Classic Poem

XI

I sang his dirge. I could sing that time
Four thousand staves of ancestral rhyme:
To-day I can scarcely sing the half:
Of old I was corn, and now I am chaff!
My song to-day is a breeze that shakes
Feebly the down on the cygnet's breast;
'Twas then a billow the beach that rakes
Or a storm that buffets the mountains crest.
Whatever I bit with a venomed song
Grew sick, were it beast, or tree, or man:
The wrong'd one bade me avenge his wrong
With the flail of the Satire and fierce Ode's fan.
I sang to the chieftains: each stock I traced
Lest lines should grow tangled through fraud or haste.
To princes I sang in a loftier tone
Of Moran the Just who refused a throne;
Of Moran whose torque would close and choke
The wry-neck'd witness that falsely spoke,
I taught them how to win love and hate,
Not love from all, and to shun debate.
To maids in the bower I sang of love:
And of war at the feastings in hall or grove.

XII

Great is our order; but greater far
Were its pomp and its power in the days of old,
When the five Chief Bards in peace or war
Had thirty bards each in his train enroll'd;
When Ollave Fodhla in Tara's hall
Fed bards and kings: when the boy-king Nial,
Was train'd by Torna: when Britain and Gaul
Their laurel crowns sent to Dallan Forgial.
To-day we can launch the clans into fight:
That day we could freeze them in mid career!
Whatever man knows, was our realm by right:
The lore without music no Gael would hear.
Old Cormac, the brave, blind king was bard
Ere fame rose yet of O'Daly and Ward.
The son of Milesius was bard — " Go back,
My people, " he sang; " ye have done a wrong!
Nine waves go back o'er the green sea track;
Let your foes their castles and coasts make strong.
To the island ye came by stealth and at night:
She is ours if we win her in all men's sight! "
'Tis past! some think that we err'd through pride,
Though Columba the vengeance turned aside.
Too strong we were not: too rich we were:
Give wealth to knaves: 'tis the true man's snare!

XIII

But now men lie: they are just no more:
They forsake the old ways: they quest for new;
They pry and they snuff after strange false lore
As dogs hunt vermin. It never was true:
I have scorn'd it for twenty years — this babble
That eastward and southward a Saxon rabble
Have won great battles, and rule large lands,
And plight with daughters of ours their hands!
We know the bold Norman o'erset their throne
Long since! Our lands! Let them guard their own!

XIV

How long He leaves me — the great God — here!
Have I sinn'd some sin, or has God forgotten?
This year, I think, is my hundredth year:
I am like a bad apple, unripe yet rotten!
They shall lift me ere long, they shall lay me — the clan —
By the strength of men on Mount Cruachan!
God has much to think of! How much He has seen
And how much is gone by that once has been!
On sandy hills where the rabbits burrow
Are Raths of Kings men name not now:
On mountain tops I have tracked the furrow
And found in forests the buried plough.
For one now living the strong land then
Gave kindly food and raiment to ten.
No doubt they wax'd proud and their God defied;
So their harvest He blighted or burned their hoard;
Or He sent them plague, or He sent the sword;
Or He sent them lightning; and so they died
Like Dathi, the king, on the dark Alps' side.

XV

Ah me! that man who is made of dust
Should have pride toward God! 'Tis an angel's sin!
I have often fear'd lest God, the All-just,
Should bend from heaven and sweep earth clean,
Should sweep us all into corners and holes,
Like dust of the house-floor, both bodies and souls!
I have often fear'd He would send some wind
In wrath; and the nation wake up stone-blind.
In age or in youth we have all wrought ill:
I say not our great King Nial did well
(Although he was Lord of the Pledges Nine)
When, beside subduing this land of Eire,
He raised in Armorica banner and sign,
And wasted the British coast with fire.
Perhaps in His mercy the Lord will say,
" These men! God's help! 'Twas a rough boy play! "
He is certain — that young Franciscan priest —
God sees great sin where men see least:
Yet this were to give unto God the eye
(Unmeet the thought) of the humming fly!
I trust there are small things He scorns to see
In the lowly who cry to Him piteously.
Our hope is Christ. I have wept full oft
He came not to Eire in Oisin's time;
Though love, and those new monks would make men soft
If they were not harden'd by war and rhyme.
I have done my part: my end draws nigh:
I shall leave old Eire with a smile and a sigh:
She will miss not me as I miss'd my son:
Yet for her, and her praise, were my best deeds done.
Man's deeds! man's deeds! they are shades that fleet,
Or ripples like those that brake at my feet.
The deeds of my Chief and the deeds of my King
Grow hazy, far seen, like the hills in spring.
Nothing is great save the death on the Cross!
But Pilate and Herod I hate, and know
Had Fionn lived then he had laid them low
Though the world thereby had sustain'd great loss.
My blindness and deafness and aching back
With meekness I bear for that suffering's sake;
And the Lent-fast for Mary's sake I love,
And the honour of Him, the Man above!
My songs are all over now: so best!
They are laid in the heavenly Singer's breast
Who never sings but a star is born:
May we hear His song in the endless morn!
I give glory to God for our battles won
By wood or river, or bay or creek:
For Norna, who died; for my father, Conn;
For feasts, and the chase on the mountains bleak:
I bewail my sins, both unknown and known,
And of those I have injured forgiveness seek.
The men that were wicked to me and mine
(Not quenching a wrong, nor in war nor wine);
I forgive and absolve them all, save three:
May Christ in His mercy be kind to me!