Part 3

Last; if upon the cold green-mantling sea Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar, Both castaway And one must perish—let it not be he Whom thou art sworn to obey!

SONG FOR THE FUNERAL OF A BOY

1

On stems from silver woods Carry him, young companions, to the glen Where white Olympus broods; Flushes of rustlers shall precede you then By bush and glade Low-thrilling and afraid; And as along its curve of shore ye pass The dark tarn ruddied with the pine shall glass, Moving to hymns out of its lonely ken, The boy’s light bier, with beaded rushes laid.

2

In beeches shall the fawn An hoof suspend, to learn from that clear sound His eager mate withdrawn For ever unto free and sylvan ground. Up in her hold The wide-wing’d Azure cold Mantling in gyre on gyre shall mark him come By root-paven paths borne, and great bee’s hum Swing through your brief procession, winding round The endless alleys up that Mountain old.

3

In some low space of green Where fleecy mists, bright runnels newly rain’d, And springing wands are seen But nothing yet to gnarlëd eld attain’d Let his head nigh The chrisom violet lie; And put at hand the sling to him most dear, The sheaf of arrows light, the dauntless spear, The lute untroubled on the heart unstain’d; Then, taking hands around him, sing good-bye.

4

Praise limbs that robb’d the cloud Of vengeful eagles, and for this rough nest, This egg, embraced the loud And everlasting sea-crag’s salty breast! Praise to the face That smiled on nothing base! Hymn ye the laughter of his happy soul— His secret kindness to your secret dole; The heavenly-minded brook shall mourn him best When ye have kiss’d his cheek, quitting the place.

5

This ditty from the brake, This rainbow from the waters, fades; and Night That little pyre shall take In flame and cloud;—but O! when the bloom of light With breathless glow Along the tops of snow Tells out to all the valleys Night is done,— Think of the boy, ye young companions bright, Not without joy; for he hath loved and gone As dews that on the uplands shine and go!

COME, LET US MAKE LOVE DEATHLESS

Come, let us make love deathless, thou and I, Seeing that our footing on the Earth is brief— Seeing that her multitudes sweep out to die Mocking at all that passes their belief. For standard of our love not theirs we take: If we go hence to-day Fill the high cup that is so soon to break With richer wine than they!

Ay, since beyond these walls no heavens there be Joy to revive or wasted youth repair, I’ll not bedim the lovely flame in thee Nor sully the sad splendour that we wear. Great be the love, if with the lover dies Our greatness past recall, And nobler for the fading of those eyes The world seen once for all.

CLAVIERS AT NIGHT

_I watch’d a white-hair’d Figure like a breeze Pass, with a smile, down the bare galleries And heard his ancient fingers, as he went, Muse on the heart of each blind instrument._

SPINET

Shoaling through twilight to my silver tinglings The great-ruff’d ladies beset with pearl Come out with the gallants in gems of Cadiz In lofty capriols with loud spur-jinglings In Roman galliard and in blithe coranto Learnt in far Otranto Brought home in the galleys of the Earl— Storm-riding galleys of the haughty Earl— To English vallies. They come With reverences stately at meeting In mockeries sedately retreating And stomachers and buckles and rings Shake a maze of jewels to the measured strings, Of trembling jewels.

Ay, moonlight’s fair in yew-clipt alleys, And young Love fledges His shafts ’twixt cypress hedges. Follow the rout, and watch in gentle wind The springing moonbeam of the fountain sway’d Like to a mountain maid Who turns with poisëd jar From bubbling hollow cool.

“Behold, how’t tosses rain of Pleiads hither Into main blackness of the pool— Rings ever shimmering out and sheen reborn; So, thou and I, lady, must die To wake, as echoes wake, of yonder horn With voiceless over the hills of morn. Ah, satin-quilted kirtle, Ah, pearled bosom, Let slip one flake of blossom, Deign but a sprig of myrtle, To the poor Fool, panting on his bended knee!” But silent grow the long swards cedar-shaded Where the young loves were sitting; And lo, in the silver-candled hall The bat is flitting, flitting. The tapestries are dusk upon the wall And the ladies bright, brocaded, All, with their blushes, faded.

HARPSICHORD

Now ye, the delicate patterers of the hush, Wings, hither! Scarce-rustlers of the sere involvéd leaf Who mourn for summers past with elfin grief, Ye who can hear along the inmost lawn Ebbings and flowings shrill When subtle ballads net the rime-cold daffodil And drift over the blue turf so nigh dumb They startle not from’s gloom e’en the airy fawn. Old Antony on his Nile-barge at dawn Caught your deck-walkings countless overhead And eased with ye a heart eclipsed and dead. Come swift, come soon Drift, like a veil over the moon, And rising round this crumbling Keep Shed ye, upon the sleepless, sleep.

