The Wanderings of Oisin

Book I

 S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
 With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
 Have known three centuries, poets sing,
 Of dalliance with a demon thing.

 Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
 The swift innumerable spears,
 The horsemen with their floating hair,
 And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
 Those merry couples dancing in tune,
 And the white body that lay by mine;
 But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
 Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

 Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
 When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
 With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
 And passing the Firbolgs' burial-mounds,
 Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
 Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
 And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
 A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
 On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
 And like a sunset were her lips,
 A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
 A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

 But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
 And with the glimmering crimson glowed
 Of many a figured embroidery;
 And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
 That wavered like the summer streams,
 As her soft bosom rose and fell.

 S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

 Oisin. "Why do you wind no horn?' she said
 "And every hero droop his head?
 The hornless deer is not more sad
 That many a peaceful moment had,
 More sleek than any granary mouse,
 In his own leafy forest house
 Among the waving fields of fern:
 The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

 'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
 "We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
 And on the heroes lying slain
 On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
 But where are your noble kith and kin,
 And from what country do you ride?'

 "My father and my mother are
 Aengus and Edain, my own name
 Niamh, and my country far
 Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

 "What dream came with you that you came
 Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
 Did your companion wander away
 From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
 Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
 "I have not yet, war-weary king,
 Been spoken of with any man;
 Yet now I choose, for these four feet
 Ran through the foam and ran to this
 That I might have your son to kiss.'

 "Were there no better than my son
 That you through all that foam should run?'

 "I loved no man, though kings besought,
 Until the Danaan poets brought
 Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
 And now I am dizzy with the thought
 Of all that wisdom and the fame
 Of battles broken by his hands,
 Of stories builded by his words
 That are like coloured Asian birds
 At evening in their rainless lands.'

 O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
 There was no limb of mine but fell
 Into a desperate gulph of love!
 'You only will I wed,' I cried,
 "And I will make a thousand songs,
 And set your name all names above,
 And captives bound with leathern thongs
 Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
 At evening in my western dun.'

 "O Oisin, mount by me and ride
 To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
 Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
 And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
 Where broken faith has never been known
 And the blushes of first love never have flown;
 And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
 No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
 And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
 And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
 Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
 And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
 And oil and wine and honey and milk,
 And always never-anxious sleep;
 While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
 But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
 And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
 Who when they dance to a fitful measure
 Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
 Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
 And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
 And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
 Then she sighed gently, "It grows late.
 Music and love and sleep await,
 Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
 The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

 And then I mounted and she bound me
 With her triumphing arms around me,
 And whispering to herself enwound me;
 He shook himself and neighed three times:
 Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
 And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
 And bid me stay, with many a tear;
 But we rode out from the human lands.
 In what far kingdom do you go'
 Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
 Or are you phantoms white as snow,
 Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
 O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
 Or down the dewy forest alleys,
 I chased at morn the flying deer,
 With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
 And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
 And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
 And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
 Where are you with your long rough hair?
 You go not where the red deer feeds,
 Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

 S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
 Companions long accurst and dead,
 And hounds for centuries dust and air.

 Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
 I know not if days passed or hours,
 And Niamh sang continually
 Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
 Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
 Lulled weariness, and softly round
 My human sorrow her white arms wound.
 We galloped; now a hornless deer
 Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
 All pearly white, save one red ear;
 And now a lady rode like the wind
 With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
 And a beautiful young man followed behind
 With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
 "Were these two born in the Danaan land,
 Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

 "Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
 And sighing bowed her gentle head,
 And sighing laid the pearly tip
 Of one long finger on my lip.

 But now the moon like a white rose shone
 In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
 And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
 About his fading crimson ball:
 The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
 Was not more level than the sea,
 As, full of loving fantasy,
 And with low murmurs, we rode on,
 Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
 That in immortal silence sleeps
 Dreaming of her own melting hues,
 Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
 Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
 But now a wandering land breeze came
 And a far sound of feathery quires;
 It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
 They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
 The horse towards the music raced,
 Neighing along the lifeless waste;
 Like sooty fingers, many a tree
 Rose ever out of the warm sea;
 And they were trembling ceaselessly,
 As though they all were beating time,
 Upon the centre of the sun,
 To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
 And, now our wandering hours were done,
 We cantered to the shore, and knew
 The reason of the trembling trees:
 Round every branch the song-birds flew,
 Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
 While round the shore a million stood
 Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
 And pondered in a soft vain mood
 Upon their shadows in the tide,
 And told the purple deeps their pride,
 And murmured snatches of delight;
 And on the shores were many boats
 With bending sterns and bending bows,
 And carven figures on their prows
 Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
 And swans with their exultant throats:
 And where the wood and waters meet
 We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
 And Niamh blew three merry notes
 Out of a little silver trump;
 And then an answering whispering flew
 Over the bare and woody land,
 A whisper of impetuous feet,
 And ever nearer, nearer grew;
 And from the woods rushed out a band
 Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
 And singing, singing all together;
 Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
 Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
 And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
 And when they saw the cloak I wore
 Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
 They fingered it and gazed on me
 And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
 But Niamh with a swift distress
 Bid them away and hold their peace;
 And when they heard her voice they ran
 And knelt there, every girl and man,
 And kissed, as they would never cease,
 Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
 She bade them bring us to the hall
 Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
 A Druid dream of the end of days
 When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

