Alas, dull echoes alone answer my wailing summons.
Treason, indeed, and Vengeance! for lo, in the hallowed Némèdes
The wayside flaunt of the Cross!
Tarann no longer sends forth his terror of thunder!
Camul no longer laughs behind the strength of his arm!
Tentatès, rising in wrath, has not yet crumbled the earth;
Esus is deaf to our call!
Whither, O whither fled are ye, ye powerful, redoubtable gods;
And ye, ye famous Druids, the glory and terror of Armor?
Who has usurped, who has o’erwhelmed ye, unconquerable knights,
Warriors of the golden collar?
[Sidenote: LEO-KERMORVAN]
Thou, who harkenest, I have been in the place of the Ancients!
I, alone among mortals, thence have issued alive:
Alas, the temple was deserted: I saw nought but some wind-haunted oaks
Swaying in the silence.
All is fugitive! pride, pleasure, the song, the dance,
Blithe joys of friendship, noble rivalries all:
The keen swift song of the swords, the whistling lances!
Dreams of a dreamer all!... But no,
A new dawn wakes and laughs on the breast of the darkness;
Earth has her sunshine still, the grave her Spring;
Many a time Dylan hath oared me afar in the deathbarque,
Many a death-sleep mine, and long!
For long I have slept with the heavy sleep of the dead,
Ofttimes my fugitive body has passed into divers forms,
I have spread strong wings on the air, I have swum in dark waters,
I have crawled in the woods.
But, amid all these manifold changes, my soul
Remaineth ever the same: it is always, always “myself”!
And now I see well that this is the law of all that liveth,
Though none beholdeth the reason, none the end.
Still stand our lonely menhirs, and still the wayfarer shudders
As in the desolate dusk he passes these Stones of Silence!
Thou speakest, I understand! Thy Breton tongue
Is that of the ancient Kymry.
Lights steal through the hours of shadow flame-lit for unknown saints,
As, in the days of old, our torches flared on the night:
Ah, before ever these sacred lamps shone for your meek apostles,
They burned for Héol.
Blind without reason are we, thus changing the names of the gods:
Thus, mayhap, we think to destroy them, we who abandon their altars!
But, cold, calm, unsmiling before our laughter and curses,
The gods wait, immortal.
Yea, while the sacred fires still burn along the hill-tops,
Yea, while a single lichened menhir still looms from the brushwood,
Yea, whether they name thee Armorica, Brittany, Breiz-Izèl,
Thou art ever the same dear land!
Ah, soul of me ofttimes to thee, Land of mystery!
Ofttimes again shall I breathe in thy charmèd air!
Sure, every weary singer knoweth the secret name of thee,
Land of Heart’s Desire!
Enduring thou art! For not the slow frost of the ages
Shall dim from thy past thy glory immortally graven!--
Granite thy soil, thy soul, loved nest of Celtic nations!--
Sings the lost Voice, Taliesin.
By Menec’hi Shore.
[Sidenote: LOUIS TIERCELIN]
Sad the sea-moan that echoes through my dream,
And sad the auroral sky suffused with gold,
Sad the blue wave that croons along the shore--
O Joy of Night in whose still calms I sleep!
Sadness of love, and O tired heart of man:
Sadness of hope, and all brave vows that be:
Sadness of joy itself, the joys we know!
Joy of Oblivion, is there bliss with thee?
Sad is the splendour, glory, the bright flame
And laughter of the soul, since underneath
Dreams and Desires veiled Mystery broods obscure ...
O Joy of Death, with thee the Vials of Peace!
VIII
THE CELTIC FRINGE
Song.
[Sidenote: BLISS CARMAN]
Love, by that loosened hair
Well now I know
Where the lost Lilith went
So long ago.
Love, by those starry eyes
I understand
How the sea-maidens lure
Mortals from land.
Love, by that welling laugh
Joy claims his own
Sea-born and wind-wayward
Child of the sun.
The War-Song of Gamelbar.
Bowmen, shout for Gamelbar!
Winds, unthrottle the wolves of war!
Heave a breath
And dare a death
For the doom of Gamelbar!
