Classic Poem

Hurricane, lighting the last of the shattered lands, rang
Where the mountains are lifted, a handful of glimmering javelins
Flung far to the seaward, forever in cloud—as a horseman,
Galloping out of the gullies of sunlight,
Climbed, where the herds of the thunder lowed in black meadows:
Hillocky lands far below him grew dimmer—on red
Flooding oars the sun grated the uttermost islands—crossing
The momentary bridges that curdled in mist from the hoofs,
Far over the waterish valley of twilight, he saw
Tremendous gates hammered with copper, reforged in the sunset,
Guarded by clouds; he hung like a fiery drop, reined,
Disappeared, for loud laughter took flight to the rainy gulfs
Below, and he knew, as he galloped, that gods and their creatures
Drank, merry together.
Far in the night he had heard
Strange hoofs, as the roar of the foaling tide raced in the glen,
Where the sea-mountains stable their clouds, and had ransacked the forge
Of Slieve Gullion, while farriers, leaping in fire and sea-fog,
Swung as they hammered speed into the fetlocks of war,
Half-naked; a hundred lit anvils belled in the glare
Of the furnaces, hurling night back on the ridges
Of mist, where the gullies roared past him, herding their weirs
To the forest below. He had seen the last precipice loom
Of the mountain-cupped lake and a grey mare, dimmer than cloud,
Grazing the water. They wrestled together, they fought
Deep in foam, till he vaulted upon her with bellying knees,
Saddled her, forced in the snaffle, clouding her nostrils, and
Rearing upon her big haunches, the water-horse plunged
To the world.
Muirthemne reeled past, mountain-deep in the moonlight,
Gloom leaped from the ridges upon that new mane and the cry
Of the pine was cut down by the gale as faster yet faster
She fled from the bridle; the harder land stubbled in flame
From her pastern, over the racing plain, shafted with firs,
They saw the lake, weir'd in black reeds, where a queen long ago,
Hurried out with a wine-cup to open the well and a roar
Drowned the terrified rafters and over the meadow land
The idle bright grain of the moon poured; faster yet faster
They raced on, lengthening into the night where the waters
Of coldness are sown in the meadows of forest and, darker
With moorland, the miles dropped behind the cloud-hungering hoofs
As they rose, as they climbed, from a river-strewn valley, beyond
The last steps of the pinewood. Far, far, the bare rock
Trumpeted, lakes neighed and sank till the shivering mare
Stopped, for a stallion had bounded, black and gigantic,
To cover her. Plunging together from cloud-dwelling hollows
They fought in their dreadful espousals. The man had leaned down,
Turning the jaws of the noose. Backward the horses
Coiled and into the lowlands, as dragons, they dropped,
By river and wood, to the Valley of Terror, where camped
On the brink of a clearing, the outlaws of Calitin cooked
By their simmering fires and a daughter laid foot on a faggot
And ran on the flamy air crying:
‘Through the fingers of smoke
I have seen, I have seen, the horses of day and night
Plunging in cloud. Through the smoke and the flame I have seen,
I have seen!’
But the valley grew louder, for phantoms
Of battle, with glittering claws on their wings, climbed around him
That galloped, one hand locked in fire of the hard biting leather,
While thunder of horses, beneath him, was swayed, as by pole
And ground wheels, in their fury.
Day rushed through the forests
Unseen and from darkening islands the sunset was heeled
By the wintering tides. Yet onward, far onward, they rode
Where the sail never lifted and only the northern wolves
Hear the whimpering pines or the Fomors, encamping, have piled
Their fires on the funeral isles, when the games and the wrestling
Are done. Heading the bridle in fury, they sounded
The ridge of the world, they climbed and the hare in a dream
Crawled by to the emptier grass, where the deer sheds a horn
They came; heavy clouds were asleep and the piebald moon
Was grazing below them.
Errigal, lifting a rusted
Spear, sank into cloud.
Far westward Nephin had gathered
Bright water and trees.
Softer than rain-hidden pools
Beyond the last leap of the salmon, the hushes of grass
Grew, air was lush with the hazel, by palings of cloud,
Dark inlets of pinewood, he rode to the glimmering sand-hills,
There music fell down on the coast, and the horses becalmed
At the ocean. Caressing them, smoothing their haunches, he drove,
Without rein, into deepening silver and misty voices
Out of the dubious borders of Tirnanogue
Flowed to the saddle:
‘Cuchullin, Cuchullin,’
They murmured
About him.
‘Go with us, go,
For we know of a brightness beyond the lit blade: there, the hazels
Are nutting, day fades, and we move as the lifting gleam
To the steps of the tide.’
Shoreward he urged the great horses,
For he knew the pale foam was enchanted and loudly his heart
Had remembered the north, where men beat out the fire on the anvil,
Cast the spear, ride, leap, and are glad. By mountain and field
Where those hoofs ran, the farmers were turning in sleep as they dreamed
Of new war. Onward, far onward he rode by the ford
Of the stars; the horsemen of Mainé dragging their plunder
Leaped from a brink—and were gone; territories sank
Into forest; but onward, far onward, he rode and the plain
And the meadow were mown in silver, grew bare and wolves heard him
Galloping into the echoing gap of the north.