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-motmds,
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 ***** 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.'

#######
BOOK II
#######

NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names
And then away, away, like whirling flames;
And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,
The youth and lady and the deer and hound;
"Gaze no more on the phantoms,' Niamh said,
And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head
And her bright body, sang of faery and man
Before God was or my old line began;
Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old
Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold;
And how those lovers

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-motmds,
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 ***** 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.'

Budging the sluggard ripples of the Somme,
A barge round old Cérisy slowly slewed.
Softly her engines down the current *******,
And chuckled softly with contented hum,
Till fairy tinklings struck their croonings dumb.
The waters rumpling at the stern subdued;
The lock-gate took her bulging amplitude;
Gently from out the gurgling lock she swum.

One reading by that calm bank shaded eyes
To watch her lessening westward quietly.
Then, as she neared the bend, her funnel screamed.
And that long lamentation made him wise
How unto Avalon, in agony,
Kings passed in the dark barge, which Merlin dreamed.

Sermoni propriora.—Hor.

Low was our pretty Cot; our tallest Rose
Peep’d at the chamber-window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea’s faint murmur. In the open air
Our Myrtles blossom’d; and across the porch
Thick Jasmins twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refresh’d the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa’s citizen: methought it calm’d
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paus’d, and look’d
With a pleas’d sadness, and gaz’d all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gaz’d round again,
And sigh’d, and said, it was a Blessed Place.
And we were bless’d. Oft with patient ear
Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark’s note
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen
Gleaming on sunny wings) in whisper’d tones
I’ve said to my Beloved, ‘Such, sweet Girl!
The inobtrusive song of Happiness,
Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard
When the Soul seeks to hear; when all is hush’d,
And the Heart listens!’
                                   But the time, when first
From that low Dell, steep up the stony Mount
I climb’d with perilous toil and reach’d the top.
Oh! what a goodly scene! the bleak mount,
The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep;
Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;
And river, now with bushy rocks o’erbrow’d,
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;
And seats, and lawns, the Abbey and the wood,
And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire;
The Channel, the Islands and white sails,
Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless Ocean—
It seem’d like Omnipresence! God, methought,
Had built him there a Temple: the whole World
Seem’d in its vast circumference:
No profan’d my overwhelmed heart.
Blest hour! It was a luxury ,—to be!

  Ah! quiet Dell! dear Cot, and Mount sublime!
I was constrain’d to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumber’d brethren toil’d and bled,
That I should dream away the entrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard’s eye
Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth:
And he that works me good with unmov’d face,
Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,
My benefactor, not my brother man!
Yet even this, this cold beneficence
Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann’st
The sluggard Pity’s vision-weaving tribe!
Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the Wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude
Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.

Yet oft when after honourable toil
Rests the tir’d mind, and waking loves to dream,
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot!
Thy Jasmin and thy window-peeping Rose,
And Myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes—sweet Abode!
Ah!—had none greater! And that all had such!
It might be so—but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father! Let thy Kingdom come!

