And Meave, well nigh returned, the Shenan[35] near
Beside Ath-Luain[36] streaming in its might,
Decreed to make division of her spoil
Ere yet she crossed it. In the West the sun
Was sinking; in the East the moon uprose;
While camped her host on Uta’s sacred plain
Betwixt the double glories. Far away
Immeasurably glittered the pastures green
Illumed with million flowers. Nor spade, nor plough
Till then that virgin region had profaned;
Nor sound, save Shenan’s murmur, stirred therein.
There stood the Tomb Heroic. Beams and showers
Alone might pierce that soil sabbatical;
Such reverence held the spot. Now all was changed;
Ill choice; if chance, ill-omened. Neighing steeds
Dinned the still air; while here at times was heard
Whistling of him that fixed his tent, and there
Wood-cleaving axe or feaster’s laugh mistimed.
Higher and higher rose the moon full-orbed,
Mirrored in pool and stream. At intervals
Half lost in bard-song near or shout remote,
The slender wailing of some captive maid
Rang out and died.
The royal tent was set
High on a grassy platform. Meave that night
The first time since the death of Finobar
Was cheerful of aspéct; and, banquet o’er,
Rising her warriors she addressed with vaunt
Beseeming not a queen. ‘A year,’ she said,
‘Is past since northward to the war we marched:’
Then forth she loosed the sheets and spread the sails
And bounded on the waves of proud discourse
Recounting all her triumphs; first, her wrong;
Lastly, the cause of war, Cuailgné’s Donn
Chief captive mid her captives! Here her voice
Rang loudest, and her eyes their fiercest beamed.
Rapturous response succeeded; one alone,
A Druid old, dissentient. Thus he spake,
Not rising, to that throng of courtiers crowned:
‘Ill doctrine have ye praised this evening, kings,
Unwise, to Erin’s realms unprofitable,
Extolling war not based on righteous cause
Nor righteous ends ensuing. Kings and queen,
The end of war is retribution just
For deeds unjust; ill cure for greater ill:
Wars there must be; and woman-mouthed were he
Who railed against them:--aye, but demon-mouthed
The man that boasts of war-dishonouring wars
Opprobrious, spiteful, predatory, base.
Sirs, how began this feud? It rose from jest!
And what its close? A sacred site profaned,
Inviolate till this day!’ The warriors frowned;
Yet all men feared the Druid beard and rod:
They stood in silence.
Fergus rose, and spake:
‘Sirs, I have heard a war this day extolled,
A war this day denounced. On battle-field
Men say that I was born; on battle-fields
Have lived from youth to age. What thing war is
I ought to know. Yet, sirs, these wearied eyes
Rolled many a day around from East to West
Still seeking war, and found it not: they saw
Six hundred men successive by the hand
Of one man slain, Cuchullain; saw the torch
Hurl the red smoke-cloud o’er a thousand homes:
They saw a war-dance circle Uladh’s coasts;
They saw the ravished flock, and ravished herd,
The captive throng lance-goaded on its way,
Swine-herd and shepherd, hoary head, and maid
Beaming and basking in the healthful glow
Of youthful beauty. Sirs, they saw more late,
But saw from distance, Eman’s walls high-towered:
This, this they saw not; warriors, warrior-ruled,
Marching against them! Mountebanks of war
They saw; not warriors!’
Plainly Fergus spake:
Not otherwise than plainly could he speak,
A man to Truth predestined; since his birth
By courage sealed to Truth. The legend saith
That down before him on his natal morn
All Erin’s fays and sprites from river or rill
Their tributes laid. But, mightier far than they,
A wingèd goddess ran from sea to sea,
The island’s breadth, to hail him! As she sped,
The path before her, prone till then and low,
Rising ran out a craggy ridge sublime,
The same that for a hundred miles this day
Divides the realm. That highway lofty and straight
Foreshowed that ne’er in tortuous ways or base
Should walk that infant.
