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.'

It happened, once only,
on an African plain.
A subtle mutation
and everything changed.
On Chromosome Seven
A new protein emerged.
A peripatic primate
Spoke her first word.
There were apes that were stronger
or had larger brains.
But it was **** sapiens
who gave all things names.
The mutation of speech,
an advantage unknown,.
soon reduced competition
to a mere pile of bones.
Our forebears surged forth
From the African plains
Some wandered to China,
others summered in Spain.
As elders died off,
Their knowledge survived
Through oral transmission
til the advent of scribes.
Now each human mother
awaits baby’s first word
It’s the price of admission
to the tribe of the verb.

i am a child
she is my baptism
to see her face
is to split a prism
and see the
colors kept alone in heaven
forgotten suns
across her eyes
swallowed whole
by ecstasy lips
glide the shadows
purest ******* eclipse
golden fall utopian braids
silken upon supple blades
ending at the small of back
framed by dimples inside
summered ivory tract
******* circled in rose pink sphere
pillars of grace beholden dear

when you're asleep
i place my hand
over your heart
and
feel the angelic
undertones vibrate

It was the eve of the mid-autumn festival. Day had followed day of clear skies but ever-lower temperatures had brought crisp and chill mornings. Zuo Fen began to fear that a first frost would damage her late flowering plants, the delicate tea flowers of the osmanthus. She was already aware of the seven grasses of autumn now present in her garden and would recite standing amongst them the traditional seasonal poem:
 
Flowers blossoming

in autumn fields - 

when I count them on my fingers

they then number seven.

The flowers of bush clover,

eulalia, arrowroot, 

pink, patrinia, 

also, mistflower 

and morning faces flower.
 
Oh the whiteness of Autumn, the season of courage and sadness, a time for the lighting of white candles against the dying of the day. Upon rising Zuo Fen would stand in meditation facing west, the seasonal direction of dreams and visions. Again and again her mind state visited a habitation in the distant mountains, a sprawling summer palace seemingly empty but for the slightest echoes of recent occupation or maybe a caretaker’s attention. In her recurring vision she would walk from room to room, each kaleidoscopic in colour of hanging silks and elaborate murals. Eventually she would find her way outside into a neglected garden that dropped in gentle terraces to a lake where she would observe the ‘thousand colours of water, brilliances and blues.’
 
One morning a young chamberlain sent from her Lord visited her court. He had remained rapt at the sight of the courtesan of the Purple Chamber standing trance-like in her garden. Meng Ning had often positioned himself in the undertaking of the Emperor’s duties to communicate with Zuo Fen, whom Meng Ning admired and was secretly enamored. A few well-chosen words of respect and critical admiration for the poetess had been all it took for Emperor Wu to summon Meng Ning as courier of his express command to his most favoured concubine. Unfailingly gracious towards the formal attentions of the young man Zuo Fen had come to feel at ease with this respectful figure who had succeeded in charming both her cats and Mei Ling her maid.
​       As she stood motionless, attired in her gardening robe and clogs, she became aware of Meng Ning’s presence and, before turning to acknowledge him with a greeting, allowed a thought to form in herself. She would seek his help to identify the summer palace of her waking dreams.
       ​Yes, he knew of such a place, sixty li distant, a hard path it was said, but ladies of the court had once graced its many linked pavilions in the third season. The lake held a restless spirit and it was said no boat had ever sailed its surface. How did he know this, she had asked. A petition from a recluse, a former minister of the treasury, had been received at court requesting its occupation for the winter months. It had been refused, indeed dismissed without further consideration. Meng Ning had been curious as he had once viewed the lake from its western end, but from which the habitation was entirely hidden. Did the Honoured Lady know of the mysterious Red Slate Path said to appear briefly from out of a cave in the steep wooded hillside, cross a bowl-like glade and disappear into the lake depths? The Honoured Lady did not, but was nevertheless caught by Meng Ning’s description which, when he had delivered his message from Emperor Wu and retired, she fell to placing inside her already rich vision of property, lake, and precipitous woodland whose trees and bushes she was busy mind-painting with autumn leaves and berries.
 
