Classic Poem

In that ill-lighted house among the mountains,
Before dream-fighters came to tilt his feet
And the skilled women lap his head, Cuchullin
Brooded on the third day, for he had heard
Storm break about the anvils that have forged
Themselves, nor could he find the sweets of metal
That iron hides in the last sound. In vain
Did men turn air to thought and women patch
The fire that he might know the comforting
Of ear and eye. In vain did Gennan turn
His wonder to untruth:
" Lift the great horn,
For day has laid a burning blade
Upon the waters, thunder no more sounding
Under the capes.
I looked into the west
And the claw had gone.
But I saw blue-men heave
Their backs in struggle, for they bore a seawoman
Who prized the very shore. Bled, bled by scale
Or fin, they fought for that unreal breast
Because of her comb-breaking hair, and I
Could hear her shrieking thinly for the sea.
These things I saw from Malinmore.
Drink, drink,
For ale is clearer at the sunset. Thought
Returns, but far beyond the lift of sail
The Reddener still burns upon the wave."

Cuchullin stirred.
" The rivets are red-hot
And iron swims the trough. We live by hate
And what we hold. See! See, the black men draw
The roaring damper that the inner fire
May cook my instruments and thunderbolts
Of war."
" O do not listen to the door
Or creaking bolt. Dear, I am Emer, your
Own wife. Three days these companies have played
To entertain your fancy and they are tired.
They drink the unheathered ale that has been taken
From stone and do not know whether to laugh
Or moan."
But every chink became a fife
And blew itself in that ill-lighted house
Until he got the tune into his nod
And toe.
We dance, we dance from the rock to grass
And hold our hands together as we pass
The mountain heather, the rock, the grass. . . .
" He has heard
Maybe, the daughters of Mainey," she said,
" For they,
Being lazy in the house, grew crazed together
And ran into the dew, and now they dance
Forever in the hazes of heather.
When she
Was young, my grandmother heard them at her door,
Dancing out of Dunlewy.
Alas that he should hear that reel,
For it is a foolish thing and put a stop
To many a fine wheel!
But I hear in the house
My women catching as they iron the clothes.
Hush now."
" I have seen Cerb."
" O golden top-knot!"
" Apple that breaks the branch!"
" I know an herb
To cure a common ill."
" The night is cold,
O let me in!"
" She took that secret plant."
" She hid it next her skin."
" He was my darling
Among all men."
" Happiness comes and goes."
" The starlings leave the glen."
" Ah Cu,
Listen, for they sing and here is one
Who, knowing we are far from court, has brought
A rustic song."
" O I will leave the island
Where they haul the fish to cut them on the stone
And leave their guts, a goodly due
Under the beak of seamew, cormorant
Or scavenger.
Then I will lift a sail
And lean towards Gortahork where many a torc
Lies hid in the grass and cold dark water
That never saw the sun — and find the woman
Who put her hand upon my heart and take
No word but, close as hole in corner, lie
With her again, wherever be her bed."

Ferceirtne sang:
" As I went far, O men,
From Carrowmore I heard the seagulls cry
And trail the clumsy feathers of their young
Around that rock where banished Malachi
Was swollenheaded by such pain, he cracked
The bladder-weed to get him wine.
No slop
Or poultice now could draw the fiery blister,
Too big in gullet, for those parching lips
Were thicker than his thumbs.
He dreamed of a ship
Hulling the waves, lashed heavily with cask
And broaching, while his wife, with dull red locks,
Lying at his feet, began to sigh and bare
Herself again that she might squeeze out for him
The last tittle of her milk."
Some cried
Or laughed because the ale was strong. But Emer
Turned to them.
" These are sad tales
That hold the fire, and there is no song can mend
A woe that so sorrowful an end
Too long ago."
She was uneasy
Thinking how men have been too long in pain
Or love and said to them that they should sing
Of peace in the heart, seeing she had so much
To do with grief. Before a head could turn,
A young man had come in although the door
Was barred. His voice was kind and sly; he gave
A riddle to the old.
" Men pare the nails
Of that beast at the root, for the sacred boughs
Are a well of light. But when the moon has passed
Behind the sea and unseasonable apples
Ripen, O gather them at midnight, lest
The eaters from the air have swifter wings.

I lie on the dark beds of song, I warm
Myself at the fire before a pot is on,
But in the summer I will walk through grass
Into the west, my ear to the little cuckoo
Over the grey hazes where seven isles
Bramble the waters.