CLAVICHORD

Wherefore, poor Fool, dost lie— Love, cap and bells put by— On thy pallet-bed so stark? “I am girt, soul and limb, Gainst horror dim. Ear tense to hark Mine eyeballs strain and swim Drowning in foamy dark. Comes no shock Nor earthly feet But the heart’s blood, ebb’d with the chill tower-clock To a single beat, Clots to a fear That God may appear— None other eye being near— And bare of his mantle of law Stand, a giant Spirit beautiful Sombre, pale, in avenging mail, Wings folded, on this planet’s skull; And before Him dropping like fine rain, A veil o’ the cloud o’ the dust of kings Noiseless descending the old Abyss ... Ah then, after this How gentle through the dark paths of the brain Comes the faint noise of outer things; The whirr and shower of wings— Satin shufflings of ivy leaves Ranging like bees the leaden pane— Jolting of carters, cries of falconers— The blessed courtyard stirs That do in mercy say Thou hast another day.”

THE MAN DIGGING

The isle was barren. Far as hawk may scan In moors it roll’d up to a headland bare Save for one narrow patch, by ceaseless care Sumptuous with corn. Against the sky a Man Digging the waste I saw,—bow’d veteran A stubborn spade he drave in stubborn ground And root and rock flung sheer without a sound Over the bleak edge.... Then anew began.

“You, who have lodged in the teeth of the abyss Your cabin low, and triumph rich as this Wrung from the ocean-bitter mountain side, What help’d you most to bring such treasure out?” He stood, and after scrutiny replied, “The thing on which I lean, the Spade of Doubt.”

SCHIEHALLION

Far the grey loch runs Up to Schiehallion. Lap, lap the water flows Where my wee boatie rows; Greenly a star shows Over Schiehallion.

She that I wander’d wi’ Over Schiehallion,— How far ayont your ken, Crags of the merry glen, Stray’d she, that wander’d then Down fra Schiehallion!

Sail of the wild swan Turn to Schiehallion! Here where the rushes rise Low the black hunter lies; Beat thou the pure skies Back to Schiehallion!

THE SHELL

I am a Shell out of the Asian sea, But my sad Pearl is gone, Risen to be Goddess—Venus green is she And I cast up alone.

Yet some night shall her brilliance stoop and take Unto her ear this shell, And hear the whisper of her own heart-break ... All that I serve to tell.

THE ROCK OF CLOUD

We heard a chanting in the fog On the frore face of the sea, And stay’d the galley like a log To sound that mystery.

And men throng’d up into the bow And hail’d the curling rack, “_What demon or what spirit thou?_” And the lone voice came back,

Came as of one so evil-starr’d That he hath done with grief, In monotone as keen and hard As the bell swung from a reef:

“Human I am—would I were foam— Row hither; ye may hear Yet shall not save nor bring me home Seek ye a thousand year.”

“_Keep a stout hope._” “I keep no hope.” “_Man alive_” “Spare your toil—” “_We are upon thee!_” “Nay, no rope Over the gap shall coil.”

“_Who art thou?_” “I was Pilot once On many a ship of mark: Went aboard—spoke to none—but steer’d; And dropt off in the dark.

“But one night—Christ!—we struck—we sank. I reach’d this rock of wings Whereby from every boulder’s flank The brown sea-ribbon swings.

“Here, where the sole eye of the Sun Did scorch my body bare, A great Sea-Spirit rose, and shone In the water thrill’d with hair....

“She lay back on the green abyss Beautiful; her spread arms Soothed to a poise—a sob—of bliss Huge thunders and alarms.

“Her breasts as pearl were dull and pure, Her body’s chasted light Swam like a cloud; her eyes unsure From the great depths were bright.

“There was no thing of bitterness In aught that she could say; She call’d my soul, as down a coast The Moon calls bay beyond bay And they rise—back o’ the uttermost— Away, and yet away:—

“‘I chose thee from the sinking crews— I bore thee up alive— Now durst thou follow me and choose Under the world to dive?

“‘Come! we will catch when stars are out The black wave’s spitting crest And still, when the Bull of Dawn shall spout, Be washing on abreast;

“‘Or thee a flame under the seas Paven with suns I’ll hide, Deathless and boundless and at ease In any shape to glide.

“‘All waters that on Earth have well’d At last to me repair,— All mountains starr’d with cities melt Into my dreamy air.

“‘Set on thy peak under the brink I’ll shew thee Storms above, The stuff of kingdoms:—they shall sink While thou dost teach me love; On beaches white as the young Moons I’ll sit, and fathom love.’”...