Raging, from their seats
The kings and chieftains leaped. A hundred swords
Flashed from their sheaths, and from a hundred mouths
One sentence issued--‘Death!’ By twos and threes
A score of stragglers from the exiles’ band
Closed up behind him. Cormac Conlinglas
Beside him stood, sword drawn.
Again he spake;
‘Queen, till that day of shame was battle none,
Nor on that day; nor since! But on that day
Beside your daughter’s cairn--more royal far
Though fortunate less was she--we two conversed:
I said; “Without one blow you think to pass
Eman, that cast me forth! Without one blow
To cross your Shenan, reach your Cruachan,
There make your terms secure, the spoil retained,
The exiles sent to judgment! Note you, Queen,
Those horsemen three a mile on yonder road?
My heralds they! The hour your flight begins
They speed to Eman.”
‘You retreated. They
Rode on to Conor. To that chief of foes
I wrote; “Advance! The queen retreats: make speed!
She shall not ’scape the battle. Know besides
That battle of earth’s battles till this hour
Shall prove the bloodiest. In it, sword to sword
We two shall meet; one die.”’
In measureless scorn
Then turned he to the kings, continuing thus;
‘What mean those clamours and those swords half drawn
Which draw ye dare not? Petty, titular kings!
The shadow of that royalty once mine
Dwarfs you to pygmies by comparison!
I heard a cry of “Treason!” Let them lift
Their hands who raised it! Kinglings mutinous,
Princes seditious, ye the traitors are!
And on the nod of him whom ye traduce,
Your pageant crowns sit trembling. Ere three days
Uladh is on you! I shall stand that hour
Your King Elect; not Ailill’s choice, but yours;
The Battle-King; for well ye know that I,
None else, have skill to range the battle-field,
And roll the thunders forth of genuine war.
Till that hour, silence, kings!’
Silence they kept,
Long silence. Then far off, as though from depths
By thought untraversable of cloudless skies,
Such sound was heard as reaches ships at sea
When, launched on airy voyage though still remote,
Nation of ocean-crossing birds begins
To obscure the serene heaven. That sound drew near:
From every tent the revellers rushed. Then lo!
That portent seen alone in fateful times,
The dread Mor Reega! Terrible as Fate
The goddess of the battles high o’er head
Sailed on full-panoplied, in hue as when
On Alpine snows, their sunset glories gone,
Night’s winding-sheet descends. Upon her casque
And spear beyond it pointing glared the moon,
And on a face like hers that froze of old
The gazers into stone. As on she sailed
On that huge army coldness fell of death:
Yea, some there died. Next morning, from that spot
Northward to Eman lay a branded track:
Straight as a lance still stretched it, league on league;
A bar of winter black through harvest fields,
A bridge of ice spanning the rippling waves;
A pledge that men had dreamed not.
In those days
Foreboding soon, like sorrow, passed away:
Ailill next morning counselled; ‘Ere the night
Cross we the Shenan. If the Red Branch comes
Fight we on Ai’s plain!’ But Meave replied
‘Not so; I fly not! One day here we rest:
Our kings await their spoil.’
From morn to eve
That spoil’s partition lasted; first, huge herds;
Flocks snowy-white through water-weeds and grass
Followed, hound-driven. War-horses few were there,
But many from the plough: with these, in crowds
Poor hinds, and swine-herds, maidens skilled in works
That knew to spin the flax or mix the dye
Or card the wool. Next followed wild-eyed boys
Bound each to each. No tear they shed, but scowled
Defiance on their lords and war-songs sang
Of Uladh and her vengeance. King and chief
Scanned each his prize with careless-seeming eye;
Yet oft their followers strove, while onward paced
The royal arbiters with wands high held,
Ruling the wrangling crew.
Upon a mound
Meantime the royal throne was set, a throng
Of warriors round it. Many a mirthful chance
Provoked their laughter: loudest laughed the queen;
But when she spake she waited not reply.
Without a bound to east and west and south
The prospect spread. Her eye was on the north:--
Not distant stood two hills: she asked their names:
Her great eyes darkened when the answer came
Of Gairig and Ilgairig.