Tingly under the daisies;
   Glassy-eyed, glazed, greasy;
   Shaking, shivering, shuddering,
   Wishing, wandering, whimpering,
   Westernizing—
   Romanizing—
   Constitutionalizing—
   Institutionalizing—
   Perpetually searching
   And dying
   And living,
   Watching Death survive
   And scythe the frolickers,
   The prancers,
   The rompers,
   The merrymakers.
   A rose clamped between his
   Grinning teeth glistens brightly,
   And he dances so joyously.
   “Yes!” say the naysayers,
   Confused are the soothsayers,
   Lost are the cartographers.
   Oh, Utopia!
   The monks are extravagant;
   The meditations are a farce!
   The preachers are beggars
   And swindlers and chargers,
   And Machiavelli fulfills his wishes!
   Babies are stillborn, stabbed, and
   Ritualistically sacrificed,
   And their blood is spilled, drunk,
   Slathered over the ***** man.
   The evangelists scream and lie:
   “You are all predestined to die!”
   Oh, hail Utopia!
   Wedded are the girls to the girls;
   Wedded are the boys to the boys;
   Wedded is Death to Death,
   Life to Life,
   And Life to Death.
   Wedded are the living to the existent.
   And the milking babes are slaughtered
   Ceremoniously,
   Surreptitiously,
   Ostentatiously.
   Oh, hail great Utopia!
   We are all dead and unintelligent:
   Laugh, laugh, Einstein, at your
   Stupidity.
   Laugh, laugh, Temple Grandin at
   Your retardation.
   Laugh, laugh, laugh!
   Look at the sluggard, thou ant;
   Look at the boy, sobbing wolf;
   Aesop was drunk,
   Aristotle was delusional,
   Michelangelo was blind,
   Beethoven could hear,
   Poe was sane.
   And I can't read.
   They ramble,
   I watch.
   They sleep,
   I watch.
   They dream,
   I watch.
   They sleep-talk,
   I watch.
   They scream,
   I watch.
   They choke,
   I watch.
   They suffocate,
   I watch.
   Stone-faced, I stare;
   Raspingly, I breathe;
   Uncontrollably, I twitch;
   Inwardly, I rage.
   I hope you die, I hope you die.
   I hope you bleed, I hope you die.
   I want you begging and crying,
   I want you blubbering at my feet,
   I want you gnashing at my ankles,
   I want you writhing in pain,
   I want your arm twisted off,
   Cracking with the snapping sinews, I want your beating heart in my hands, I want your genitals uprooted and stuffed in your throat, I want your stomach so I can eat the still-digesting food, I want your shrunken head and I want to force my thumbs into your unblinking eyes and I want to tear your face in two and I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die.

She wanted to have a lover
That society wouldn't allow
She wanted to be married
But maybe not just now.
She wanted to have a baby
But she didn’t know how.
She wanted to be a wife
But she felt she was a cow.

Star crossed lover
All in one twisted person.
Stuck being a mother
Unequipped to be a good one.
Primitive cave dweller
Abandoned in modern time.
What she felt life did to her
Was an unfair personal crime.

Each time one would see her
Steam was building up inside;
A Vesuvius about to blow
Fire never banked, never died.
Walk on eggshells, careful words
Often not know what went wrong;
Something so carelessly said
As the disastrous day went along.

Maybe the child just said no
Or failed at some assigned chore.
Maybe the kid broke something
Or perhaps just slammed a door.
Then the punishment starts in
With screaming and foul names
Leaving welts and bruises in
Her standard sadistic game.

It would be so much better
If this was all an exaggeration.
But no, this is the ugly truth
So please take a suggestion.
Before we force another
Generation just like the rest,
Let’s make intended parents
Take a psychological test.

Got the Covid shot.
Got the word that I have no cancer.
Got the will to form a
door
into this day far in our future, from then,
just
a moment ago, it was now, and
some how you  
knew ex- out
action to {perience hap}
change the time
to your now, my future and my now, your past.

just that fast/

--- lickity split, {as if it never needed meaning}

Any whole time invested in an old oath
to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but… when you pause

what comes next is ever, and
the state of never is
unattainable from here.
---
I know a guy,
he deals in evil, the idea, scare-tactics, terror, horror
all that
Lovecraft literal realm, words may lead a mind to let
be
a bit, a while, not a whole time, but
a bit

a par-sec or a plancksec, or so, you know,
a little bit of time,

taken as granted for now.
Are you tested,
proven, reused and re
tested? Experience is something more than
a novice mortal can claim. Honest, sharpenedest point,
the life unexamined is worth more than
the life unlived.

Okeh. You live in these lines, this is the literal book
life is…
along these lines, it
just is. Really, the nextifity can never **** the was,
and the was can never reach past
now
-- the junction, re
conciliation all pairs re
sounding harmonious ohhhhhs and ahhh,
yess
yes, we do know knowing itself is good.
How did we imagine
knowing good and evil, the difference, was separation
from the way through life
in truth,
with no added sorrow?