Wealth for Gamel,
Wine for Gamel,
Crimson wine for Gamelbar!
Chorus:--Oh, sleep for a knave
With his sins in the sod!
And death for the brave,
With his glory up to God!
And joy for the girl,
And ease for the churl!
But the great game of war
For our lord Gamelbar,
Gamelbar!
Spearmen, shout for Gamelbar,
With his warriors thirty score!
Heave a sword
For our overlord,
Lord of warriors, Gamelbar!
Life for Gamel,
Love for Gamel,
Lady-loves for Gamelbar!
Horsemen, shout for Gamelbar!
Swim the ford and climb the scaur!
Heave a hand
For the maiden land,
The maiden land of Gamelbar!
Glory for Gamel,
Gold for Gamel,
Yellow gold for Gamelbar!
Armourers for Gamelbar,
Rivet and forge and fear no scar!
Heave a hammer
With anvil clamour,
To weld and brace for Gamelbar!
Ring for Gamel,
Rung for Gamel,
=Ring-rung-ring= for Gamelbar!
Yeomen, shout for Gamelbar,
And his battle-hand in war!
Heave his pennon;
Cheer his men on,
In the ranks of Gamelbar!
Strength for Gamel,
Song for Gamel,
One war-song for Gamelbar!
Roncliffe, shout for Gamelbar!
Menthorpe, Bryan, Castelfar!
Heave, Thorparch
Of the Waving Larch,
And Spofford’s thane, for Gamelbar!
Blaise for Gamel,
Brame for Gamel,
Rougharlington for Gamelbar!
Maidens, strew for Gamelbar
Roses down his way to war!
Heave a handful,
Fill the land full
Of your gifts to Gamelbar!
Dream of Gamel,
Dance for Gamel,
Dance in the halls for Gamelbar!
Servitors, shout for Gamelbar!
Roast the ox and stick the boar!
Heave a bone
To gaunt Harone,
The great war-hound of Gamelbar!
Mead for Gamel,
Mirth for Gamel,
Mirth at the board for Gamelbar!
Trumpets, speak for Gamelbar!
Blare as ye never blared before!
Heave a bray
In the horns to-day,
The red war-horns of Gamelbar!
To-night for Gamel,
The North for Gamel,
With fires on the hills for Gamelbar!
Shout for Gamel, Gamelbar,
Till your throats can shout no more!
Heave a cry
As he rideth by,
Sons of Orm, for Gamelbar!
Folk for Gamel,
Fame for Gamel,
Years and fame for Gamelbar!
Chorus:--Oh, sleep for a knave
With his sins in the sod!
And death for the brave,
With his glory up to God!
And joy for the girl,
And ease for the churl!
But the great game of war
For our lord Gamelbar,
Gamelbar!
Golden Rowan.
[Sidenote: BLISS CARMAN]
She lived where the mountains go down to the sea,
And river and tide confer.
Golden Rowan, in Menalowan,
Was the name they gave to her.
She had the soul no circumstance
Can hurry or defer.
Golden Rowan, of Menalowan,
How time stood still for her!
Her playmates for their lovers grew,
But that shy wanderer,
Golden Rowan, of Menalowan,
Knew love was not for her.
Hers was the love of wilding things;
To hear a squirrel chirr
In the golden rowan of Menalowan
Was joy enough for her.
She sleeps on the hill with the lonely sun,
Where in the days that were,
The golden rowan of Menalowan
So often shadowed her.
The scarlet fruit will come to fill,
The scarlet spring to stir
The golden rowan of Menalowan,
And wake no dream for her.
Only the wind is over her grave,
For mourner and comforter;
And “Golden Rowan, of Menalowan,”
Is all we know of her.
A Sea Child.
[Sidenote: BLISS CARMAN]
The lover of child Marjory
Had one white hour of life brim full;
Now the old nurse, the rocking sea,
Hath him to lull.
The daughter of child Marjory
Hath in her veins, to beat and run,
The glad indomitable sea,
The strong white sun.
The Quest.
