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



























































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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.'

Love is all he knows,
Like doves, he reeps what he cannot sow,
Completely seeping where you cannot go,
Secretly creeping on his toes,
And there it goes,

Waking up a stranger to the morning sun,.
After shaking from danger,

He cannot live without her his heart speaks out in anger,
She's the last out, to give what they were, from back in the start, for' she sneaked around,
Turned his whole world upside down,
He grabs the gun and preys his last prayers, she stabbed his heart, and it teared and teared,
Life's not fair life's not fair, the underkeeper gloomed,
The gun killed today, and a love much steeper bloomed.

Sometimes I wish for an apocalypse
for I dun have to choose paradise again
roses are not my thing
city of thorns is where I belong !

                                                    -PS

TABLE D'HôTE

Appetizer
Wrong Tons With Me Soup
cooked worry
seared in a teary onion broth

Hors D'oeuvres
Slow Roasted Fear
fresh over-analyzing
crushed with loneliness

Main Course
Stress Salad
tossed with insomnia
marinated in a vertigo dressing

General Trouble Chicken
battered uncertainty
gloomed to perfection
sitting on steamed danger
stir fried in an overwhelm sour sauce

Dessert
Choked Volcanic Eruption
mountain of OCD
topped with whipped depression
glazed with self-loathing

Expresso
prepared with frothy guilt

(C) Jl 2016

XIX

The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise;
I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
And from my poet’s forehead to my heart
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—
As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .
The bay-crown’s shade, Beloved, I surmise,
Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;
Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.

Startled and horrified by society,
A silhouette of a petrified soul crumples in the darkest corner of the night,
In tears and remorse,
With slit arms and blood flowing through each wound,
Droplets of tears and blood drip, forming a pool of water n' rust,
The scars on her heart deepen and stain her body,
The dark circles under her pale eyes, moist,
An urge to smoke or drink escapes her lips as a sigh,
Not caring about what's harmful and what's not,
Just a sip or a puff of smoke can shackle all her hurt,
Vandalized from within,
Completely shut and worn out-
Thanks to one mistake they take her innocence away,
An unforgetful dread, a frightful nightmare!

When you're trapped in a circle of patterns
Patterns that make up the same torturous scene
You get slapped in the face and now you're gloomed.
Don't worry, it'll pass by, maybe...
You'll start numb then you'll think, lately
You haven't felt like yourself at all.
You'll feel like everything is crumbling around you,
And that to end it, you have to get influenced,
But it won't last beyond a week, at minimum an hour.
It'll pass, and you'll be fine. If you're not, at some point, the sun will once again shine.

I caged a bluebird
in the morning's spring,
as the sun was bright
with glee. I felt gloomed -
a place I've noticed
before.  

I devoured the caged bird.
You slept in the light
of my moon;
you burned in a thousand
fahrenheits.  

I have damaged my soul,
the holy grail of my
home. You shine the light
and no shadow is there.
The miserable doll has
gone to the fair.

A thunderstorm rushes in summer making us sheltered and hide away into our barrier.
Under drumbeats from the gloomed sky, we watch streams of rivers flow beneath our feet.
As the wind began howling, I look to see the world being shaken.
Have the rain being thrown all around us, twisting and turning as the wind dances with it.
There were flashes up above us, a symphony of sound,
From the roll of thunder.

We step outside and see the whirly world.
Hearing the claps in the distance,
We raise our heads smelling the sweet new air.
Bright flickering blots shoot across the sky, making a light show for the world and I.

Raindrops came down one by one, perfect diamonds shattering to the ground.
While I hide from the storm, the world opens its arms and sings along.
Where thunderclaps and lightning burst above is a symphony from the angels.
The heavens put on a show just for the both us.

As the final heavy raindrops played the last notes of the song,
The drumbeats rolled away,
The flashing stopped,
A hush of silence crept over the world,
The sun’s warm rays peeked through the clouds,
A new cord struck a note as birds flutter their damp wings while soaring through the painted sky.
The soft decline of sound that comes after the storm.

