rose of the morning sky, And the long brown road, where the tired spirit’s load Slips off as the leagues go by!

Oh, there’s many a one who teaches that the shining river-reaches Are the place to spend a long June day; But give me the whirling wheel and a boat of air and steel To float upon the King’s highway! Oh, give me the kiss of the morning breeze And the rose of the morning sky, And the long brown road, where the tired spirit’s load Slips off as the leagues go by!

BALLADE OF THE “CHESHIRE CHEESE” IN FLEET STREET[3]

I know a home of antique ease Within the smoky city’s pale, A spot wherein the spirit sees Old London through a thinner veil. The modern world, so stiff and stale, You leave behind you, when you please, For long clay pipes and great old ale And supper in the “Cheshire Cheese.”

Beneath this board, Burke’s, Goldsmith’s knees Were often thrust--so runs the tale-- ’Twas here the Doctor took his ease, And wielded speech that, like a flail, Thresh’d out the golden truth: All hail Great souls! that met on nights like these, For talk and laughter, pipes and ale, And supper in the “Cheshire Cheese.”

By kindly sense, and old decrees Of England’s use you set your sail-- _We_ press to never-furrow’d seas, For vision-worlds we breast the gale; And still we seek, and still we fail, For still the “glorious phantom” flees[4]-- Ah, well! no phantoms are the ale And suppers of the “Cheshire Cheese.”

_Envoi_

If doubts or debts thy soul assail, If Fashion’s forms its current freeze, Try a long pipe, a glass of ale, And supper at the “Cheshire Cheese.”

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Meeting-place of The Rhymers’ Club, 1892, 3.

[4] ... “Graves from which a glorious phantom may Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.”--Shelley.

DORA

I know not whether I love you, Dora: Your beauty moves me, I know not how-- Your eyes that shine with a joy unspoken, Your pride and sweetness of bosom and brow. But I had not deemed that our earth could fashion Of flesh and spirit so rare a thing-- And you lift my heart with the nameless passion That stirs young blood in the dawn of spring.

I know not whether I love you, Dora, Nor if you be what a man may wed. Whence came that glory of ancient Hellas That seems to hover about your head? Have you roamed with Artemis, talked with Pallas? Did Hera lend you that look sublime? Did Bacchus give in a rose-wreathed chalice That conquering charm of the youth of Time?

I know not whether I love you, Dora, But well I know you are not for me, So darken’d and marr’d with the bitter travail Of things that are not, and fain would be. Keep, keep for ever your grace and gladness, Bend once to bless me your brow of snow-- Then meet me next like some far-off sadness, Some dead ambition of long ago.

A RING’S SECRET

Can you forgive me, that I wear, Dearest, a curl of sunny hair, Not yours--yet for the sake of Love, And tender faith it minds me of? ’Tis in this quaint old signet ring, A curious, chased, engraven thing That in some window charm’d my eye And told of the last century. Pure gold it was, but dull and blotch’d, And bright’ning it one day, I touch’d A spring that oped a little lid; And there, for generations hid In its small shrine of pallid gold-- They made such toys in days of old-- A shred of golden hair lay curl’d; Worth all the gold of all the world, Perchance, to him who shrin’d it so:

Ah, ’twas a hundred years ago! But, dearest, if he loved as I, He loves unto eternity.

MOONRISE IN THE ELSTER TANNEN-WALD

Darker than midnight, to the midnight sky Rises the valley-ridge with all its pines. Above that gloom a growing radiance shines, Where the full moon floats up invisibly. Now, half-revealed, she lifts her disk on high, When on it, lo! in black and spectral lines One blasted tree so wild a form designs, That fear and wonder hold the watcher’s eye.

The minutes pass--and nothing looks the same, But tangled in a web of silver light Lies the great forest, dreaming and at rest. Yet deep in memory’s core abides that sight One moment outlined on the mountain crest-- A Shape that writhed upon a pool of flame.

AFTER ALL--

When the time comes for me to die To-morrow or some other day, If God should bid me make reply, ‘What wilt thou?’ I shall say:

O God, Thy world was great and fair, Yet give me to forget it clean; Vex me no more with things that were, And things that might have been.

I loved, I toiled--throve ill and well, Lived certain years, and murmur’d not. Now grant me in that land to dwell Where all things are forgot.