[Sidenote: ELLEN MACKAY HUTCHINSON]
It was a heavenly time of life
When first I went to Spain,
The lovely lands of silver mists,
The land of golden grain.
My little ship through unknown seas
Sailed many a changing day;
Sometimes the chilling winds came up
And blew across her way.
Sometimes the rain came down and hid
The shining shores of Spain,
The beauty of the silver mists
And of the golden grain.
But through the rains and through the winds,
Upon the untried sea,
My fairy ship sailed on and on,
With all my dreams and me.
And now, no more a child, I long
For that sweet time again,
When on the far horizon bar
Rose up the shores of Spain.
O lovely land of silver mists,
O land of golden grain,
I look for you with smiles, with tears,
But look for you in vain!
Moth-Song.
What dost thou here,
Thou dusky courtier,
Within the pinky palace of the rose?
Here is no bed for thee,
No honeyed spicery,--
But for the golden bee,
And the gay wind, and me
Its sweetness grows.
Rover, thou dost forget;--
Seek thou the passion-flower
Bloom of one twilight hour.
Haste, thou art late!
Its hidden savours wait.
For thee is spread
Its soft, purple coverlet;
Moth, art thou sped?
--Dim as a ghost he flies
Through the night mysteries.
June.
[Sidenote: ELLEN MACKAY HUTCHINSON]
Of silvery-shining rains
And noonday golds and shadows
June weaves wild-daisy chains
For happy meadows.
She stoops to set the stream
With scented alder-bushes,
And with the rainbow gleam
Of iris ’mid the rushes,
She scatters eglantine
And scarlet columbine.
Ah, June, my lovely lass,--
Sweetheart, dost thou not see
I stay to watch thee pass--
What hast thou brought to me?
Thy mystic ministries
Of glorious far skies,
Thy wild-rose sermons, Sweet,
Like dreams profound and fleet,
Thy woodland harmony
Thou givest me.
The vision that can see,
The loving will to learn,
How fair thy skies may be,
What in thy roses burn,
Thy secret harmonies,--
Ah, give me these!
Scent o’ Pines.
[Sidenote: HUGH M‘CULLOCH]
Love, shall I liken thee unto the rose
That is so sweet?
Nay, since for a single day she grows,
Then scattered lies upon the garden-rows
Beneath our feet.
But to the perfume shed when forests nod,
When noonday shines,
That lulls us as we tread the woodland sod,
Eternal as the peace of God
The scent o’ pines.
The Reed-Player.
[Sidenote: DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT]
By a dim shore where water darkening
Took the last light of spring,
I went beyond the tumult, harkening
For some diviner thing.
Where the bats flew from the black elms like leaves,
Over the ebon pool
Brooded the bittern’s cry, as one that grieves
Lands ancient, bountiful.
I saw the fire-flies shine below the wood,
Above the shallows dank,
As Uriel, from some great altitude,
The planets rank on rank.
And now unseen along the shrouded mead
One went under the hill;
He blew a cadence on his mellow reed,
That trembled and was still.
It seemed as if a line of amber fire
Had shot the gathered dusk,
As if had blown a wind from ancient Tyre
Laden with myrrh and musk.
He gave his luring note amid the fern;
Its enigmatic fall
Haunted the hollow dusk with golden turn
And argent interval.
I could not know the message that he bore,
The springs of life from me
Hidden; his incommunicable lore
As much a mystery.
And as I followed far the magic player
He passed the maple wood;
And, when I passed, the stars had risen there,
And there was solitude.
The Celtic Cross.
[Sidenote: THOMAS D’ARCY M‘CGEE]
Through storm and fire and gloom, I see it stand
Firm, broad, and tall,
The Celtic Cross that marks our Fatherland,
Amid them all!
Druids and Danes and Saxons vainly rage
Around its base;
It standeth shock on shock, and age on age,
Star of our scatter’d race.
O Holy Cross! dear symbol of the dread
Death of our Lord,
Around thee long have slept our martyr dead
Sward over sward.
An hundred bishops I myself can count
Among the slain:
Chiefs, captains, rank and file, a shining mount
Of God’s ripe grain.