 They led us by long and shadowy ways
 Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
 And tangled creepers every hour
 Blossom in some new crimson flower,
 And once a sudden laughter sprang
 From all their lips, and once they sang
 Together, while the dark woods rang,
 And made in all their distant parts,
 With boom of bees in honey-marts,
 A rumour of delighted hearts.
 And once a lady by my side
 Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
 And touch the laughing silver string;
 But when I sang of human joy
 A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
 And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
 Until one came, a tearful boy;
 "A sadder creature never stept
 Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
 And caught the silver harp away,
 And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
 It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
 That kept dim waters from the sky;
 And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
 "O saddest harp in all the world,
 Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

 And now, still sad, we came to where
 A beautiful young man dreamed within
 A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
 One hand upheld his beardless chin,
 And one a sceptre flashing out
 Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
 Like to a merry wandering rout
 Of dancers leaping in the air;
 And men and ladies knelt them there
 And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
 And with low murmurs prayed to him,
 And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
 And touched it with their finger-tips.
 He held that flashing sceptre up.
 "Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
 And fills with stars night's purple cup,
 And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
 And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
 And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
 And for the peewit paints his cap,
 And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
 And makes the little planets run:
 And if joy were not on the earth,
 There were an end of change and birth,
 And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
 And in some gloomy barrow lie
 Folded like a frozen fly;
 Then mock at Death and Time with glances
 And wavering arms and wandering dances.

 "Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
 That from the saffron morning came,
 Or drops of silver joy that fell
 Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
 But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
 And toss and turn in narrow caves;
 But here there is nor law nor rule,
 Nor have hands held a weary tool;
 And here there is nor Change nor Death,
 But only kind and merry breath,
 For joy is God and God is joy.'
 With one long glance for girl and boy
 And the pale blossom of the moon,
 He fell into a Druid swoon.

 And in a wild and sudden dance
 We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
 And swept out of the wattled hall
 And came to where the dewdrops fall
 Among the foamdrops of the sea,
 And there we hushed the revelry;
 And, gathering on our brows a frown,
 Bent all our swaying bodies down,
 And to the waves that glimmer by
 That sloping green De Danaan sod
 Sang, "God is joy and joy is God,
 And things that have grown sad are wicked,
 And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
 Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

 We danced to where in the winding thicket
 The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
 Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
 And bending over them softly said,
 Bending over them in the dance,
 With a swift and friendly glance
 From dewy eyes:  "Upon the dead
 Fall the leaves of other roses,
 On the dead dim earth encloses:
 But never, never on our graves,
 Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
 Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
 For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
 And all listless hours fear us,
 And we fear no dawning morrow,
 Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

 The dance wound through the windless woods;
 The ever-summered solitudes;
 Until the tossing arms grew still
 Upon the woody central hill;
 And, gathered in a panting band,
 We flung on high each waving hand,
 And sang unto the starry broods.
 In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
 Of milky brightness to and fro
 As thus our song arose:  "You stars,
 Across your wandering ruby cars
 Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
 He rules you with an iron rod,
 He holds you with an iron bond,
 Each one woven to the other,
 Each one woven to his brother
 Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
 But we in a lonely land abide
 Unchainable as the dim tide,
 With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
 And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
 Folded in love that fears no morrow,
 Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

 O Patrick! for a hundred years
 I chased upon that woody shore
 The deer, the badger, and the boar.
 O patrick! for a hundred years
 At evening on the glimmering sands,
 Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
 These now outworn and withered hands
 Wrestled among the island bands.
 O patrick! for a hundred years
 We went a-fishing in long boats
 With bending sterns and bending bows,
 And carven figures on their prows
 Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
 O patrick! for a hundred years
 The gentle Niamh was my wife;
 But now two things devour my life;
 The things that most of all I hate:
 Fasting and prayers.

 S.  Patrick. Tell On.

 Oisin. Yes, yes,
 For these were ancient Oisin's fate
 Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
 For his last days to lie in wait.
 When one day by the tide I stood,
 I found in that forgetfulness
 Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
 From some dead warrior's broken lance:
 I tutned it in my hands; the stains
 Of war were on it, and I wept,
 Remembering how the Fenians stept
 Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
 Equal to good or grievous chance:
 Thereon young Niamh softly came
 And caught my hands, but spake no word
 Save only many times my name,
 In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
 We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
 And found the horse and bridled him,
 For we knew well the old was over.
 I heard one say, "His eyes grow dim
 With all the ancient sorrow of men';
 And wrapped in dreams rode out again
 With hoofs of the pale findrinny
 Over the glimmering purple sea.
 Under the golden evening light,
 The Immortals moved among thc fountains
 By rivers and the woods' old night;
 Some danced like shadows on the mountains
 Some wandered ever hand in hand;
 Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
 Each forehead like an obscure star
 Bent down above each hooked knee,
 And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
 Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
 Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
 And, as they sang, the painted birds
 Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
 Like drops of honey came their words,
 But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

 "An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
 In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
 He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
 Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
 He hears the storm in the chimney above,
 And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
 While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
 And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

 But We are apart in the grassy places,
 Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
 Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
 Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
 The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
 And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
 Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
 She limps along in an aged whiteness;
 A storm of birds in the Asian trees
 Like tulips in the air a-winging,
 And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
 That raise their heads and wander singing,
 Must murmur at last, ""Unjust, unjust';
 And ""My speed is a weariness,' falters the mouse,
 And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
 And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
 But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
 When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
 And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
 And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'

The Wanderings of Oisin, Part II