Classic Poem

Through dark ravines of cloud the dawning broke
In flashing cataracts of angered gold
On eagle crags; in mists of greyish smoke
The waters of the darkness, black and cold,
Spilled from the world's cliffs to the ocean pit.
Star-rushlights guttered out along the sky,
The peewit's whimpering began to flit
Across wet grasses and the cuckoo's sigh
Lingered amid a cloud of fitful trees
Where cobwebs hung with heavy drops of dew
Drizzled, as stags fled by, in silver foams.
The otters splashed among the reeds of blue
Lake-waters and the bees' honeycombs
Beneath the ferns oozed thickly golden-bright
As frozen sunrays. Under shattered scarps
That gloomed like islands in the sea of light,
High storm-swept branches sang in melodies
Like loud throbbing harps.

In the sleepy forest where the bluebells
Smouldered dimly through the night,
Diarmuid saw the leaves like glad green waters
At daybreak flowing into light,
And exultant from his love upspringing
Strode with the sun upon the height.
Glittering on the hilltops
He saw the sunlit rain
Drift as around the spindle
A silver-threaded skein,
And the brown mist whitely breaking
Where arrowy torrents reached the plain.

A maddened moon
Leapt in his heart and whirled the crimson tide
Of his blood until it sang aloud of battle
Where the querns of dark death grind,
Till it sang and scorned in pride
Love — the froth-pale blossom of the boglands
That flutters on the waves of the wandering wind.

Flower-quiet in the rush-strewn sheiling
At the dawntime Grainne lay,
While beneath the birch-topped roof the sunlight
Groped upon its way
And stooped above her sleeping white body
With a wasp-yellow ray.

The hot breath of the day awoke her,
And wearied of its heat
She wandered out by noisy elms
On the cool mossy peat,
Where the shadowed leaves like pecking linnets
Nodded around her feet.
She leaned and saw in pale-grey waters,
By twisted hazel boughs,
Her lips like heavy drooping poppies
In a rich redness drowse,
Then swallow-lightly touched the ripples
Until her wet lips were
Burning as ripened rowan berries
Through the white winter air.

Lazily she lingered
Gazing so,
As the slender osiers
Where the waters flow,
As green twigs of sally
Swaying to and fro.
Sleepy moths fluttered
In her dark eyes,
And her lips grew quieter
Than lullabies.
Swaying with the reedgrass
Over the stream
Lazily she lingered
Cradling a dream.

A brown bird rises
Out of the marshes,
By sallow pools flying
On winds from the sea,
By pebbly rivers,
Tired of the salt gusts
Sweetly 'twill whistle
On a mountainy tree.
So, gladdened, impulsive,
Grainne arising
Sped through the bluebells
Under the branches,
White by the alders
Glimmering she
Stole in the shadows,
Flashing through sunshine,
Her feet like the raindrops
On withered leaves falling
Lightful and free.

She stood beyond the reddening hawthorns
Out in the wild air
And gathering back with white-lit fingers
Her wind-loosened hair,
She scanned the dark bog-waters
Sleeping beneath the bare
Turf banks and the wide brown marshes,
But she could only find
The froth-pale blossom of the boglands
As it fluttered on the waves of the wandering wind.

So she came, a little saddened,
Bending with the slim breeze
Through the elm-misted sunshine
And flowers like pools of blue seas.
Quiet as her breath she glided
In the grass-green shade of trees.

A bird sang like a rainy well.
Then on a fallen bough
A hurrying footstep spoke, and Diarmuid
Stood before her now,
Sunburnt, pine-straight, the hilly breezes
Upon his lips and brow.

Once they rose up and wandered with the day
Southward along the broken hills and strips
Of grass that huddled round the stones of grey
Defiles. The sultry scarlet of her lips
Flowered brightly in the sad uncoloured air.
Shadowless they went, for at the noon
Through clouds of drifting rain in a white glare
The wet sun peered out like a sunken moon
In darkened waters. On the slopes, no light
Windily dancing; only skies of lead
And the blood-bright flower. There love would seem the lust
Of those whose shrivelled bodies are nigh dead
Being bruised with years, and youth the crazy dream
Of their bedridden brains: but a bright sun
Draws forth white cloud-foam from the ocean-stream
And sweetness from flowers and men. So they went on
Beneath the grey gloom till with weary feet
They rested by hoarse waters mumbling 'mid
The sally roots and bitterer than sleet
Pelting in narrow gusts, a sorrow hid
One from the other.