Once upon a time
There was no time
No me, no you, no rhythm, no rhyme
No bright days, only gloomed night
No good health, no strength to fight

Once upon a time
I imagined no time
Our nights sang sweet like Moscato grapes on a vine
Tangled in you i was like a ball of twine

Once upon a time
I ignored the time
******* because you werent mine
So this type of sun wont set to let love shine

Once upon a time
I won with time
Before my eyes, my heart, and my tongue went blind
So until the day my time meets her time
Ill be waiting for
Once upon a time

how easily an infantile and innocent a tourist attraction can gain momentum of an iceberg process of revealing unsaid yet easily thought out things.*

i'm like a jan matejko harlequin -
the stańczyk gloomed
over the loss of smoleńsk,
the stańczyk - as if a mongolian presence -
the lajkonik of st. mary's noon trumpet
call where a mongolian arrow
pierced the musician's throat...
a big ben of the east a radio reprimand
of beep beep beep...
weeping over england
in the night sitting on a wooden stump
with sunglasses...
oh woe... oh woe! may my heart serve as
both sword and shield, O england!
i am but like the matejko harlequin
(the stańczyk), i am but the memory of
mongols in europe (the lajkonik)...
may i simply record the fates of nations,
and merely acknowledge
my own dearly departed wishing a return
to and severing friendships grasped
in this my so called home lost;
why the abortion of my thought to reclaim
high school education in a
home without allowable citizenship,
and why my necessitating to keep the homage
tongue of birth
usable on the ready...
half of europe disappeared with post-colonialism
and lack of empire building!
so bloodied and monochromatic!
oh but i had nothing to do with it,
i simply woke into this nightmare!
now i'm accused for transgressing social rubrics!

A man with a gun
Steps from an allyway gloomed
Aimed it at me
And froze me where I stood
He said, "Son, lemme ask you a question.
As death stares you in the eye,
Are you afraid for your money,
Or do you fear for your life?"

Neither, was the response
From between those clenched teeth

I am unselfish in materials;
you can have all my things.
And my body is ready
for when the angels start to sing

"I think you're lyin'"
Said the man with the gun
"I can see it in yer eyes,
I bet you want to run"

If you do what you do
and you say that you may
then my family'll be left
in such disarray
My mum will become
but just a shell of herself
and my dad in his grief
destroy a lamp or a shelf
My sisters will wear black for a week
My brothers will search for you in the streets
Who knows better than you
where these streets can take?
My Woman may die from a broken heart,
and my children may never know
that I was there from the very start
My friends will all cry
and spill a beer in the dirt
and my dog may become violent
as he guards my last worn shirt
My grandkids will know
The year that I die
But they'll never know like knew
the joy of a grandparents smile
I do fear this in my death, good sir
but I've no fear of dying.

The man shook his head
shaken to his core
His eyes stared for a moment
before they met mine once more

"Get out of here", he said in tone real low
"Go, and speak of dying no more,
For I am the son of a father
Who was killed when I was four"

Silents beats.
In rythem of slow dazed clock
Ticking back and forth.
As time frezzes
Every thing motion less
Nothing moving
Except tears with crystal blured reflection
In the gloomed dim sky
The cloock sticks the empty room that
Onced filled with light and life
Now laid the soul of silence to this room
And never had one
Voice
Ever to this room again
Not in
Every in life time
That rebon each year

I rifle through the contents of the room,
Searching for secret words,
Hidden in gloomed ink
On shreds of yellowed paper;
No, antiquated shrapnel,
Plain scrawling on the side.

Now they seem mythic,
These syllables tightly joined,
Hidden in books and under shoe boxes,
Paperclipped to the pages of my past,
Leave me only these remnants,
Still I will cling steadfast.

The burns, they will last,
Rope slipping in tight hands.
My feeble grasp shan't release,
Feeble hands of a feeble mind,
For love is a fool's errand, (hush!)
Or so at least says the cynic.

I conjured with my very hands.
Rays to tear the Sun from this land.

I conjured with my train of thought.
Witnesses to scorn the blocks.

I conjured with my weary soul.
Ravens to gore upon their demonic bones.

I conjured with my mute like voice.
Solders, halos shining radiantly with a crimson gold hue.