See, truth is,
…Death has no sting.
But, you gotta do it twice,
sorta…
it's a kludge, what can I say.
Truth functions fully now,
lying can never hold you,
person-you, dear reader you, lying
can never subject you to ******* for fearing death.

You may cease being after your final idle word is working right,
but no mortal really knows.

Hell is a mortal imagination, as is purgatory and limbo, et al.
As a mortal of our sort thinks in its core, CPU,
so it is… Mac or PC. {Joke, kidding… it is a division,
elite sorting division, elite
mechanisms
in the collected subconscious ifery per
white lit apple where there was
a rainbow,
yes
yes
I remember.
inanely great

aha- I know - I was tricked
- who told me I was naked?
signaling the same bite,
knowing good and evil and the connection
at the chthonic level of life,
where roots and fungi merge and share
information,
no more
no less}

the more you know the less you don't, but don't
be
deceived, your reading genius is a gift, the eye that sees, the ear
that
hears, all the senses sensed as a nation might
sense
us-ness in all the inhabitants of the atmosphere -- whosoever…

-- you paid no price, yet truth you don't think you know
draws you to
sneer at a thought that we ought fear death,

after all the virtual nexts…
really
deep mythic revelation festers
pops
The totally Disneyfied home of the future… from an Amazon
or-if-art-if-ice,  Marvel Universe where unbelief
is released… almost like books

The Age of Ultron
is set to rumble with
Enuma Elish?

Who'da thunk it? The oldest of stories,
swirling to gether,
all but one,
the good one, truth the trait tendency in any
given word
made up in minds since
Enuma Elish,
the surviving story, for a seeded cultural embodiment,
a mind made of us,
we, the artists and the art observant, seeing as we wish,
thinking as we may, if there is a way.

You? you think life is funny,
but not fun.
No fun for no reason play?
Nay,
they say, they said in the final days of the iron empire,
while the ants steadily absorbed the scent
of trusted friend, and the marching ants selected on edge-
wise vectors,

to copy'n'paste, past to now, nope… no match, but
watch…

spread all you ever knew, one thing thick, like lipids
reflecting ever before
or something… sorry, think gaspumps on the lake, at sunset.

That beautiful film on the water, ain't good.
But the beauty is. Ants feel sensibly, the whole mass
of ants,
the message ants send that says we do not **** each other,
humans are learning that now.

One at a time. Bit by bit.

Called to be the sluggard, as an actual ant,
in a colony the size of California,

we imagine you think
with stars as reference points,
being photon tied to you, and all whoever, who
considered the ant,
after a great course on esteemation of ever lasting worth.
Effectual
communication
with comforters sent to comfort not terrorize…

consider the message: Consider the ant, thou sluggard,
consider her ways and be wise.

Right. Fabre said, or is recorded in the 1916
current opinion magi-
zine:
"... I should like to see a few small facts."

Years along this trail and we were unaware
of warez we might imagine in a marvel usiverse, an usity
of me and thee,
word and pen,
surface and ink,
what do you think? how many messages fit on the head
of a tack?

A pin? Ist that the proper imagination? Do children
among the elite
ever see a pin,.. perhaps some ultra-elite see tailors,
we all see them on TV, dressing James Bond,
or a bride in white, chalking stitch marks

for the future… in that reality,
the next scene,
all the sewing done, all the pins put away, save one.

Stick to the plan. Tack this one on your clue wall.
Every 2021 seeker has faith in the pattern
emerging.

As if the words rise from the page and you know
none mean anything you may never know.

These are beyond Ultron,

these wild old man insights on olden ………..

Back in the ant den, we imagine interpersonal feeler-
a touch and all we know is known to all,
ahhh
it feels good to know
all I know is now known to all I know, in ant level knowing.

We can do this.
We have done it all our lives,
step into the scene, as an extra.

An extra ant of the 40% who have no care,
need no practice in any ant-craft,
and - seem to serve as assurance
needful for the peace of mind we use as invasive species,

the super-colony survives on peace within,
this is new, this is us, as ants
having certain tasks to keep the climate in the soil,
perfectin the motives of beauty.l

salt from distant seas
subtile tastes to tie the tongues to good to know,

yes it has long been so, the mouth tastes what comes out.

