“O, hast thou lost a husband dear?
Falls for a darling son thy tear,
Or daughter of thy heart?
Sweet, soft-palmed nymph, the cause reveal
To one who can thy sorrows feel,
Perchance can ease thy smart?”
The maid of tresses fair replied--
“A precious ring I wore;
Dropped from my finger in the tide,
Its loss I now deplore:
But by the sacred vows that bind
Each brave and loyal knight,
I now adjure thee, Chief, to find
My peerless jewel bright.”
He feels her adjuration’s ties;
Disrobes each manly limb,
And for the smooth-palmed princess hies
The gulfy lake to swim.
Five times deep-diving down the wave,
Through every cranny, nook, and cave,
With care he searches round and round,
Till the golden ring at length he found;
But scarce to shore the prize could bring,
When by some blasting ban--
Ah! piteous tale--the Fenian king
Grew a withered, grey, old man!
Meanwhile the Fenians passed the hours
In the hall of spears, at Almhuin’s towers;
The goblet crowned, with chessmen played,
Or gifts for gifts of love repaid,
When Caoilte rose and asked in grief,
“Ye spearmen, where is our gallant chief?
O, lost I dread is the Fenians’ boast--
Then who shall lead our bannered host?”
Bald Conan spoke--“A sweeter sound
Ne’er tingled on my ear;
If Fionn be lost, may he not be found
Till end the distant year!
But, Caoilte of the nimble feet,
Ye shall not want a chieftain meet;
In me, till Fionn’s fate be told,
The leader of your host behold!”
Although the Fenian bands were torn
With agony severe,
We burst into a laugh of scorn
Such arrogance to hear.
To urge the quest, we then decree,
Of Finn and his hounds the joyous three
That still to triumph led;
And soon from Almhuin’s halls away,
With Caoilte, I, and our dark array,
North to Slew Guillin sped.
There, as with searching glance the eye
O’er all the prospect rolled,
Beside the lake a wretch we spy,
Poor, withered, grey, and old.
Disgust and horror touched the heart
To see the bones all fleshless start
In a frame so lank and wan;
We thought him some starved fisher torn
From the whelming stream, by famine worn,
And left but the wreck of man.
We asked if he had chanced to see
A swift-paced chieftain go,
With two fleet hounds, across the lea,
Behind a fair young doe.
He gave us back no answer clear,
But in the nimble Caoilte’s ear
He breathed his tale--O, tale of grief!--
That in him we saw the Fenian chief!
Three sudden shouts to hear the tale
Our host raised loud and shrill--
The badgers started in the vale,
The wild deer on the hill.
Then Conan fierce unsheathed his sword,
And curs’d the Fenian king and his horde.
“If true thy tale,” he cries,
“This blade thy head would off thee smite;
For ne’er my valour in the fight,
Nor prowess didst thou prize.
Would that like thee, both old and weak,
Were the Fenians all, that my sword might reek
In their craven blood, and their cairns might swell
On the grassy lea!--for since Cumhail fell,
O’ercome in fateful strife
By Morni’s son of the golden shields,
Our sons thou hast sent to foreign fields,
Or of freedom reft and life.”
“Bald, senseless wretch! our care is due
To Finn’s sad state, or thy mouth should rue
A speech so vile, and soon atone
With shattered teeth and fractured bone.”
Indignant Caoilte spoke.
With equal wrath said Oscar stern,
“Audacious babbler! silence learn--
What foe e’er felt thy stroke?”
Then Conan thus--“Vain boy! be dumb,
Or tell what deed of fame
Did e’er thy Finn, but gnaw his thumb[4]
Until the marrow came?
WE, not Clan-Boske, did the deed
Whene’er we saw the foemen bleed.
Behind thee, Oisin, may thy son
A puling, whining chanter run,
And bear white book and bell.
His words I scorn--in open fight,
Which of us twain is in the right
Let swords, not speeches, tell.”
Him answered Oscar’s trusty steel;
When craven Conan, taught to feel,
And trembling for his worthless life,
The Fenians prayed to end the strife,
And stay rough Oscar’s blade.
Between them swift the Fenians rushed,
The rising storm of battle hushed,
And Oscar’s vengeance stayed.
Of Cumhail’s son then Caoilte sought
What wizard Danan foe had wrought
Such piteous change--and Finn replied,
“’Twas Guillin’s daughter--me she bound
By a sacred spell to search the tide
Till the ring she lost was found.”
Then Conan spoke in altered mood--
“Safe may we ne’er depart,
Till we see restored our chieftain good,
Or Guillin rue his art!”
Then close around our chief we throng,
And bear him on our shields along.
Eight days and nights the caverned seat
Where Guillin made his dark retreat
We dig with sleepless care;
Pour through its windings close the light,
Till we see, in all her radiance bright,
Spring forth th’ enchantress fair.
A chalice she bore of angled mould,[5]
And sparkling rich with gems and gold;
Its brimming fount in the hand she placed
Of Finn, whose looks small beauty graced.
Feeble he drinks--the potion speeds
Through every joint and pore;
To palsied age fresh youth succeeds--
Finn of the swift and slender steeds
Becomes himself once more.
His shape, his strength, his bloom returns,
And in manly glory bright he burns!
We gave three shouts that rent the air--
The badgers fled the vale:
And now, O sage of frugal care,
Hast thou not heard the tale?