’Twixt these twain,
Shone out, distincter as the sun declined,
Long northern ranges. Fergus marked her eye
That moved not from them, smiled, and made demand,
‘What find’st thou in our mountain ridges, Queen,
That merits gaze so fixed?’ Then she; ‘I note
Girdling their slopes a mist feathery and soft,
As though of snow-flakes wov’n: above it peaks
Shoot up, like isles cloud-hid. Within that mist
I see strange lights that cross like shooting stars;
Cross and re-cross, quick-bickering.’ With a smile
That deepened, Fergus questioned once again:
‘Make large thine eyes and tell me what thou seest!’
Then Meave; ‘Through all that mist is movement strange,
The agitation of some wondrous life,
And t’wards us on it rolleth.’ Fergus next;
‘Thine eyes see well! If others saw like thee
Their tongues would clang less loudly. Hear’st thou nought?’
The queen made answer; ‘Many a sea I hear
That breaks on many a shore.’
Then Fergus cried
‘Thou seest my Uladh coming, and the way
And fashion of the advent of her war!
For know, great Queen, even now the Red Branch Knights
Car-borne descend yon slopes! That mist thou saw’st
What is it but the tempest of their march,
The dust flung upwards and the sweat exhaled
And visible breath of warrior and of horse
That breathes the northwind and the sunny glare?
What else the snow-flakes which thou saw’st but foam
Dashed from the horses’ bits? Thy bickering stars,
What else but flaming cars and fiery helms
This way and that way passing? What thy peaks
Crowning that mist, but Uladh’s hills remote
That send her children to avenge her wrong?
And what that thunder sound of many seas
But music of their coming? Well for thee
If o’er them sail not, veiled from mortal eyes,
That dread Mor Reega!’
Reddened as he spake
Meave’s cheek late pale; yet careless she replied;
‘I see her not, therefore believe her not,
And breathe securely since that gleam far off
Is human, not demoniac or divine;
For never feared I yet the arm of man:
Cuchullain dead, I hold at nought the rest.’
Thus Meave: but all the kings and chiefs arose
Clamouring to her and Ailill; ‘Lo, ’tis come!
All Uladh, and a battle such as ne’er
Shook the foundations of this kingly isle!
Now therefore bid him rule thy host, the man
That knows to rule!’ ’Twixt passions twain at war
Meave silent stood. Ailill to Fergus turned
And spake; ‘Be thou henceforth our Battle-King:’
Thus spake he; then, releasing from his belt
The sword usurped of Fergus, added thus;
‘Receive once more thy sword! in mirth erewhile
I made it mine: the virtue in that blade
Hath kept me till this hour.’ Fergus replied;
‘I take mine own: but one month past, this sword
Had cut the cancer out of Uladh’s breast,
And made thy throne a praise on earth for aye!
I take mine own, on thee a sword bestowing
That best becomes thee. Waiting long this hour
For thee I kept it.’ Proudly Ailill clasped
Its glittering hilt: Fergus drew back the sheath;
And lo, a wooden sword, for babes a toy!
The concourse laughed; the loudest Meave: though wroth
Ailill a little whiffling laugh essayed
With sidelong face.
Then Fergus in the soil
Planting his sword upright before it knelt,
And spake; ‘O thou my sovereignty, my sword,
In many a battle, yet in none unjust,
So many a year my glory and my mate!
Mine art thou, mine once more! In all this host
Who shall henceforth reproach me?’
To his task
The strong one sped, and change was over all:
Again the voice of discipline was heard:
None drank in booths; none rushed abroad; with sloth
Fierceness had vanished. Followers of the camp
Alone were left in charge of flocks and herds:
The clansmen to their duties were restored,
The clans in order ranged. He delved a trench
Barring from Uta’s plain the advancing foe,
And bridges o’er it flung, that so his host
Permission given, and not till then, might strike
Forth pouring torrent-like at Uladh’s heart:
Pits too he dug bristling with stakes sod-hid.