And flesh is a feeling spirits must live to know,
one may never
pretend to have been, without dying once,

minimum,
try the spirits. See did they ever love a lie?

An imp once asked me, when I was 72,
a little younger than I am in your now,
if I escaped Christianity,
how did I rest so peacefully staring death down.
The imp asked, not me, so that is technically not a quest
ion sufficient to warrant a full days wage of sin,

disconnect…
total lost the thread, mazed in the face, hands up, drop
everything…

call it art.
Crazy,
who says crazy is evil if it lives in the bubble
where ants are making peace, and
poets are given truly magic-tech
to stitch stories
to times.

Attenborough called the world to consider
The Ant… as had Solomon, it's been said.
And I heard, but I understood not:
then said I, O my Lord,
what [shall be]
the end of these [things]?
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel:
for the words [are] closed up
and sealed till the time of the end.

pop

Escape? Nay, knave, nigh-ifer misser
of myriad points
of light,

I escaped the name of god for good.
True,
let good be true and every man a liar,
as mortal instant man
remains

a we, at least, very least, I'm sure,
of me and thee, you and I,
lefts and rights and tops and bottoms
fronts and backs

we be in time…
who rah, the hero, uh oh hubris mystery,
curios sort
who wishes to know
the way of the blade parting soul from spirit,
in a
bit of reality we all believe, some how,
does exist,
soul and spirit realms, we all imagine these, we do.

Sniff, if my myth had babies with yours, watchathank?

Go from me, summer friends, and tarry not:
I am no summer friend, but wintry cold,
A silly sheep benighted from the fold,
A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot.
Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,
Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;
Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,
Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.
For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge,
I live alone, I look to die alone:
Yet sometimes, when a wind sighs through the sedge,
Ghosts of my buried years, and friends come back,
My heart goes sighing after swallows flown
On sometime summer's unreturning track.

I am a simple thing.
Reviled and admired.

I do the job requested.
I pose no query, why should I.
Indeed.

When called upon do I not serve.
I am a simple thing.
Devil.

Your hands are my volition.
Your will is my precision.
Your skill is my command.

Yet. I am reviled.
Cast aside. What then is my purpose.
But to speak loudly, shudder and recoil.
My message .

Swift assurance.
Bold pronouncements.
Fools rush in.

How am I to make the choice when you have made me what I am
a servant no more no less. A tool a sluggard at best.

Consider me a shovel in the shed. Do you hate me now. Fear me
Write laws to abolish me. Shout from the halls of anger, slander and deride.
Here I sit in judgment . A construct a conduit of your evil. Your callous machinations.

Most assuredly I am neither fish nor fowl.
Nor villain on the prowl. That is your domain.

I am your shelter in a storm.
a stern judgment for the lawless when all else has failed.
Play the De Guayo.
No quarter asked or given.

My friends. I pray for my own demise.
The day when peace abides.
Never.                        Nature or nurture.



I pray for my dismissal.
Until such time.
Put me away  with safety  and know that I am at your beck and call.
Your beck and call.
Yours.

I remain your humble servant.

I have not been writing enough.
The beach the ocean the liquor the life guarding
Hath made me a sluggard. Lazy, un-inspired, creatively empty.
These crazy hazy days of summer,
The tourists the internationals the Irish the *******.
Have me numb drunk and in love.
But I am not writing enough.
Since leaving the mountains, the west, the Rockies, my pen has ceased to create,
breath, live.

I.

Tнʏ functions are etherial,
As if within thee dwelt a glancing Mind,
***** of Vision! And a Spirit aerial
Informs the cell of hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;
Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;
And shrieks, that revel in abuse
Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose
The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;
Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

II.