With the evening time
They saw a tide of sunlight, rising, surge
Through gloomy loughs among the clouds and sweep
In dazzling floods along a deepening gorge
Beneath gaunt rocks or on some woodland steep
Or splashed upon a rainworn granite brink,
In saffron pools through banks of shadow flow
And in wild tortuous tree-torn cascades sink
Into the blackness of the glens below.
Once in the green gap of the south there shone
A mist of men and bronze-red spears awhile.
And so for lonely leagues they journeyed on
Through the greyness of a mountainous defile
Cobwebbed with silence.


Wet winds and seagulls' cries
Arose when to the western capes they crossed.
A sudden redness flashed within their eyes
Against the sunset seas that wildly tossed
And drenched the stormful clouds in crimson spume,
And sucked the golden rays from mountain peaks
In gleaming whirlpools down the blackened gloom,
Then redly ebbed in the cloud-darkened creeks.
As from the sudden shadow of a hawk
In the red skies a tumult of black wings
Broke on the blast, flying from fairy things
Unseen. The sunset like a scarlet bruise
Angered. Night slowly sank. In quietness he
Carried the weary girl through thickening dews.
The white wave of her body drowsily
Rose, fell, to her slow breathing; lulled in a far
Faint warmth, half swaying in a dream
She watched with sleepy eyes a seaward star
Welling through a long purple depth of air
In silver drops; it passed in a swift gleam,
For he had gathered her as a stooping wind
Closer than night and they had come to where
A giant group of storm-gnarled crags withstood
The star-glutted skies like a black wood
Of battled oaks, the shelving roots entwined
With berried ivy clusters, and they lay
Beneath a star-hid cleft of crouching stone
On fern leaves. Once she wakened and alone
Amid the heavy night hush far away
She heard the darkened waters of the deep
Murmuring as a child in dreamful sleep.
At the wet windy dawn he climbed the crags
And saw the grey sea breaking on grey shores
Through smoky mists, and bitterly he thought
Of their long wanderings: how once he fought
Among the bluebells and sunny forest trees
And came to her at nightfall, of friends he loved
Pursuing him.


So with the mornings they fled
Until the candle of the sun burned red
Behind black cliffs. Sometimes in seaweed caves
They lay and heard the hissing crash of waves
Or murmurous in the mountain glens all day
The booming of the ocean far away,
Shell-slumbering, unquiet as their fears.
Sometimes from hilltops. Diarmuid saw far spears
Sun-streaming in narrow glens. And so they came
South and at night into a silent land.
Under grim black mountains, silver lakes
Glinted and the forests seemed of gloomy yews.
They crossed a beach where white fog waters crept
Like moonrise and beside the lakeshore slept
Under black trees.
Night waned.
The saffron dawn
Shimmered beyond the distant mountain peaks,
Rainy silver dartled on the lakeward creeks
And sea-clouds of pale yellow floated west
Along the hills. They wakened with the birds
In greenish sunlight listening to the words
Fluttered from the leaves above, then rose
And gazed upon the lake. Beside a pond
Of sallies Diarmuid cut a glossy wand
And with ripe rowan berries 'ticed the trout
Basking in the shallows where hill streams
Rippled sunnily. He drew them out
Through the swift brightened air into the curled gleams
After with crackle of twigs they kindled fire
And as it smouldered palely on the bright
Sun-coloured moss he leaned and spoke to her:
" O Grainne let us climb the cool breezed height."
He looked — across the silver shining lake
And islets thick with grassgreen trees asleep
Like their long olive shadows in the deep —
Upon the mountain forests, waterfalls
Unravelling white sunlight from the crags
Above, furze yellow slopes and far away
Blue misted summits.

" Yonder, bounding stags
Antler the wind unstalked, the squirrels play
Beneath the red-stemmed pines in thrushy glens
And streamlets trickle through cool moss."
" O sweet
The fluty blackbirds, Diarmuid, and the wrens
Flutter and warble here"

" Sweeter, from the heat
To lie i' green-dimmed woodlands thou and I,
Or, the last summit gained, under the sea-blue sky
We two, beyond pursuit, forever free, our feet
Eagle-high!"

At noon they rested in a copse of birch
High on a mountain. Through the leaves, cool rays
Of sunlight slanted past the shining bronze
Of stems. He clambered down through brambled ways
And leaned from a rock of ivy —
Far below
Around the isles of alder the wild swans
Lilied the blue waters of the lake,
And grassy slopes rose from the rush-green shores
Into the yellow whins. Past glens of sycamores
And scarlet-berried rowans he saw dark pine
Under the glittering granite and the shine
Of laky hills far off.