Whom of you knew that life is more than just what we see
Through lost time in the lost minds of the lost trines meaning

I am believing there are more in the minds of the man

I am believing in Divine corner slabs.

I am believing that the heathen has control of the world so torn
Until Holiness kicks in their doors.

Lost in a Mind
In a Land
In a man

Where time spans don't exist
Think about a hat that can't fit
But you still squeeze it on

Depicted as a hazard
Flabergasted
Drug Addict

Surprised he ain't in an attic
Dam nab it
Flow is drastic

Like a flood
Taking out the lives of the lost
Are we lost?

Flowing thru subconscious
thoughts


Rawr from the tundras Michael is a monsta'
Spittin heat
Eating pasta
Words are like that, coming from a mobsta'

Bats breaking necks
No naggin
Know that I ain't dense
It is hard to get out my adolescence

Mind still on herb and finding Truth in existence

Pitiful poem
Sipping on chrome
E.T. is still in need of phoning home

All dogs need a bone
Need to bone
All dogs need a bone
Need to bone


I've...
Lost my brain...
Lost my game...

Lost in strange sights...

Dismantled...

I just might...

Stuck in torment...

Cannot move...

Thoughts seem eternally gloomed...
Doomed to a recession.
Lost in the inception.
Is there a redemption?
Repentance.
Thirst from women 'cause its pleasurable

Need my play- that audible

Hear me scream; need audible sound waves to come out my brainwaves.


What is lower than dirt?
It's I alone
rock bottom and I think that I might just go off the poem
and find my way home
please I need to be the be
and the be has I so let us go holmes.

I've lost my mental
black teeth who cares about my dental

* treat a ***** like a rental*
if she a Bentley I keep her for a week, then move from my GT continental
I set my soul on finding truth
where is, who needs proof?
I tried to break the bars raise the roof
a left the scene, gone, aloof
moved with the wind but still sat still
killed myself
brought me to the deep darkened will
of the uncovered man that I have found
in this land
hi son of sam
I am high
son of am


**Use your mental

It is essential

Get on the mic

**** em good

They call you daddy don't mean to be disrespectful

Not being neglectful just choosing words

If bird was the word and the word was on shurm

Learn prophecy confirmed to the date times unturned

Remember, boy
The sherpa'd pray
Don't build your dreams
On what others say
Don't float your canoe
On the reeds of others' promises
The wolf skin gives no warmth, no
Love is a salve to its final growl.

And remember, youth
The harlot told
No love may glitter
Brighter than gold
The ivory teeth
May chatter and squeak
As much as my joints
On my wooden, bent-backward frame.

Don't forget,
She'd order
Don't forget me
I shook my head
No time to
Ask her name
I gloomed over my fireplace
And settled down to the ink-spilled night,
My own skin
Warmer than the moon, at least.

I rinse from my tears, when I got home
Don a black fur, coffee streaked on it, hours back
When we isolated from apiece, weeping
Reminiscences drizzling, cold and warm.

You came into vision, gloomed
My eyes were sealed
Whispering, the lot has altered
You and me, terminated.

In the vein of a tree
Whirling you and me
Slowly, sailing into the deep sea
Where float countless mystery.

Unsurpassed things are memories
Blissful among the alluring winds
Afraid among the moaning waves
Lashing and hammering through my wits.

Hope confers my heart
That mending is no less than an art
Love is the cure that slumps hate apart
Time and again, I wish I could go back to the start.

Morning creamer to swirl in mine cup,
With a lump of sugar, maby two to be naughty!!!
As I putteth hence creamer mixed with the concoction of that sweet tasty molecule Soo finely grained!!!
They swirl to an explosion of aromas,
Beans with dreams that every fast waking soul must digest!!
Speed at its caress!!!!
On the outside of mine cup spells thine word London!!!!

London,
Soo gloomed as me this morning ,
Soo incoherent to the ones around us!!!
Or they to ourn own selves....