The monarch’s mace, the Puritan’s claymore,
Smote thee not down;
On headland steep, on mountain summit hoar,
In mart and town,
In Glendalough, in Ara, in Tyrone,
We find thee still,
Thy open arms still stretching to thine own,
O’er town and lough and hill.
And would they tear thee out of Irish soil,
The guilty fools!
How time must mock their antiquated toil
And broken tools!
Cranmer and Cromwell from thy grasp retir’d,
Baffled and thrown;
William and Anne to sap thy site conspir’d,--
The rest is known.
[Sidenote: THOMAS D’ARCY M‘CGEE]
Holy Saint Patrick, father of our faith,
Belov’d of God!
Shield thy dear Church from the impending scaith,
Or, if the rod
Must scourge it yet again, inspire and raise
To emprise high
Men like the heroic race of other days,
Who joyed to die.
Fear! wherefore should the Celtic people fear
Their Church’s fate?
The day is not--the day was never near--
Could desolate
The Destin’d Island, all whose clay
Is holy ground:
Its Cross shall stand till that predestin’d day
When Erin’s self is drown’d.
The Tryst of the Night.
[Sidenote: MARY C. G. BYRON
(M. C. Gillington)]
Out of the uttermost ridge of dusk, where the dark and
the day are mingled,
The voice of the Night rose cold and calm--it called through
the shadow-swept air;
Through all the valleys and lone hillsides, it pierced, it
thrilled, it tingled--
It summoned me forth to the wild sea-shore, to meet with its
mystery there.
Out of the deep ineffable blue, with palpitant swift repeating
Of gleam and glitter and opaline glow, that broke in ripples of light--
In burning glory it came and went,--I heard, I saw it beating,
Pulse by pulse, from star to star,--the passionate heart of the Night!
Out of the thud of the rustling sea--the panting, yearning, throbbing
Waves that stole on the startled shore, with coo and mutter of spray--
The wail of the Night came fitful-faint,--I heard her stifled sobbing:
The cold salt drops fell slowly, slowly, gray into gulfs of gray.
There through the darkness the great world reeled, and the great
tides roared, assembling--
Murmuring hidden things that are past, and secret things that shall be;
There at the limits of life we met, and touched with a
rapturous trembling--
One with each other, I and the Night, and the skies, and
the stars, and sea.
The Doom-Bar.
[Sidenote: ALICE E. GILLINGTON]
O d’you hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, whilst it’s rainin’?
Did you hear it mourn in the dimorts,[33] when the surf
woke up and sighed?
The choughs screamed on the sand,
And the foam flew over land,
And the seas rolled dark on the Doom-Bar at rising of the tide.
I gave my lad a token, when he left me nigh heartbroken,
To mind him of old Padstow town, where loving souls abide;
’Twas a ring with the words set
All round, “Can Love Forget?”
And I watched his vessel toss on the Bar with the outward-turning tide.
D’you hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, while it’s rainin’?
And his vessel has never crossed the Bar from the purple seas outside;
And down the shell-pink sands,
Where we once went, holding hands,
Alone I watch the Doom-Bar and the rising of the tide.
One day--’twas four years after--the harbour-girls, with laughter
So soft and wild as sea-gulls when they’re playing seek-and-hide,
Coaxed me out--for the tides were lower
Than had ever been known before;
And we ran across the Doom-Bar, all white and shining wide.
I saw a something shinin’, where the long, wet weeds were twinin’
Around a rosy scallop; and a gold ring lay inside;
And around its rim were set
The words “Can Love Forget?”--
And there upon the Doom-Bar I knelt and sobbed and cried.
I took my ring and smoothed it where the sand and shells had grooved it;
But O! St Petrock bells will never ring me home a bride!--
For the night my lad was leavin’
Me, all tearful-eyed and grievin’,
He had tossed my keepsake out on the Bar to the rise and fall of the tide!
D’you hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, while it’s rainin’?
Did you hear them call in the dimorts, when the surf woke up and sighed?
Maybe it is a token
I shall go no more heart-broken--
And I shall cross the Doom-Bar at the turning of the tide.