" O Grainne, come
With me."
They hastened toward the mountain top
Above them, climbing sunnily, floating by
The yellow seethes of gorse, rivulet sprays
And grasses the light breeze shuttled. Sprung on high
He stooped windlike, and drew her to a ledge
Of ferny rock. Breathless on the blue edge
Of heaven they stood enskied, then lay on moss
Under white-purple heatherbells, their gaze
Thirsting through the sun-dissolved blueness above.
" O Grainne, Grainne, wild Love
Of my heart, we two are free, are free,"
He sang, " in this land of lonely lakes
And lush south valleys. Here no hazy blue
Smoke o" turf rises and no children wake
The laughter of the rocks. Here, long ago
Among the lake-trees the Danaan Len
Godlike wrought gleaming gold amid a flame
Of rainbows. Before the years or him two lovers came
— May be! May be! — and sang and danced at day
By the laughing lakes or clung together passion-still
In the hushed blue of waters through the summer noons
And all the night amid the forests moved
Like fierce joy-thirsted moons.
O was this long ago? And where are they?
Is she as beautiful and is he still beloved?"
But Grainne gazed into the bright blue skies
Silently. He said, " We were pursued
From sleep to sleep, seacave to flooded glen.
I have slain things in darkness. I waked and went
Nightly from our hazel sheilings, stood
Like a hunted stag sniffing the breeze.
Remember once we heard old sallows, bent
Like hags crouching to their thin huddled knees
Over the waters, muttering; we looked
And all the farther riverbank was sedged
With spears, and dawn behind, the broad white dawn
That ever tracked our sleep. Had not Fionn pledged
Loudly to loose the ferrets of a thousand spears?
And I, hunted I thought me poor
Who had all, friendless and I did not see
The weary rain-wet face that would make men
Turn from their dreams outdreamed and poets sing no more.
What have the old, the tired, to do with love,
To pilfer pleasure and dote and think they dream?
O it is for youth, only for arrogant youth,
To love and love!"
But Grainne gazed upon the quiet skies
And saddened he thought " O Heart, it is too late
Since her white hand pulled open the little gate
Of silence. All the sweet strangeness of her
Has gone from me and I am like the air
Remembering dead wings. O bitterest love
Brooding on its own love. But O that we
Had seen and loved like Lovers long ago;
Self-found, each in the other's mystery."
He turned and watched her as she lay
There, how the purple-coloured lips of heather flowers
Touched her lissom limbs langoured with rest
And how her cloud-gold hair would softly rise
And fall, lying along her girlish breast.
" It is too late. I know her utterly."
And his heart cried. " Is it too late, too late?"
But as she gazed upon the silent skies
While the sweet slowness of the sun-hours
Was drooping through the idleness of day,
Grainne once heard his voice from far away
Murmurously lost —


" There is an isle
Beyond the red waves of the sunset where
The foam is never finned by the light prows
Of currachs nor keels grate the pebbles while
Men's heaving shouts fly low along the air
Like cormorants, only the sleepy boughs
Cluster with murmurous music and the Ever-Young
Sway with the wearied flowers in cold white joys
Amid an ancient purple light. Immortal, they
Have lost their dreams, their dreams.

This was a song
Made by a druid on a summer's day
From sorrow.
Thou! thy beauty gathers their lost dreams
Even as lulled water the green gleams
Of willow, making them more beautiful.
Thou! sweetly human, dream-strange yet to be hurt
By a chance nettle, hast known inalienable tears
And stumbled with a noon's hunger. Yet, Love to be
Piteously human is sweetest!

Lo! by the fiery spurt
From the pith of a poor reed, the Charioteers
Have stormed the darkness of the night."

His words
Were isled in silence.
Towards the evening time
Hearing faint melodies, they knew the birds
Were singing far below. Down heathered ways
They wandered. Vague trees rose through a golden haze
Of sunlight and they saw the evening lake
Gleaming amid the leaves. Then in a glade
Of grassy daisies where tall sycamores
Fluttered their yellow leaves upon the air
Like pale sunlight, Diarmuid swiftly drew
His strong arms over her till she was blind
With madder sunlight and she cried,
" As dew
I am sun-thirsted, sun-anhungered, me,
Me, snatch sunward! Time drops like a wounded bird
And all my days are burnt in utter light."
Then as some island hears the storming sea
Murmur far down in its dim heart, she heard
Him speaking:
" Grainne, Grainne, lean your white
Slender throat back, as if you were now dead
Among the fallen leaves, for I dare grieve,
So strange is joy."