He gave command like one that, born to power,
With courteous might scarce conscious puts it forth:
He spake the word: all heard him: all obeyed
Magnanimous to feel when majesty
Authentic stood before them. Duty done
Engendered strenuous joy, and strength, and hope:
Thus through the mass the spirit of one man
Triumphed, and ruling, raised it: on each face
His corporal semblance lived--light hearted might,
Deliberate resolve.
The moonlight hours
Shone brightly on their labours. Six had sped
Ere Fergus sought the royal tent where sat
Revellers right ill at ease. As in he passed,
The concourse, Meave herself and Ailill, rose,
And did him regal honours. Of his toils
Nought spake he; but their hearts who saw him swelled
And many marvelled why they late were sad:
Again the laugh; again the tale; the song--
Then came a change. A gradual sound was heard,
Yet what and whence they knew not. It increased;
It swelled ere long, voluminous; grating next;
Then dreadful like the splitting of a world
Whose strong foundations crumble. Forth they passed
Through hurrying clouds the moon rushed madly on,
Now dim, now fiercely glaring. From the north
In terror sped the forest beasts and dashed
Wild through the camp while panic fell on all.
The sole man unastonished, Fergus spake:
‘Sirs, late ye learn our warfare! As the spring,
When the first spray catches the amorous red,
Her song-bird sends, herald and harbinger,
So Uladh sends before her onward steps
Her shrill-voiced vanguard: men of might are they,
Hewers of war-ways for her battle cars
Advancing through the forests. First ye heard
Their axes only; last, the falling trees:--
What, Sirs, ye look like men ill-pleased! Well, well!
Not all delight in music. Sirs, good-night!
When breaks the dawn be stirring.’
In the camp
Few slept that night. Vanished the moon in cloud:
Then shone the watch-fires on the northern hills
Like stars.
Next morn the Uladh host down swarmed
Betwixt those neighbouring hills and round their base
Far spread as flood that, widening on its way,
Changes the heights to islands. Countless wrongs
And shame at all that long inglorious trance,
Roused wrath to madness; from them far they flung
Encumbering arms, and, bare from scalp to waist,
Worked on with brandished battle-axe. Three hours
That trench withstood them. Kelkar ruled their left,
Their right great Conal Carnach, while the king
Marshalled their centre. There the strongest bridge,
Tower-guarded, longest held their host at bay;
Longer had held it, save that from his place
Fergus, the hour foreseen arrived, gave word
‘Fling wide the gates!’ In rushed they; but to meet
A foe unwasted yet. The Red Branch Knights
Surpassed their old renown. In fresher strength
The host confederate met them. Meave herself
With downward mace three champions slew that day,
Him last, that felon son of faithful sire,
Buini, the Ruthless Red, who, breaking pledge,
Betrayed the sons of Usnach for a bribe:
His father’s prophecy the Accursed fulfilled
Slain by a woman’s hand. Fergus, at last
Forth launched upon his native element,
Raced o’er the battle billows like a bark
When tempests stretch its canvass. Chief on chief
Went down before that sword that still, men sware,
With sweep that widened like a rainbow’s arch
Ran from his hand and harvests reaped of death.
O’er-spent, not scared, that Northern host gave way
Sudden from east to west. It broke and fled.
Alone unvanquished Conor Conchobar
Maintained his place. He rallied twice and thrice
The fugitives; thrice turned them on the foe;
Then stabbed them flying. Last upon the bridge
He stood and sole. There met him face to face
The sole of foes his equal. Dreadful gaze
Long fixed they, each on other; Fergus spake:
‘Is this indeed that king who filched that realm
Not his, then shamed it by a bloodier fraud;
Who brake his pledge; who murdered Usnach’s sons;
Who drave from Uladh, Uladh’s rightful king;--
And comes he at my hand to meet his doom?
Just Gods, I thank you!’ With a haughtier mien,
Yet kingly less, King Conchobar replied:
‘Thou know’st me; and ’tis well! That king am I
Who, less than thou by lineage, but in mind
Loftier, attained that crown thou could’st not keep;
That king, who, breaking through a jesting pact
As eagles through a mist, by doom deserved
Requited rebels proved. That king am I
Who, when with traitors thou true pact hadst made,
Forth hurled thee naked to the wild wolf’s lair:
That was the worst I wished thee: worse by far
If aught of kingly once was thine thou found’st--
Beneath a hostile roof the beggar’s dole
Gorged on a golden platter, and the hand
Protectress, of a woman!’