There will be clouds on Nephin,
Higher than the ram may clamber to the grass
Where the loose stone-wall topples in the gap
Of the wind."
" Then make a song, for one
Is sorrowful here this night."
And to a string
He sang these pleasant words:
" There was a king
That had nine lands and ale outside the door
And he had happy pine-lands to snare the song
Of birds. So far below the showery peaks
And falling gleams of water, shouting men
Climbed out and drove the cowering eagles back
With empty claws.
And they looked down and told
Of twigging tops and hazel ways where sunlight stays
All day, and heard the early cuckoo calling
From the green brink of May.
And so that King
Grew great of heart with his extravagance,
And hearing far below the watery noise
Of dancing branch, the cry of summer bird
Around the isles.
He called for every comer
Whose wandering words, much like the mountain herds
Of sheep, are lost in quiet days, to spill
Their mellow praise into his cup and dropped
Asleep, when thrushing woods were yellow-topped
With sunset."
" I'll have no music pass my head.
What is reality, since everything
That had been hidden up the mighty Sleeve
Is turning inside out? I hear, I hear
The stockmen, stonemen, listening behind
That door.
There is a sound can change the mind
Another — and it puts a treacherous hand
Upon the bolt."
" O do not answer him,
Cuchullin, for they say he has a foot
In every household, big or small, who runs
As riddle can. Have you not clapped the wall
Back, when the skipping-rope was quicker than
A head or heel, to cup the acrobats
From Greece?"
" Run up to him, sweet voice,
Jostle among their praises, for such a man
Can whistle a married woman to his bed,
Having the blackbird throat."
" Listen to that,
Cathva! His mind is near and a sharp tongue
Has touched the shaky tooth I know so well,
Let everybody go to bed that I
May nurse him, lest the fearful dream come back,
For never was I jealous of my husband
Until to-night."
After the company
Was gone, she sat in patience. But the fire
Fell with a sound that angered him.
" I hear
Old thunder rutting in his Atlantic cave."

And near her heart she sighed:
" O little Hound,
That never more will know the running gleam,
Dew of the morning-tide on shores of grass,
Lie down and slumber for the things of storm
Walk with blind eyes within the staggering wood."

But he half-hearing said:
" There are no stags
In the wood. I hear a lonely woman
Crying in the night out there. They cut
Her name, fourfold on stone, for every wind
To spell."
" Come back, dear mind, master of eye
And word, come back."
She prayed until her heart
Went wild. . . .
" Now I could almost laugh, seeing
That I must have the sweet craft of a woman,
Enticement on my lips as though I drank
Oldness of wine before bed, yet when there is laughter
The rafters will growse, and if there are women
Come to the house, it may be they will turn
Away, if a man is ill and there is no herb,
No foolish herb that could be pulled under the full moon
In the welling hour, for cure. . . . And a wild one ran out
Into the rain, for, being childless, she grew tired
Of the long hall and the wet smother of smoke
Upon the flags. . . . And, though I disremember,
She might have come upon the airy people
Who help the young in their trouble. . . . Yet having many
A word run to my head, I know the court-women
Whisper that I am proud because I have
Fine clothes. But their eyes will never take him away
From me. No . . . no . . . no. How will they take him,
Seeing I am his wife? Nor will they make him
Forsake me. Had I not fought them with a dagger
Who gazed in his face and thought him least, when Briccriu
Held feast and the wine was braggart. But he, being sick,
Grew haggard. I have been dutiful to him
And silent . . . and I know that sorrow like mine
Can cruddle a mild-white skin, for all
The raddling of the high cheekbone."
Her tears
Had hidden him.
" Cuchullin, it is I
Without lie, though I cry. Remember Emer,
How she would dream herself too brave, although
I seem her shadow now. O grief, his eyes
Gaze through me into the roomy darkness
As though he never knew me. Come back to him,
Come back, dear mind, to the grey-green and blue pupil
That stand so wide apart."
She turned
And whispered to herself.
" I would cross the mearing
When shadowy strikers have wearied of the flame
By the weir, I would run within hearing and call
A few men from the glen, for to-night I am fearing
For him I love. O I would cross the mearing
Though many a stone fall."
But he looked up
And said:
" When mountain-rocks are red with bracken,
The fox may run unseen!"
And she:
" Women
Who know the little mists of Lackan, wean
Their children in the chilly sun and go
Indoors, when the wooding hawk has dropped
Below the hungry hill.