· · · · ·

“_And what saidst thou?_” “From over sea I felt a sighing burn That made this jagg’d rock seem to me More delicate than fern;

“And faint as moth-wings I could hear Tops of the pine-tree sway And the last words spoken in mine ear Before the break of day.

“And I cried out agonied at heart For her that sleeps at home, ‘Brightness, I will not know thine art, Nor to thy country come!’

“Straightway she sank—smiling so pale— But from the seethe up-broke— Never thrash’d off by gust or gale— White, everlasting smoke.

“It feels all over me with stealth Of languor that appals; It laps my fierce heart in a wealth Of soft and rolling walls;

“This mist no life may pass, save these Wave-wing’d, with shrieking voice; Stars I discern not, nor the seas—” “_O, dost not rue thy choice?_”

“Rue it? Now get back to the Deep, For I doubt if men ye be: No;—I must keep a steady helm By the star I cannot see.”

Passion o’ man! we sprang to oars, And sought on, weeping loud, All night in earshot of the shores But never through the cloud.

SHE COMES NOT WHEN NOON IS ON THE ROSES

She comes not when Noon is on the roses— Too bright is Day. She comes not to the Soul till it reposes From work and play.

But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices Roll in from Sea, By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlight She comes to me.

THE NIGHT

I put aside the branches That clothe the Door in gloom; A glow-worm lit the pathway And a lamp out of her room Shook down a stifled greeting: How could it greet aright The thirst of years like deserts That led up to this night?

But she, like sighing forests, Stole on me—full of rest, Her hair was like the sea’s wave, Whiteness was in her breast,— (_So does one come, at night, upon a wall of roses._)

As in a stone of crystal The cloudy web and flaw

Turns, at a flash, to rainbows, Wing’d I became—I saw I sang;—but human singing Ceased, in a burning awe.

Slow, amid leaves, in silence— Rapt as the holy pray— Flame into flame we trembled And the world sank away.

MAURYA’S SONG

Rushes that grow by the black water When will I see you more? When will the sorrowful heart forget you, Land of the green, green shore? When will the field and the small cabin See us more In the old country?

What is to me all the gold yonder? She that bore me is gone. Knees that dandled and hands that blessed me Colder than any stone; Stranger to me than the face of strangers Are my own In the old country.

Vein o’ my heart, from the lone mountain The smoke of the turf will die And the stream that sang to the young childer Run down alone from the sky: On the door-stone, grass,—and the cloud lying Where they lie In the old country.

Tired with the day’s monotony of dreaméd joys I turn to a requickening voice, A voice whose low tone devastates with nightly thrill The cities I have wrought at will: Stone forts depart, and armies heroic flee away Like the wild snow of spray. Deep down the green Broceliande’s branch’d corridors That voice of April pours; Light as a bird’s light shadow fled across my pages A touch disturbs the ages, And the crags and spears of Troy and the courts of Charlemain, Odin, and the splendid strain Of Cuchullain’s self, that with his heart’s high brother strove,— Fade, at the low voice I love.

YOU WERE STAY’D

You were stay’d in heart on heaven, I by none but you forgiven,— You unto your Light are taken, I of all, in you, forsaken.

Where the night is never broken Where for long no speech hath spoken, There the ears no longer hearken, There the eyeballs wane and darken.

Yet at hours my soul—so bounded— By that gloom like blood surrounded— Sees in ancient daylight burning— Hears departed feet returning.

THE BLOOM

Who are these ancients, gnarl’d and moss’d and weigh’d This way and that, under the sluggard blue And shine of morning—these whose arms are laid Low to the grasses and the sheets of dew— These bowers ruggëd within and thickly knit But feather’d over with a roseate white So frail that the breeze’s touch dismantles it And brings from cradled nurseries in flight— Snow-soft—the petals down In shadows green to drown?

We are the matrons. Bent are we and riven Under such years of ripeness manifold That unto us a special grace is given,— To wear a virgin’s beauty being old. Noiseless we wear it; round us in the croft These whisperers are leaves of other trees, Babblers that have not learn’d by fruitage oft To shade the heart with wide serenities On tendons knit to bear Sweetness in stormy air.

IN THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE, VERONA

Two architects of Italy—austere Men who could fashion nothing small—refused To die with life, and for their purpose used This dim and topless Amphitheatre.

Some Cæsar trench’d the orb of its ellipse And call’d on distant provinces to swell Resonant arches whence his World could scan, Tier above tier, the fighters and the ships.

But Dante—having raised, as dreamer can, Higher tenfold these walls immutable— Sole in the night arena, grew aware He was himself the thing spectacular Seized by the ever-thirsting gaze of Hell,— Here, on the empty sand, a banish’d man.

A WINTER SONG

_To Alice Meynell_

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

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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_.