Long that fight
Watched by two hosts in speechless stupor held,
Direful and long! Equal in might those twain,
Equal in craft of war. The kinglier soul
Conferred alone the victory. Fergus raised
The unvanquishable sword so late restored:
It fell in thunder: with it fell the king,
Fell to his knees, a bleeding mass, and blind:
Again that sword was raised: a moment more
Had ended all: then leaped to Fergus’ feet,
His knees enclasping, Cormac Conlinglas
King Conor’s son. He spake these words alone:
‘My father!--Spare him!’ Fergus ne’er had scorned
A look like his that hour. He turned: he spake:
‘Take hence that reptile:--holy is this plain!
A true king here was buried!’ Conor’s kernes
Lifted him to his war-car. Slowly it moved;
For Death was in the wheels thereof; and Death
Stood at its door.
That night in Uladh’s camp
Was silence strange and dread. By dying men
Sat men sore wounded. Scornful of their foe
And burning for revenge, the North had spurned
Science of war, their boast, and left, death-strewn,
Full half their host. Between their tents and Meave’s
All that long night the buriers of the dead
Groped their sad way with red, earth-grazing torch,
Turning the white face up in search of friend,
Brother, or son. But in the tent of Meave
Triumph ruled all: a hundred spake at once
Each man his deeds recounting. Far apart
Sat Fergus; on his brow alone was shade:
The deed was needful; but his country’s blood
Gladdened not him. Of those that marked him, some
Had reverence for his sadness: lesser souls
That long had hated, loathed the man that hour.
Sudden the din surceased. Far other sound
Quelled it: from Uladh’s sorrowing camp it swelled,
A jubilant cry soaring from earth to heaven!
Then flashed the eyes of Fergus, and he cried;
‘Cuchullain lives! That sound is Uladh’s shout
What time the host he enters!’ With a brow
Gloomy as night the queen replied; ‘’Tis false!
We know that in the forest, months gone by
Cuchullain perished!’ Silent long they stood;
Listening. At last rang out far different note
As piteous as the first was full of joy,
A funeral _keen_ world-wide. Then cried the queen,
‘Cuchullain lived! Cuchullain lives no more!
Wounded and weak he came to aid his own:
Too great such effort for a wasted frame:
That was Cuchullain’s death-dirge!’ Fierce she stood:
Glorying she spake, and with attendance passed
Forth from the hall of banquet to her tent:
But as she passed she heard at either side
She and her ladies with her, trembling heard
The rushing of a panic-stricken host
Invisible, though now the dawn was grey,
A host t’ward Shenan flying! High o’er head
A dulcet strain, unutterably sad,
When ceased that phantom rush of fugitive feet,
Drifted far northward. Then the queen was ware
These were her country’s gods that left her host.
The legend adds that in her tent that hour
Faythleen, the witch, she saw, who sat and wove
A mystic web and sang a mystic song,
Seen but by her:--and, later, o’er her bed
Men say that Orloff bent, her buried son,
And spake; ‘This day the battle shall be fought
Of Gairig and Ilgairig.’
He meanwhile,
The lord of all the battles, where was he,
Cuchullain? Many a weary day and week
Within his loved Murthemné’s woods he lay,
Sore-wounded man nigh death. Those shepherd youths
Tended him still, or sang beside his bed;
And ofttimes o’er his face the tears of Leagh
In passionate gust descended. But the might
Unholy of the clan of Cailitin
That nightly hung above him like a cloud
Began to wither when that mist accursed
Drifted from Uladh’s borders. On the breast
Pellucid, likewise, of Murthemné’s streams
Benignant spirits scattered flowers and herbs
With healing virtue dowered. He, morn and eve
In those clear currents laid, renewed his youth;
And, pure as infant’s, came again that flesh
Where festered late his wounds. At last, revived,
He passed, car-borne to Eman, north. The fields
Devastated, and wail from foodless glens
Filled him as on he sped with wrathful strength:
Next, tidings came of Conor’s southward march:
Exultingly he followed. On that night
Of overthrow he reached the royal camp:
Far off they kenned his car, and raised that shout
Heard never save for him. When near he drew
Way-worn, and wearied, and around him gazed,
And saw that sight, and thought, ‘too late; too late!’