The headlong Streams and Fountains
Serve Thee, Invisible Spirit, with untired powers;
Cheering the wakeful Tent on Syrian mountains,
They lull perchance ten thousand thousand Flowers.
That roar, the prowling Lion's Here I am,
How fearful to the desert wide!
That bleat, how tender! of the Dam
Calling a straggler to her side.
Shout, Cuckoo! let the vernal soul
Go with thee to the frozen zone;
Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone Bell-bird, toll!
At the still hour to Mercy dear,
Mercy from her twilight throne
Listening to Nun's faint sob of holy fear,
To Sailor's prayer breathed from a darkening sea,
Or Widow's cottage lullaby.

III.

Ye Voices, and ye Shadows
And Images of voice—to hound and horn
From rocky steep and rock-bestudded meadows
Flung back, and, in the sky's blue caves, reborn
On with your pastime! till the church-tower bells
A greeting give of measured glee;
And milder echoes from their cells
Repeat the bridal symphony.
Then, or far earlier, let us rove
Where mists are breaking up or gone,
And from aloft look down into a cove
Besprinkled with a careless quire,
Happy Milk-maids, one by one
Scattering a ditty each to her desire,
A liquid concert matchless by nice Art,
A stream as if from one full heart.

IV.

Blest be the song that brightens
The blind Man's gloom, exalts the Veteran's mirth.
Unscorned the Peasant's whistling breath, that lightens
His duteous toil of furrowing the green earth.
For the tired Slave, Song lifts the languid oar,
And bids it aptly fall, with chime
That beautifies the fairest shore,
And mitigates the harshest clime.
Yon Pilgrims see—in lagging file
They move; but soon the appointed way
A choral Ave Marie shall beguile,
And to their hope the distant shrine
Glisten with a livelier ray:
Nor friendless He, the Prisoner of the Mine,
Who from the well-spring of his own clear breast
Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest.

V.

When civic renovation
Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste
Best eloquence avails not, Inspiration
Mounts with a tune, that travels like a blast
Piping through cave and battlemented tower;
Then starts the Sluggard, pleased to meet
That voice of Freedom, in its power
Of promises, shrill, wild, and sweet!
Who, from a martial pageant, spreads
Incitements of a battle-day,
Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless heads,
Even She whose Lydian airs inspire
Peaceful striving, gentle play
Of timid hope and innocent desire
Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move
Fanned by the plausive wings of Love.

VI.

How oft along thy mazes,
Regent of Sound, have dangerous Passions trod!
O Thou, through whom the Temple rings with praises,
And blackening clouds in thunder speak of God,
Betray not by the cozenage of sense
Thy Votaries, wooingly resigned
To a voluptuous influence
That taints the purer, better mind;
But lead sick Fancy to a harp
That hath in noble tasks been tried;
And, if the virtuous feel a pang too sharp,
Soothe it into patience,—stay
The uplifted arm of Suicide;
And let some mood of thine in firm array
Knit every thought the impending issue needs,
Ere Martyr burns, or Patriot bleeds!

VII.

As Conscience, to the centre
Of Being, smites with irresistible pain,
So shall a solemn cadence, if it enter
The mouldy vaults of the dull Idiot's brain,
Transmute him to a wretch from quiet hurled—
Convulsed as by a jarring din;
And then aghast, as at the world
Of reason partially let in
By concords winding with a sway
Terrible for sense and soul!
Or, awed he weeps, struggling to quell dismay.
Point not these mysteries to an Art
Lodged above the starry pole;
Pure modulations flowing from the heart
Of divine Love, where Wisdom, Beauty, Truth
With Order dwell, in endless youth?

VIII.

Oblivion may not cover
All treasures hoarded by the miser, Time.
Orphean Insight! truth's undaunted Lover,
To the first leagues of tutored passion climb,
When Music deigned within this grosser sphere
Her subtle essence to enfold,
And Voice and Shell drew forth a tear
Softer than Nature's self could mould.
Yet strenuous was the infant Age:
Art, daring because souls could feel,
Stirred nowhere but an urgent equipage
Of rapt imagination sped her march
Through the realms of woe and weal:
Hell to the lyre bowed low; the upper arch
Rejoiced that clamorous spell and magic verse
Her wan disasters could disperse.

IX.