Yet London,
Musteth I say thy coffee doth taste Soo tactfully refined!!!!

i am scared to be an inferior,
when i am in the crowd of superiors,
and guess what i say,
why is it me to be a weak tear?
why shall i not bear the feelings that the outer world would bear?
Those festive ,joy and mercy,
for those growing up children one of them named Percy,
small children snatching for a chocolate bar named Percy,
i don't feel all that,
is it because i am scared that someday i shall disappear,
this a mere foolishness to think those people say,
but my reply is ,
what for a person who is lost in the bay?
gloomed and colored by people in grey,
that's the thing easy to say,
but only i know how i pay and repay,
because i list my bloods feelings only once in a year that is  in may,
claim that as a diary day,
because i, i am scare to be an inferior.
someday someone appeared like an etch,
and for me became a last bucket to fetch,
made a lighting hope in my respiratory set.
a sight maker  it named,
i bet,
but stayed just till the sunset,
and told better you better remove that word inferior from your brains net,'because i see something in you that i can get,
you are more superior than you can guess,
so don't worry and make your unique brain's mess,
i can guide you as you rest,
and someday you can be the best,
that sight maker came everyday and became like a pet,
and then got in my heart and became a part of that complex set,
helped to remove that word inferior,
and replacing it by superior,
it just explained me that could not appear,
expounded me that get into your heart's depth,
that would make you feel happier.
                                      Vishvi   AURORA

What you do to me.
When I saw you,immediately,the sun fell on you,
You caused a penumbra;And gloomed me,
I saw nothing but you,
When I saw your robe,my eyes blinked not,
Neither did I reason,
Nor utter a word,
But when I saw your face,I spotted your optimistic smiles,
They gave me a word,
They said "Don't be afraid"
When I saw your eyes,they glared at me,
And wiped my fears,
Now I see but only you,
When I saw your hair,fluttering in the breeze,
My heart danced with delight,
And mimic the moves it did,
But when I gandered at your bust,down to your ends,
I felt the heavens;And promised to sin no-more,
When I saw you jaunty with flair,
I surrounded everything I had,
And worshipped your grounds,
Now I plead,pleading to the world,
Pleading to fate;And to myself,
Please be mine.

What you do to me.
A Poem Written By,
Historian E.Lexano,
February 22,2015,
All©Copyright Reserved,

i am scared to be an inferior,
when i am in the crowd of superiors,
and guess what i say,
why is it me to be a weak tear?
why shall i not bear the feelings that the outer world would bear?
Those festive ,joy and mercy,
for those growing up children one of them named Percy,
small children snatching for a chocolate bar named Percy,
i don't feel all that,
is it because i am scared that someday i shall disappear,
this a mere foolishness to think those people say,
but my reply is ,
what for a person who is lost in the bay?
gloomed and colored by people in grey,
that's the thing easy to say,
but only i know how i pay and repay,
because i list my bloods feelings only once in a year that is  in may,
claim that as a diary day,
because i, i am scare to be an inferior.
someday someone appeared like an etch,
and for me became a last bucket to fetch,
made a lighting hope in my respiratory set.
a sight maker  it named,
i bet,
but stayed just till the sunset,
and told better you better remove that word inferior from your brains net,'because i see something in you that i can get,
you are more superior than you can guess,
so don't worry and make your unique brain's mess,
i can guide you as you rest,
and someday you can be the best,
that sight maker came everyday and became like a pet,
and then got in my heart and became a part of that complex set,
helped to remove that word inferior,
and replacing it by superior,
it just explained me that could not appear,
expounded me that get into your heart's depth,
that would make you feel happier.
                                      Vishvi   AURORA

Every time you felt special
Every time you gloomed apart
Every time you had no time
To see what was what.

Every time you saw something
Every time you had a dream
Every time you feared one thing
The other time was out of stream

Every time you loved someone
Every time they cared for you
Every time you had a fight
Things did turned out blue.

Every time you close your eyes
Every time you breath some fire
In those time you can experience
Every ounce of incomplete desire.

Ignorance and innocence were introduced with gleeful and gay intentions
Spring sprung with curious conversations
Summer was ever warmer with lovely everlasting memories
In fall they fell for one another
Slept through winter in each other’s arms
However when the red moon-gloomed of change
They parted paths and forgot each other’s names