Classic Poem

O storyteller do not tire
Between the fire and wall,
For hills are greener where the spade
Has been: though I ran with the bird-flocks
Until the fields were small,
And from wild grass that had no herd
But the wind and the gapping showers,
I came to the branches of the red fruit
And the water loud with stars.

In the glen of the blindmen
I was alone for a night,
With a stone in the flighty boughs
I gathered a bite;
On the road from Midluachra
I will come to an empty house,
Where a fire is, and cook
A handful of meal in new water
In the pot on the hook.

On the road of Fieries,
By the path of the blows,
To a lonely smithy I came;
Quarrymen dripped from the dark ferries
For they carried a strange tale,
But the farriers, lifting the bellows,
Heartened the horseshoe —
Yet how can they marry
The water and flame?

At the Feast of the Bullock
And the full of the night,
I heard the horsemen far away:
They snared me with light as a young bird
And hurried into Tara.
O hurlers that run after the ball
In the small fields I knew,
I am crowned by the wise with their red gold
Under rafters of black yew.