After a day of thought and planning Zuo Fen developed an intricate strategy to visit the palace and environs of Eryi-lou. She told herself that she was searching for inspiration to compose an autumn sequence for her Lord that would recall the days of his esteemed father. She had discovered in the palace archives that in his declining years he had summered in this remote place, had filled its pavilions with only his most favoured concubines, its guest apartments with poets and musicians. She asked for Meng Ning’s services as guide and protector.
​      She had expected a blunt refusal, but to her astonishment, her request was granted, but only during the twelve days surrounding her monthly courses. She had smiled at this condition having been almost entirely free from her natural cycle for several years, something not unknown for a woman who had never been with child. Mei Ling dutifully made apparent false evidence of this charade.
​       It was a small party that left the Eastern Gate on a day that promised rain and high wind; seven in all, four to carry Zou Fen’s sedan. But this was to be understood as a matter of protocol rather than necessity, as within 6 li of the palace a pair of ponies for Zou Fen appeared in the road. Drawing back the curtains of her sedan she stepped out dressed as a male traveller, her movements and manner in such a disguise confidently rendered from her months searching for her brother Zuo Si in the wilderness of the Tai Mountains. Meng Ning was both astonished and alarmed as he had not been forewarned of this way of things. It seemed that Zuo Si had probably made all the necessary arrangements.

(to be continued)

Is life a story, is life magick dreaming to love?

I gazed up. “Standing below the elephantine magnolia,
the ground still bore Tuscany ochre from autumns last kiss.”
My eyes solivagant orbs fed on spring’s dews in mourning
──jewellery clinging opulently to her naked form.
Dawn chilled the breeze caressing her body as abscission
demanded she undressed her emerald gown of leaves.
Magenta and cream blooms sprang “loudly” seducing
─ blushing mauve crowned centres,
a population of endless figurines perched motionless on aching
naked branches.
Solomon’s seal burned white within me drunk impending suns arrows, opulent words of silver Verbus diablio kissed in a cauldron
of Magnolia words, a banquet for mortals that seek loves gold.

A lone spider echoed silence bearing the sigil of Jupiter’s
vermillion and white spun striations luffing on the breeze
warming. “Magnolia dressed the day ardent in perfumed
── glorious plumes that each set sail across waking skies.”
Ablaze I am luscious dreams wrapped in sweet nectar,
travelling limbic memories breathing deeply, held captive,
wanton within her labyrinths of silk caresses, petals whispering,
sweet love as she engulfs my last resolve.

In raptures white velvet gown my hem sweeps over gold russet
and brittle autumns words forged in winters need for warmth──mind leaves crunching beneath life’s changing seasons,
stitched I cling enamoured to mortal honeymoon summered fields.
I am the female of sapphire tears twisting, glittering melting ice shards, bequeathed of pained black stars travelled on passionate magick fires, breathed on melodious Roma nights.

Rested among the branches a mantel crucified- drunk once more,
a bloom held silent in time weeping, exploding fragrant in a coloured soul, a luffing flower creature to life──crowned

──to sun hope thorns.

©ASPAR (A Sol Poet Arnay Rumens)

When draped in cloths of purple and the finest crimson,
Gallivanting through the summered forest,
All covered in flower and magic and light.

When heavy in the swoon of a summer afternoon,
Or bathing in the lukewarm embrace of our troubles,
Wallowing away the days
And counting down to the ones when we never have to think.

Or if by chance on the silvery moon,
When gilded with fantasy, and sitting on a happy cloud,
Overlooking our town and falling over from laughter,
For we can finally see how small we are.

It's when we find the golden afternoon,
That special time when birds never die and fairies fly,
That we will truly be content with the way of the hour glass,
And only then can we replace the changeling
With the actual thing,
No longer lost in the green and the mess,
Standing tall in the eaves,

When on our golden afternoon,
We shall be forever friends.

The time of the shining of
Wind-summered grasses, has passed,
-To the lark-breast mottle-
The harvested skin of the
Senescent land

The candle-****** gutter of
Hurrying wing sees
The last of the coin
That was minted in thatches
Of deepwood
Of latticing bramble
Of crumbling eve.

The mourn of the Moorland
Has  feathered a will
With the clot of the Ash,
Where a heather of cinnabar
Freckles the splash of
a simmering tarn

As gravelling Easterlies
Peel the cling of
The verdigris fades,
Some twilight of sepia
Musters the pastel
of Wintering calm.

The roof held. Through last year's storms it held      good.
Others' didn't. Tiles were displaced, some fell; must have leaked too.
This one was sound though: sound enough, I thought.

Wasps wouldn't nest in unsound eaves.
It would need to be dry for them. They were nesting when we
First summered here and we had to **** them.

Sometimes I can still hear their buzz in the dry air.