His cheek upon the shoulder sank of Leagh,
And all men deemed him dead. Then rose that wail
To Meave auspicious sound.
There are who deem
Cuchullain’s tent that night was near the Well
Where, purer far, more late the royal maids
Fedelm and Ethna met that saint who gave
To God the isle of Fate. Blessing then too
That Well diffused, they say; for from its brink
A runnel o’er the pebbles ran with sound
So sweetly tuned that on the warrior sank
Deep seal of peace divine. The war-shouts near
To him thus harboured seemed but ocean’s sighs
Round islands ever calm. Then came, on winds
Fresher than earth’s, divinities more high
He thought than those that late from elfin meres
Amid Murthemné’s woods had dewed his face;
And loftier songs were sung; and balmier flowers
In holier fountains bathed were softlier pressed
On breast and brow; while shone before his eyes
Visions more fair than lordliest battle-field,
Though what they meant he knew not nor divined--
High-towerèd temples cruciform that rose
Far-seen o’er wood and street; and from their gates
Vestal procession issuing white, that wound
Through precincts low where only dwelt the poor,
The halt, the lame, the blind; and song he heard
With spiritual pathos changing sense to soul,
‘The end of all is peace.’ In silence slid
The constellations down the western sky;
And endless seemed that night.
At break of day
Came Conal Carnach and the Red Branch Knights
To see the sick man’s face. Thereon the morn
Laughed, dewy-bright: and lo! where long had lain
Pallor of death, now burned a healthful red:
Not less they dared not touch him; since with him
_Geisa_ it was if any broke his rest.
They left him, and the battle-storm began.
Warned by defeat Uladh had raised ere morn,
Fronting her camp, three bulwarks: at the first
And distant most, three hours the conflict raged.
It fell at last. When rose the conquerors’ shout
Leagh to Cuchullain crept, and touched him not,
Yet knelt and whispered, ‘Heard you not that sound?’
And thus Cuchullain answered still in trance;
‘I heard the runnels in Murthemné’s woods
Snow-swoll’n in spring.’ Then Leagh stood up and mused
‘The hue of health is on his face, and yet
Because he will not wake the land is shamed.’
Next round the second bulwark raged the war
Hour after hour: heroic deeds were done:
Heroic deaths were died: at last it fell:
Again and nearer rose the conquerors’ shout:
Again with bolder foot and forehead flushed
Leagh to Cuchullain moved and touched him not
But, bending, murmured, ‘Heard you not that sound?’
And he, without awaking, answered thus;
‘I heard the birds in Eimer’s pleasaunce sing
To greet our marriage morn.’ Then Leagh went forth
Groaning, and smote his hands, and wept aloud
‘Because he will not wake the host must die!’
Around the loftiest bulwark and the last
Once more for hours the battle raged: it fell!
And louder thrice that shout went up. The gaze
Of Leagh was on him fixed: he heard it not:
Slowly it died; and as it died the wail
Came feebly forth from Uladh’s host. A change
Flashed o’er Cuchullain’s face: like fire it shone:
Into his tent he sprang midway! Then lo!
A marvel! for the wounded man that slept
All day with bandages enswathed, up-towered
Full-armed for fight a champion spear in hand,
Work of some god! Swift from his tent he strode:--
Without the hand of man there stood his car
And those immortal steeds pawing the air
With wonted battle-cry! A moment more
And forward to Ilgairig’s slope they dashed:
‘Let but the armies see him,’ inly mused
Leagh, ‘and the work is done!’
Onward they sped;
But not unnoted by that demon brood
That hate the works of justice. From below
Writhing in torment of their rage they heaved