O we will hurry
South where the squirrels run a mile through boughs
From isle to isle, and in the hazels
The sunlight dances with green heels.
We will be happy,
For there the cuckoo is whiling over the waters
An hour from dawn and in the sapping woods,
When summer has gone, the apples in their soft falling
Ripen the grass again.
And there
Through the rushes no stepping-stones go."
He shook
And cried.
" Bear sun in every speckle, hawk!
Cross water by no ford!"
But she, remembering
Her dread, began to comfort him again.
" Happy was I and the women sorted wool
Until the twilight took the seven hues
Away, but candle brought them back again.
I went down to the river by myself
And saw a sedging moon. It was the night
That I had heard your name for the first time
And someone said, though I would not believe him,
That when you were a boy you left the playgreen,
The school-war, and you ran a hundred miles
To guard big Cullan's house and so became
The Hound of Ulster."
Then she thought:
" There is much good in lullabies, and I
Will make one now to quiet him! —
Little Hound,
Little Hound, I weary of seeing the days
Come and go, the women who talk at nightfall
When you are away with the men and every sound
Is a catching of my breath. I weary myself
And I vex my heart with its longing. O would I were she
Who went after dark, without fear, without slip
Over the weir of the otter, with open red lips
To run and cry through the grass as a misting plover
On her wild one, her lover.
O would we were as free,
For he stood beside her cry and carried her with laughter
Through fluttered woods and the glens without a name,
And married her in a pleasant land where they
Lived happy ever after.
Sleep, sleep, little Hound,
And sleep now, for drowsily under Slieve Fews
The heavy dews creep on the bough, while I weep,
While I weep. Let you yawn and grow weary
And slumber. I would take off my shoes and move
On bare feet through the house lest he wake,
Lest he wake. I would lie down beside him and give
My own sleep. For clearly I see now the morrow,
Grey dawn on the lake, and sorrow with me, while around
Every island wings drip."
Then in despair
She whispered.
" He does not know me,
What can I do, who am a lonely woman
With no child of our own to please his knee
But sit down here and cry poor eyes out
Lest any illness take him far from me?
How will they ever know I lie awake
In bed, hearing the wind become a river,
Crying for a little thing, a childeen of our own.
Why should they all have children? . . . I am
A lonely woman and he does not know me,
And what, now, can I do?"
" The smoke of prayer
And knife is low upon the stone, but far
Inland, the nations drive the haltered bullock
That adoration steam upon the altar
Our fathers raised."
" Ah, Cu, I am to blame.
What is my grief to yours?"
" All yesterday
I fought the waves until a demon-smith
Went by with rivets in his mouth. O then
I saw beyond my hand a dim red sun
Burn on the anvil of the water-storm,
Alone."
" Now I will ready the fire,
Put bread and ale upon the table, dear,
And a tall light, lest the idle servants
Come — and we will eat."
" The gods look down
Somewhere or other, — the ridge of the world —
Whenever, wherever the smoke of a cooking pot
Drifts out from isle to isle.
Men double the back
For the yearly thrift of rye. They wive and rear
Children and die. But should they squabble for
A spit of rock; that blow is handed down
Because the story-tellers have so little
To do."
As she went
About the smouldering shadow, he said:
" I
Have dreamed too wildly and there is no room
Can hold more than a foolish thought. Seeing
That bread is at my elbow, candlelight
And simple things, a heavy waterish jewel
Some man has kindled in itself because
He wished. There has been too much crying
Inside my head. The wise have seen the fires
Going down and have gone to bed. I am
Tired, but they left an aching in my joints
That will not let me rest.
Her busy heart sang louder:
" He is freed.
We will be happy for they say that the evil
Will empty at dawn and go into the air."
The bread fell from his hand.
" No, No,
I have been wrong. The minds of many men
Make greatness, take fire and tumult of their dreams.
A spacious land is ploughed by sun and rain;
The seasons are their yoke. But when the breeze
Runs with the barley like the steady pouring
Of grain into the copper, jealousy
Must keep that delicate shore.
Alas! they grind
Again the implements and thunderbolts
Of war, who have despised their strength, thinking,
If quietness come like a summer shower
To idle in the tops of the woods, that peace
Has mellowed in the vats of all that land.
