Classic Poem

VI

The sun has risen: on lip and brow
He greets me — I feel it — with golden wand.
Ah, bright-faced Norna! I see thee now;
Where first I saw thee I see thee stand!
From the trellis the girl look'd down on me:
Her maidens stood near: it was late in spring:
The grey priests laugh'd as she cried in glee
" Good bard, a song in my honour sing! "
I sang her praise in a loud-voiced hymn
To God who had fashion'd her, face and limb,
For the praise of the clan and the land's behoof:
So she flung me a flower from the trellis roof.
Ere long I saw her the hill descending;
O'er the lake the May morning rose moist and slow;
She pray'd me, her smile with the sweet voice blending,
To teach her all that a woman should know.
Panting she stood: she was out of breath:
The wave of her little breast was shaking:
From eyes still childish and dark as death
Came womanhood's dawn through a dew-cloud breaking.
Norna was never long time the same:
By a spirit so strong was her slight form moulded
The curves swell'd out of the flower-like frame
In joy in grief to a bud she folded:
When she listen'd her eyes grew bright and large
Like springs rain-fed that dilate their marge.

VII

So I taught her the hymn of Patrick the apostle,
And the marvels of Bridget and Columkille:
And ere long she sang like the lark or the throstle,
Sang the deeds of the servants of God's high will:
I told her of Brendon, who found afar
Another world 'neath the western star;
Of our three great bishops in Lindisfarne isle;
Of St Fursey the wondrous, Fiacre without guile;
Of Sedulius, hymn-maker when hymns were rare,
Of Scotus the subtle, who clove a hair
Into sixty parts, and had margin to spare.
To her brother I spake of Oisin and Fionn,
And they wept at the death of great Oisin's son.
I taught the heart of the boy to revel
In tales of old greatness that never tire,
And the virgin's, up-springing from earth's low level,
To wed with heaven like the altar fire.
I taught her all that a woman should know:
And that none should teach her worse lore, I gave her
A dagger keen, and taught her the blow
That subdues the knave to discreet behaviour.
A sand-stone there on my knee she set,
And sharpen'd its point — I can see her yet —
I held back her hair, and she sharpen'd the edge
While the wind piped low through the reeds and sedge.

VIII

She died in the convent on Ina's height:
I saw her the day that she took the veil:
As slender she stood as the Paschal light,
As tall and slender and bright and pale!
When I saw her, I dropp'd as dead: bereaven
Is earth when her holy ones leave her for heaven:
Her brother fell in the fight at Beigh:
May they plead for me, both, on my dying day!

IX

All praise to the man who brought us the Faith!
'Tis a staff by day and our pillow in death!
All praise, I say, to the holy youth
Who heard in a dream from Tyrawley's strand
That wail, " Put forth o'er the sea thy hand;
In the dark we die: give us hope and truth! "
But Patrick built not on Iorras' shore
That convent where now the Franciscans dwell:
Columba was mighty in prayer and war;
But the young monk preaches, as loud as his bell,
That love must rule all and wrongs be forgiven,
Or else, he is sure, we shall reach not Heaven!
This doctrine I count right cruel and hard:
And when I am laid in the old churchyard
The habit of Francis I will not wear;
Nor wear I his cord, or the cloth of hair
In secret. Men dwindle: till psalm and prayer
Had sotten'd the land, no Dane dwelt there!

X

I forgive old Cathbar who sank my boat:
Must I pardon Feargal who slew my son?
Or the pirate, Strongbow, who burn'd Granote,
They tell me, and in it nine priests, a nun,
And, worst, Saint Finian's crosier staff?
At forgiveness like that I spit and laugh!
My chief, in his wine-cups, forgave twelve men;
And of these a dozen rebell'd again!
There never was chief more brave than he!
The night he was born Loch Dool upburst:
He was bard-loving, gift-making, loud or glee,
The last to fly, to advance the first.
He was like the top spray upon Uladh's oak,
He was like the tap-root of Argial's pine:
He was secret and sudden: as lightning his stroke:
There was none that could fathom his hid design!
He slept not: if any man scorn'd his alliance,
He struck the first blow for a frank defiance,
With that look on his face, half night, half light,
Like the lake gust-blacken'd yet ridged with white!
There were comely wonders before he died:
The eagle swoop'd, and the Banshee cried;
The witch-elm wept with a blighted bud:
The spray of the torrent was red with blood:
The chief, returned from the mountains bound
Forgat to ask after Bran, his hound.
We knew he would die: three days passed o'er;
He died. We waked him for three days more.
One by one, upon brow and breast,
The whole clan kiss'd him. In peace may he rest.