Then she lay very still
With closed eyes dreaming of the sweet quiet sloth
Hour by hour of trees. She was unloth
To move, knowing him near.

" And do you sleep?"
He said, " I weary of sorrow."
But she lay there
Silent.
" O Grainne, look on me . . . your hair
Shines on me . . . wake . . . awake!"

His voice was shrill
With love and looking up she saw the red
Sunset behind him and the shadows of the night.
" Grainne, my Grainne" he murmured, " We are free,
Alone in green twilight glades. O, Come to me
Like night. Thy love has waked in me love beyond love.
As on the starry night of Beltene
A bonfire blazes and lo! height speaks to height
In flame after flame, light beyond soaring light."
But Grainne, the wild, the beautiful, fled
Up slopes of thickly clustered fern where red
Sunrays were glimmering through black-green gloom
Of oaks and up a brightened copse of fir
Out into the dusk-blue air she sped
Along the mountain. The wind ran with her
And a voice cried: " O stay with us, O stay
Lest thou should'st know of grief." But she
Hastened up the mountain moor. Black birds
Specked the red west. She heard a philibeen
Pipe near lonely waters; and still the wind
Ran with her and cried: " Away! Away!"
By aged rocks, and tussocks of sun-browned grass,
Still gleams of curlew pools, red-purple heath
Bedimmed, she hurried through a sombre pass
Of cloud-grey cromlechs. Breathless from the height
She gazed down sloping treetops, far beneath
Into a valley.
Through the pale blue light,
Beyond, great eagle crags and cliffs rose sheer
From tops of pinewoods; a tall weir
Of cloudlight. In black larches the rock-snows
Of cataracts, violet misted as rainbows,
Gleamed. Down glades of yellowed elm trees
By bluebells glimmering through russet ferns
Moths floated whitely; late birds — where the bees
Slept — gurgled like the hazel-shadowed ponds
Rain-loud with pebbled runnels. Below, past green
Tufted dells, brambles and brown sloes
Streams flowed through sedgy alders far away
Into a lake — a narrow silver sheen
Darkened with isles of sallows. Hazes of rose
Trailed westward, yet. Above the purpled grey
Of mountain summits in the deeps of blue
The first faint stars were glistening like dew.
Gladdened, on the lonely height
Grainne lingered in the glimmer
Of the blue faded light.
Above the hushed valley
The crooning pines were darker
And round the lakeward mountains
Rose the purple shadows of the night.

Grainne, sweetly
In the gleamy twilight
Sang to the murmurous pines below —
How, long ago,
A lonely girl at star-rise
Waded in the rock pools
By the sand-grey sea,
Till the dark poet Dedach
Wandering by the waters
Saw her lips were sunset-red;
And ever by the rock pools she waited
Weeping bitterly:
" Brown seaweed left at ebbtide
Would I were dead.
O! Sorrow, Sorrow, Sorrow,
He has gone from me."

Grainne, delicately, lightly,
Danced down the moss,
So whitely
Dandelions toss.
Joyous, her singing
Lingered in the pale blue air
And Diarmuid hurrying on the mountain
Saw her drooping
Beneath a lonely tree.
Loud he cried " Night falls and woodlands darken.
Come, O Grainne, come to me!"
But through the slender pines she faded
Like a gleam of snow.
" O Sorrow, Sorrow, Sorrow,"
Rose through the leaves below
And dark on the hill
He heard her voice wandering down the valley
" O Sorrow, Sorrow, Sorrow,"
And all the woods were still.

He gazed at the stars
And the drowsed purple mountains
Then hastened through the dark green shadow
Of the pine trees.
Strange faint hushes
Rose slowly round him
And an elmy breeze
Sighed as waters of day
Far away.
Through the flitting pines he hurried
Calling " Grainne, come to me
Night is here and woodlands darken
Come, O Grainne, come to me."
Out to a blue twilight
He wandered and the grim
Purple shadowed mountains
Sprang up and beckoned him.
In a glen of elms
As he sped
Ancient noises slowly stirred and wakened
And like aged birds heavily fled.
Soon through the starlit forest
Pale fragrances
Of blossomy elder
Floated around him.
" O Grainne, Grainne"
He called and in a happy glade
Of bluebells and sleep
Under the green clouds of elms
He heard a woman weep.
She slowly rose and came with night to him.
Strangely they paused, gazing, they two alone
" Diarmuid"
" O Grainne"
— and their voices were one