The Seven Whistlers.
[Sidenote: ALICE E. GILLINGTON]
Whistling strangely, whistling sadly, whistling sweet and clear,
The Seven Whistlers have passed thy house, Pentruan of Porthmeor;
It was not in the morning, nor the noonday’s golden grace,
It was in the dead waste midnight, when the tide yelped loud in the Race:
The tide swings round in the Race, and they’re plaining whisht and low,
And they come from the gray sea-marshes, where the gray
sea-lavenders grow,
And the cotton-grass sways to and fro;
And the gore-sprent sundews thrive
With oozy hands alive.
Canst hear the curlews’ whistle through thy dreamings dark and drear,
How they’re crying, crying, crying, Pentruan of Porthmeor?
Shall thy hatchment, mouldering grimly in yon church amid the sands,
Stay trouble from thy household? Or the carven cherub-hands
Which hold thy shield to the font? Or the gauntlets on the wall
Keep evil from its onward course as the great tides rise and fall?
The great tides rise and fall, and the cave sucks in the breath
Of the wave when it runs with tossing spray, and the ground-sea
rattles of Death;
“I rise in the shallows,” ’a saith,
“Where the mermaid’s kettle sings,
And the black shag flaps his wings!”
Ay, the green sea-mountain leaping may lead horror in its rear,
When thy drenched sail leans to its yawning trough, Pentruan of Porthmeor!
Yet the stoup waits at thy doorway for its load of glittering ore,
And thy ships lie in the tideway, and thy flocks along the moor;
And thine arishes gleam softly when the October moonbeams wane,
When in the bay all shining the fishers set the seine;
The fishers cast the seine, and ’tis “Heva!” in the town,
And from the watch-rock on the hill the huers are shouting down;
And ye hoist the mainsail brown,
As over the deep-sea roll
The lurker follows the shoal;
To follow and to follow, in the moonshine silver-clear,
When the halyards creek to thy dipping sail, Pentruan of Porthmeor!
And wailing, and complaining, and whistling whisht and clear,
The Seven Whistlers have passed thy house, Pentruan of Porthmeor!
It was not in the morning, nor the noonday’s golden grace,--
It was in the fearsome midnight, when the tide-dogs yelped in the Race:
--The tide swings round in the Race, and they’re whistling whisht and low,
And they come from the lonely heather, where the fur-edged foxgloves blow,
And the moor-grass sways to and fro,
Where the yellow moor-birds sigh,
And the sea-cooled wind sweeps by.
Canst hear the curlews’ whistle through the darkness wild and drear,--
How they’re calling, calling, calling Pentruan of Porthmeor?
Requiem.
[Sidenote: SHANE LESLIE]
In sweet Irish clay may I lie
Heart clasped to my race,
O brothers and sisters of mine,
Give me your space.
For mine was the life that you lived,
The fight that you fought,
And bright in the gloom of mine own
Were deeds you had wrought.
So let the dear dust of your head
Drift over my face,
And this be the dirge that you sing
And song that you trace.
A pebble is thrown to the beach
From whence it was brought,
A leaf has dropped weary for rest
To those it had sought.
An Old Woman of the Roads.
(“Wild Earth and other Poems.” Macmillan.)
[Sidenote: PADRAIC COLUM]
O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped-up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed, and loath to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph!
Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there’s never a house or bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!
And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house--a house of my own--
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.
A Cradle Song.
(“Wild Earth and other Poems.” Macmillan.)
[Sidenote: PADRAIC COLUM]
O, men from the fields!
Come softly within.
Tread softly, softly,
O men coming in.
Mavourneen is going
From me and from you,
Where Mary will fold him
With mantle of blue
From reek of the smoke
And cold of the floor,
And peering of things
Across the half-door.
O men from the fields!
Soft, softly come thro’.
Mary puts round him
Her mantle of blue.
The Coolun.
(“Reincarnations.” Macmillan.)