Yet peace is the counting of ungathered wool
Along the crag, sound in the little bay
Where sails may flounder and men in a sunny hold
Forget to dream of wealth beyond the wave;
Slow days; a woman burdened in her womb
Might wind and rewind from the bobbin, weave
On rackets of the loom a winter cloth
Piecemeal and dream it cast-off in the gloom
With wear and tear, before the last fiery threads
Of parting wings break in the west.
I hear,
I hear within the darkness many an axe
Unhafted by the timbers we have known.
Hazel and hollywood fall down, for song
Is hedged no more. Only a naked wind
Is shivering by the river."
" You are cold
And will not eat. See, I have drawn a faggot
Across the fire-top."
" As I lay in camp
Last night, I dreamed that a great maggot came
Out of the river to attack me. But
The famous strength that has afflicted me
Because it is not mine, sprang into fury
That hacked and hacked the monster into pieces:
But all those pieces were a living brood
And each one wriggled, hurrying by itself,
Into the suck beyond. O then I knew
Man may destroy all things but war. And I,
Who feared no danger, was afraid."
A third voice
Spoke in the hall:
" Cuchullin, why do you dream
In an ill-lighted house where only the smoke
Of hillside twigs and damp can fight old wars
In wintertime. This is the melancholy
Of a lovesick youth who has tied his feverish hands
To the bedpost because of an affliction
That makes him weak. I hear the men
Of Connaught marching and the rock-hid spies
On the stagbeetle's track.
Fergus MacRoy
Has fled again to that stone-fort where wits
Are crazed by the skirling and whirling of seagulls
Pale as their droppings, Conal ridden out
With seven hundred horse. A storyteller
Has seen the brand-new fires that banqueted
At Emain — and the bedsticks of a king
Beneath the Black Hag's pot.
Ride, ride with me
Into our camp, for here is treachery
In every corner and a creeping sound
Of body-knives below the skirting. Tallows
Flare in the dun and the doors are barred."
The Fury
Was treading air.
" O listeners in this house,
Tiptoe upon the yewen-seasoned floors
Lest a foolish crack cry treason!"
" Have you forgotten Niav
Who warmed the left side of your camp-bed, cut
Her hair that she might swagger among men,
Laughed as she straddled the car-pole at every bump
Of hub, knowing that her little hand at night
Was closer on your thigh than the great weapon
All feared but she? Have you forgotten Niav
Who loves you still?"
" The voice is older than
Your words, harsh as an iron sheet."
" You have
Betrayed me by your fears."
" Why are those eyes
Bloodshot and furious?"
" Your cowardice
Has dried my tears."
But Emer beat the air
That was tormenting him, held candle up
Because the grey-green and blue pupil stared
So wide apart.
" Why are you fighting sleep,
My pet, when I would keep you from all harm?
This night is dangerous, but O to-morrow
You will be better. Cathva whispered me
That Calitin might cast his ugly daughters
Upon the air, each one alike in claw
And dug. Three years they were in Babylon,
And they went down into that fiery shop
Where Vulcan works, braining his horrible
Designs; and with his help they taught man how
To shape the instruments and thunderbolts
Of war."
The phantom mocked
His drumming ear.
" Will he not dare to look
On me? Will he not turn from any comfort
Though Connaught men hurdle the livestock, cook
Their mess by day and fill themselves with talk
Of fabulous conquest? Will he run into the air
Bare-necked who was a dreaded man, before
The stitchers with their comic chalk have yoked
A shirt too big for him? Must I go bare,
Pleasing a common eye, forget a taste
Upon my tongue that cannot sport again
With him all night.
O now let war take top
And cut, the hillside camp give messages
That light can carry, men dig deeper than
The mole they blind; Nature replenish all
And habit vanish from reality —
Fantastic as famine that sleeps i' the weak sun;
So when the defeated are gone, abandoned women
May gape at doors that hold a dreadful sight
And, for all their fear, have rape to bed, before
The fires upon their hearth are trampled out.
O now let war take high and low!"
Beware!
Though we are air, poor air, though we pass
And the mountain grass cannot stir, O beware!

Who is it that is crying out there all night?
Is there no lover's sleep but I must dream
That music crossed the ford although the blowman
Was lost?
O Cuchullin, beware, beware
The knottings of her hair! No man has knife
Can cut them to the worm.
" What are your names?"
We are the three who lay in Glenmacnass,
And though we have no bodies now, believe
That we are men.