Darkness engulfs me and I sink deeper into a sea of sorrow
Summered by the hope of no tomorrow
Heart beat is faint pulse is weak
Will this pain induce my eternal sleep
Liquid emotions run from my eyes
As I look into the mirror at this pitiful demise
How could anyone love such a worthless existence
Costly a straggly with suicidal persistence

Once again this, once again love.
A memoir so sublime, summered and peppered, folded in lustre and sheen of a blue lensed and buffering sky

Once again love

as if one summer night would
   stop to kiss the cheek of winter
        winter
   my sandaled feet chill,
       awash in starlight
   the waves, like a slivered memory
       pure and silver,
       carry the faint heartbeat
      of many things come and gone
summered waters blow through
   their courses of hair
   in soft syllables to the ear
   they touch stones of fire
   alive in the eyes of the mind
how many hearts or ripples
   of moonlight have walked here?
   here, where new clouds breach
       ancient skies and stones
       of rivers of many things
           come and gone
   smooth and silver are the drops
       of time, which wash
       slivered memories
           of summer
   by the light of a cool moon

They briefly loved who sheltered here; the beautiful Sarah and her cousin Will.
They fled the City to this place in England’s north wild rolling hills.
Her husband had neglected her, visiting stables and not her bed.
By that wild summer of Sixty- eight their estrangement had come to a head.
To this old country house she fled; to linger in her Lover’s arms.
Their close sanguinity proved no bar; she gladly yielded to his charms.
They summered here and oft were seen, together, on the Lover’s walk.
A place where blackthorn trees entwine; but you know how people love to talk.
He left her then, alone, with child, as coloured leaves began to fall.
Divorced, disgraced, abandoned thus; She sheltered in another’s home.
This famous beauty with Stuart blood there would raise her child alone.

Such is the history of this place; their romance played out in these halls.
Their scandalous adultery was consummated within these walls.
Modern beauties visit still and stroll with beaus the Lover’s walk-
A place where blackthorn trees entwine and old ghosts whisper in the dark.

From my slice of ample darkness and space,
     I look at you from all the stirrings of things,
  dancing though you cannot dance,
  leaving planetesimals all over the terrain.

I can sense out a locutionary from the heated body
beside me. Surliness so sure of its dagger in hiding,
slowly creeping up like cocoon of morning.

That was you in your off-shoulders.
Collarbones, caryatids, tilted atmosphere
summered, simmered into the air
  until it died in a hollow jar.

And from your foreground, rusting is the wind
  and it falls down on the lawn, like garlands
  spread all Autumn by a sprightly, darling child
  in a lithesome gingham dress.

My hands, past vertical, destroying limits,
   feeling the weight of mercurial form begin
  shifting into a disturbance in lotus stature,

  fraying out of phase in limited access,
this height where springs of undecipherable fogs
   lift the face of clocks, unwatched,
whose departure is this but only distance knows?

Oh we have met before my love
we met and merged before
became one many times before
spring fever shook the
tree of desire and the hot
red mist descended and
lusted in our eyes

Bodies entwined
vine and tree become one
once again in breathless love
come see the parting of the
limbs of tree and clinging
vine venerating old old bark

Oh how have we met beneath the
full budding trees
dripping red dawn the dew all
honey sweet the sweet dew

Sap rising kissing leaves to life
veins throbbing chrysalis
bursting to life the bears
and bees ******* honeyed flower
caressing the breeze oh this is
how we met our endless cycle of
love and being

Natural children we play in
natures rhythm we sing
the day the bright sun-blue day
we sing and whistle the black
night stars into twinkling being

This is how we met full summered
in the honeydewed grass of orange dawn
the unnaccountable wind (whence, hence?)
and yellowing golden crimson leaves
blown by the gleaning breeze to
nitrogen the earth at tree feet

Oh yes my love well met we were
caved furry bears nuzzling the winter
emaciating the cold steel dawn and
clung together in sleepy hungry comfort

In all the rhythm of our seasons
oh how we have met and merged
and being one enfolded
in the breast of world
in the sensuous fall and resolution
of the roundish cyclical earthly ball

the endless fields of larkspur & lily;
the gentle sounds we make when we do not fear
being heard.

in some stolen moment, our backs blinding
against the sun; our mouths
sweetened ripe just like the things
we have not yet made;

a lightness made gossamer wings &
that place where we forget everything
but taking flight.

this whole of the aching sky & more,
the bounds beyond which we dare not or
have not yet touched.