[Sidenote: ELEANOR HULL]
Come with me, under my coat,
And we will drink our fill
Of the milk of the white goat,
Or wine if it be thy will;
And we will talk until
Talk is a trouble, too,
Out on the side of the hill,
And nothing is left to do,
But an eye to look into an eye
And a hand in a hand to slip,
And a sigh to answer a sigh,
And a lip to find out a lip:
What if the night be black
And the air on the mountain chill,
Where the goat lies down in her track
And all but the fern is still!
Stay with me under my coat,
And we will drink our fill
Of the milk of the white goat
Out on the side of the hill.
The Clouds.
(“Songs from the Clay.” Macmillan.)
[Sidenote: JAMES STEPHENS]
I stood and looked around where, far and nigh,
The heather bloom was swaying in the air,
The clouds chased one another down the sky
Beyond my sight, and everywhere
The birds flew through the sunshine, where they sang
So loud, so clear, so sweet, the heavens rang
Of lark and thrush and stare.
I never heard a melody so sweet
As I heard then; I never knew a day
So filled with sunshine; never saw the fleet
And tinted clouds so high and free and gay;
Each danced to the horizon like a boy
Let out from school, each tumbled in its joy
And ran away.
The Old Woman of Beare.
(“The Poem Book of the Gael.” Chatto & Windus.)
[Sidenote: ELEANOR HULL]
Ebb tide to me!
My life drifts downward with the drifting sea;
Old age has caught and compassed me about,
The tides of time run out.
The “Hag of Beare!”
’Tis thus I hear the young girls jeer and mock;
Yet I, who in these cast-off clouts appear,
Once donned a queenly smock.
Ye love but self,
Ye churls! to-day ye worship pelf!
But in the days I lived we sought for men,
We loved our lovers then!
Ah! swiftly when
Their splendid chariots coursed upon the plain,
I checked their pace, for me they flew amain,
Held in by curb and rein.
I envy not the old,
Whom gold adorns, whom richest robes enfold,
But ah! the girls, who pass my cell at morn,
While I am shorn!
On sweet May-morn
Their ringing laughter on the breeze is borne,
While I, who shake with ague and with age,
In Litanies engage.
Amen! and woe is me!
I lie here rotting like a broken tree;
Each acorn has its day and needs must fall,
Time makes an end of all!
[Sidenote: ELEANOR HULL]
I had my day with kings!
We drank the brimming mead, the ruddy wine,
Where now I drink whey-water; for company more fine
Than shrivelled hags, hag though I am, I pine.
The flood-tide thine!
Mine but the low down-curling ebb-tide’s flow,
My youth, my hope, are carried from my hand,
Thy flood-tide foams to land.
My body drops
Slowly but sure towards the abode we know;
When God’s High Son takes from me all my props
It will be time to go!
Bony my arms and bare
Could you but see them ’neath the mantle’s flap.
Wizened and worn, that once were round and fair,
When kings lay in my lap.
’Tis, “O my God” with me,
Many prayers said, yet more prayers left undone;
If I could spread my garment in the sun
I’d say them, every one.
The sea-wave talks,
Athwart the frozen earth grim winter stalks;
Young Fermod, son of Mugh, ne’er said me nay,
Yet he comes not to-day.
How still they row,
Oar dipped by oar the wavering reeds among,
To Alma’s shore they press, a ghostly throng,
Deeply they sleep and long.
No lightsome laugh
Disturbs my fireside’s stillness; shadows fall,
And quiet forms are gathering round my hearth,
Yet lies the hand of silence on them all.
I do not deem it ill
That a nun’s veil should rest upon my head;
But finer far my feast-robe’s various hue
To me, when all is said.
My very cloak grows old;
Grey its tint, its woof is frayed and thin;
I seem to feel grey hairs within its fold,
Or are they on my skin?
O happy Isle of Ocean,
Thy flood-tide leaps to meet eddying wave
Lifting it up and onward. Till the grave
The sea-wave comes not after ebb for me.
I find them not
Those sunny sands I knew so well of yore;
Only the surf’s sad roar sounds up to me,
My tide will turn no more.
From a “Litany of Beauty.”
[Sidenote: THOMAS MACDONAGH]