But Emer said to him:
" O do not listen, dear one, for the moon
Is dangerous at night and when a small cloud
Comes over it, they say the chatterers
Hide from the glint of wet fur in the heather
As some beast goes by."
The wrangle
Had faded, for Cuchullin lay again
In an uneasy slumber. With a sigh
She looked on his distorted face and turned
Away. O she had too much grief that night
And all her love was vain. It was high time
That the dream-fighters came to tilt his feet
And women lap his head, having much skill
To help the great.
When she was gone
He stirred to find a minute in the gloom
And, hearing but the creak of his arm muscle
And kneecap, called:
" Women are whirled as leaves.
They drift against our dreams."
And he bent down
Beside the hearth.
Inside of sleep
He was aware that his own cunning mind
Was listening at a door. His body put
A hand into the shadows. With a laugh
He felt along a wall, sharpening
With every memory, his instruments
And bolts of war.
There in the doorway,
Unsheltered by wind and rain, his Niav
Was standing.
With a cry she came
Breathless, as when she warned him of the ship
Below Dunseverick.
" Go back! Go back,
Cuchullin, for the air is dangerous
At midnight. As I waited in the fort
A young man came, whose voice was kind and sly,
To warn me. Down the secret path I ran,
I ran to you. The wind and rain have drenched me
To the very skin. Three times I slipped, I tumbled
By stone and rabbit-hole and I am black
Or blue all over.
See, see!"
— she smiled to comfort him —
" My clothes are torn and I must strip before
The fire now; though the women hate me, beg
Needle and thread."
" Why did you leave me,
An hour ago?"
" I was not here to-night.
You know they have kept me from you, darling."
" Lies,
All lies. I saw you with my own two eyes
Behind that chair."
" But I was never here
Before. I swear, beloved, it is true.
Go back, go back, the air is dangerous
At midnight."
Desperate with every nail
She clung to him.
" Ah, little fury, I know
You have deceived me."
" No. No. It is
A terrible mistake, and I can see
All clearly now. O that is why an hour
Ago, I had a shivering fit beside
The fire and I was not myself. And, then,
That young man came, whose voice was kind and sly,
With a warning riddle. But I will save you now,
For I can see all clearly in my head.
Go back, go back, the air is dangerous
At midnight."
" I know your trick of tongue,
For I let on to be asleep to-night,
But I heard every word you said
Behind my back. Aye, there is treachery
In this or that corner and a creeping sound
Of body-knives below the skirting. Tallows
Flare in the dan and every door is barred
But mine.
Warn, warn the listeners again
To tiptoe on the yewen-seasoned floors
Lest a foolish crack cry treason!"
She could not tell
The black from the purple pupil standing wide
Apart, so terrible with sight, where she
Had danced to many a candle-top until
She was too small. She could not tell the black
From purple, who with a cry for help
Had fled into the night.
" All, all my comrades gone,"
He pondered,
" who were with me in the great war
Of Connacht, and though I call to Conal Cearnach,
Laery the open-handed, Ferdia
Or my poor Laeg who gave me every rein,
They cannot hear me now. The strong return
No more. The good, the gentle, whom I had
Protected, have been done to death, that I
Might snatch at sleep. But I will stay the north
And keep that border to the desolate end
Who thought to spend the uncounted years in peace,
Happily beside the fire, among new children
And memories."
Far in the night, the voices
Of all those gentle friends whom he had loved
Cried out, and he was shaken by his tears:
Cuchullin, our Cuchullin, we are dead!
The sudden pain was mixed into our sleep
With light. We wander in the painful air,
We are emptied as cries into the storm.
Break wine and sleep, and now, poor women, weep,
For we were dreaming and the killers came.
Cuchullin, our Cuchullin, we are dead,
And all the westward land is smoke and flame!

What, what is man but a poor balancer
When time is pressing on his hands! He keeps
Appointment with the breath that must destroy
Him, wears in a last agony the pitchcap
Of thought. But now this story-man, Cuchullin,
Had armed his body even before his mind
Turned down in headless fury to clap on him
Gigantic strength, from pan to bone, shaking
The rafters with old challenge.
All the tumblers,
The breathers, in that house had run, half-dressed,
To watch him in the shadows clip the hook
And staylet of his battle-coat. Only
The cry of Emer rang back as she turned
To Niav, knowing that no mortal voice
Could keep him from the open door. All, all
Stood there, half-dress'd, and chill with fear, they heard
The madman mutter to his jacket, stared
At what was going on in that dark hall.