The Gɪꜰт to king Amphion
That walled a city with its melody
Was for belief no dream; thy skill, Arion!
Could humanise the creatures of the sea,
Where men were monsters. A last grace he craves,
Leave for one chant;—the dulcet sound
Steals from the deck o'er willing waves,
And listening Dolphins gather round.
Self-cast, as with a desperate course,
'Mid that strange audience, he bestrides
A proud One docile as a managed horse;
And singing, while the accordant hand
Sweeps his harp, the Master rides;
So shall he touch at length a friendly strand,
And he, with his Preserver, shine star-bright
In memory, through silent night.

X.

The pipe of Pan, to Shepherds
Couched in the shadow of Maenalian Pines,
Was passing sweet; the eyeballs of the leopards,
That in high triumph drew the Lord of vines,
How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang!
While Fauns and Satyrs beat the ground
In cadence,—and Silenus swang
This way and that, with wild-flowers crowned.
To life, to life give back thine ear:
Ye who are longing to be rid
Of Fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin-lid;
The Convict's summons in the steeple's knell;
"The vain distress-gun," from a leeward shore,
Repeated—heard, and heard no more!

XI.

For terror, joy, or pity,
Vast is the compass and the swell of notes:
From the Babe's first cry to voice of regal City,
Rolling a solemn sea-like bass, that floats
Far as the woodlands—with the trill to blend
Of that shy Songstress, whose love-tale
Might tempt an Angel to descend,
While hovering o'er the moonlight vale.
O for some soul-affecting scheme
Of moral music, to unite
Wanderers whose portion is the faintest dream
Of memory!—O that they might stoop to bear
Chains, such precious chains of sight
As laboured minstrelsies through ages wear!
O for a balance fit the truth to tell
Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well!

XII.

By one pervading Spirit
Of tones and numbers all things are controlled,
As Sages taught, where faith was found to merit
Initiation in that mystery old
The Heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still
As they themselves appear to be,
Innumerable voices fill
With everlasting harmony;
The towering Headlands, crowned with mist,
Their feet among the billows, know
That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Thy pinions, universal Air,
Ever waving to and fro,
Are delegates of harmony, and bear
Strains that support the Seasons in their round;
Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

XIII.

Break forth into thanksgiving,
Ye banded Instruments of wind and chords
Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,
Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words!
Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead,
Nor mute the forest hum of noon;
Thou too be heard, lone Eagle! freed
From snowy peak and cloud, attune
Thy hungry barkings to the hymn
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six-days' Work, by flaming Seraphim,
Transmits to Heaven! As Deep to Deep
Shouting through one valley calls,
All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep
For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured
Into the ear of God, their Lord!

XIV.

A Voice to Light gave Being;
To Time, and Man, his earth-born Chronicler;
A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing,
And sweep away life's visionary stir;
The Trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride,
Arm at its blast for deadly wars)
To archangelic lips applied,
The grave shall open, quench the stars.
O Silence! are Man's noisy years
No more than moments of thy life?
Is Harmony, blest Queen of smiles and tears,
With her smooth tones and discords just,
Tempered into rapturous strife,
Thy destined Bond-slave? No! though Earth be dust
And vanish, though the Heavens dissolve, her stay
Is in the Wоʀᴅ, that shall not pass away.

2020 - day 193 part 2

Sunday, July 12, 2020
2:54 PM

We all have won, more than once. We know
the waay it feels soo right.
Dare and do, theyoostasay,
Jah, today, I ask
what gives,

what takes away the fear of death the young ones hold,
as their, from your authorized sen' ones, human right,
right by
righteous statements, SOP
standard op procedures,
like war on TV, in the sixties.
Survived
to face
five fold ministers, now all prophecying doom to me,
the heresy shaping up,

for war with the hated haters of him who hates

iniquity, hates
a false balance, hates
a false witness; and it stands to reason, here is safe.

Here is no condemnation, by virtue of you being here.
Were there condemnation here,
could you imagine Jesus's will, in you, being done

out there,
in the open, no walls, no closets, no phobias, no neurosis
not psychosis

okeh. This day, this far, we agree, we are alive, we are finding
meanings common all our lives,
meanings we knew were lies being left to test our will to

use the freaking force, LUKEOUT!