& out of the blue,
ribbons of light,
a forgotten stream of honey, or love
that we have not yet made.

our bodies an offering; a
minute harvest summered &
reaped before we are able to see
what we have done.

They briefly loved who sheltered here; the beautiful Sarah and her cousin Will.
They fled the City to this place in England’s north wild rolling hills.
Her husband had neglected her, visiting stables and not her bed.
By that wild summer of Sixty- eight their estrangement had come to a head.
To this old country house she fled; to linger in her Lover’s arms.
Their close sanguinity proved no bar; she gladly yielded to his charms.
They summered here and oft were seen, together, on the Lover’s walk.
A place where blackthorn trees entwine; but you know how people love to talk.
He left her then, alone, with child, as coloured leaves began to fall.
Divorced, disgraced, abandoned thus; She sheltered in another’s home.
This famous beauty with Stuart blood there would raise her child alone.

Such is the history of this place; their romance played out in these halls.
Their scandalous adultery was consummated within these walls.
Modern beauties visit still and stroll with beaus the Lover’s walk-
A place where blackthorn trees entwine and old ghosts whisper in the dark.

In the summer before the world went mad
Einstein summered at Peconic bay.
He walked the beach in shorts and sandals,
He was quite bohemian in his way.
Soon he would write that letter to Roosevelt
And the atomic age will have begun.
But, for the moment, he was just
A middle aged man
enjoying his last peacetime Sun.
The stars are more numerous than
The grains of sand
And space more infinite
That the sea.
His best days were, by then, behind him,
But happier he would never be.

When ills and ails have ceased and summered
I'll wander widely, unencumbered
In my body through those golden streets
And gold the higher half of trees

How often I dream of that sudden restoring
Of boldly exploring places farther afoot
Those redolent roads where I'd carried my love,
where our words had been said
Where some later day I will wander far again

lest the best go to waste

~for the Grande Dame of Port Hardy~


this breathing fire, a coronating sense of mortality, internally
stronger than ever before, though unaffected, no visible signage,
his invisible labored breathing, the torn fabric of easy gone mentality,
yet so corrupted, his interiors polluted, his crying-out-loud goes

unheard, the sheltering alone in his head, which now is stretched,
way past the point of no return ever, this new strand of side-virus,
of dreary sameness, familiar but reimagined as an atmospheric cancer,
the urgency by which his olive oil words, from pitcher poured, astounds

no subterfuge, he’s made his Great-Escape, to the sheltering island,
his refuge, part redoubt, jagged coastlines a hardening shell, no access
until you declare fealty to the Ferry Captains, who let you board for a princely $2 bucks, if you meet their unstandards, upstanding, healthy?

to the old cottage where we have summered forty year more, The requested Crew assemblage by early dawn (no ****),  for animals unencumbered by time-stealing watches, animal mutual truce declared, mottled multiplying rabbits, squirrels who know not any fear, orange breasted robins, **** deer, mollusks, rainbow trout, osprey, cat-sized cawing crows, and the watchers, the sea-it-all gulls

even the Canadian geese send a scout, in the poet’s nook we are formed, nervous not for their safety, but worried for mine, a Memorial Day meeting very traditional, atmospheric condition cool-cloudy-overcast, party sunny a bold-faced forecasters lie-trick, for an island *******-bonding gloom, a glomming gray weight tamps the air down

Friends! My Audience for New Poets! (their honorific, now over-a-decade old): The Gods have tweeted, this year may not have a next, no Jerusalem for your human acquaintances, the luxurious slowdown of island life, infected by a new urgency, explaining the known and the unknowns facing the human interlopers

Where’s Shelter?**

a refrain, a greeting,  we have sung together, so many times, self-satisfied, fore we knew well, knew anew, we had the answer, here, here, though to life’s cycle we are not immunized, but now your human admirers face agents of death, by invisibility masked, giving us no pause, so we, all, write now, must forward on to:

live/write our best, lest, our partnership be for naught, always between us truce of mutual consent, a natural love of all living things

Each of us entered this world
Totally **** as a wintered tree
A bundle of nerves and emotions
And all worldly knowledge free

Each of us will leave this world
Perhaps clothed as a summered tree
Still a bundle of nerves and emotions
Knowledge gained or knowledge free

Each of us entered this world
Totally **** as a wintered tree
A bundle of nerves and emotions
And all worldly knowledge free

Each of us will leave this world
Perhaps clothed as a summered tree
Still a bundle of nerves and emotions
Knowledge gained or knowledge free