Lookout-
Never works, nor do light sabers,… words work
light sabers never better than lightning,
except in weapons that may be imagined, if any thing is possible,
you know it is, '' before you believe it is.

This is war. This tuning in to feel the fear of death shackling children,
with the same old stories,

amplified by more than one could think or ask,
once upon a time.

Wish to catch the magic fish,
lust to find Allasdenof readers who knew Mohammed
never learned
to read,

they say, I wouldn't know. If there were no history.

There are still stories tucked just so into stories,
everybody knows.

The experience, we being, being the crowd for crying out loud,

we got it. life is good. we feel… we feel… wrong
we know
ever is never like now… somehow we
think we do, inky do say
listen
the story is the story you tell, you know.
push and shove, twist and pull

patty cake, paddy cake, baker man, putemintheovenfasasucan

the religious thought was linked to truth, eu means joy ye ken?

eudaemonia, as a state, is governed a we, a we we may see as ours

- go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be likewise

Take y'given tangled web, 'twas gifted to our fathers,
by others who did not know
the blessing in giving more, taking less. The spirits
in the gin,
then in the ***, then whiskey, rye whisky in little
brown jugs,
I wuvoo
I do, little blue legal chick in 1970, just before
biome me mem meme fall

all ye outs back in. We got a session with the judge, it seems
there is an accuser, after all…

this maybe so sayer say Jesus is a liar, like untrue to you
if yo u never swore to never be foresaken, left
alone
to witness the workings of chaos in order effectually see-ing
all things
all
all thing functioning as was this one day, today, in my future,
yur jes' now

just so, 2020 tech can do this trick. Watch

misty? as the angel was heard to say, with a stutter, re
read {could be latinate, its no code, just words
be-a-ing being as human as humanly possible,

while standinderundersogreatacloudof witnesses linked

to this one idea. Truth is free.
ሴ ሴ ... _ .
ሴ ሴ ... _ .
ሴ ሴ ... _ .


Never ending quest, is that thought a curse?

Your answer changes next.

These are words redeemed after my 69th year breakdown…
weaponized,

we won. That is the good news. False witnesses project reasons
for war;

we remain the evidence of things unseen, ignite a spark,
ignor it only by lying to the bit of you

that has the knack to imagine striking a spark,
in the darkest dark ever described,
fitted to fear receptors liganded to legendary necessary lies.

There was a war where there was no blood to shed.
The war for the power to make history,

History of leaders followed for goodness sake, goods to take,
stories to modify,

Balzac claims tres bon, 1, 2, 3, 4… ave maria oh, weahhh

out in the fictionized foam of all the stories ever known

being Kevin Bacon linked, 6 to 1, the magnificent seven

so 3 plus 7, 10 to 1, better odds, take 3 chances 4 times.

If any thing can fall it falls.
any thing that can shake, shall; and so on, amen.

Magic words spoken with no sense of any power having

master and commander authority to utter an actual amen, and

see this is as we say, what we got. Many idle amens, it’s a mess.

---
2020 the great controversy creeps up - I refused to catch
the magic fish bait,
I am open to any temptation

I say, with all the awshucks authoity awoud fuds

The grace of goodness itself--perse the real deal, does not fade away.
ሴ ሴ ... _ .

Three is the ready, steady, go,

steady accumulation of attending to take
the granted

virtue to effect trans formation
chaos to order algorithms

rhyminwhyman, whykill… whykry radio
man
five by five still alive

four point solid-ity it-ness

stack the stones, edify edu cate, straight
as model in the pat from first point
second, to third to you
through the wall that never was there

point, game set.
Any triggered hate, fires the alarm.

The idea that is the accuser side of
aitia ai ai ai loops,

is as the thing the ancients name the
accuser of the saints.

The "you ain't nothin'"
Then come the bots in legions of oughts
overcome ing one
spark
oh
you had to have seen it
ሴ ሴ ... _ .
ሴ ሴ ... _ .