Book II

Now, man of croziers, shadows called our namesAnd then away, away, like whirling flames;And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,The youth and lady and the deer and hound;"Gaze no more on the phantoms," Niam said,And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright headAnd her bright body, sang of faery and manBefore God was or my old line began;Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of oldWho wedded men with rings of Druid gold;And how those lovers never turn their eyesUpon the life that fades and flickers and dies,But love and kiss on dim shores far awayRolled round with music of the sighing spray:But sang no more, as when, like a brown beeThat has drunk full, she crossed the misty seaWith me in her white arms a hundred yearsBefore this day; for now the fall of tearsTroubled her song.

I do not know if daysOr hours passed by, yet hold the morning raysShone many times among the glimmering flowersWoven into her hair, before dark towersRose in the darkness, and the white surf gleamedAbout them; and the horse of faery screamedAnd shivered, knowing the Isle of many Fears,Nor ceased until white Niam stroked his earsAnd named him by sweet names.

A foaming tideWhitened afar with surge, fan-formed and wide,Burst from a great door marred by many a blowFrom mace and sword and pole-axe, long agoWhen gods and giants warred. We rode betweenThe seaweed-covered pillars, and the greenAnd surging phosphorus alone gave lightOn our dark pathway, till a countless flightOf moonlit steps glimmered; and left and rightDark statues glimmered over the pale tideUpon dark thrones. Between the lids of oneThe imaged meteors had flashed and runAnd had disported in the stilly jet,And the fixed stars had dawned and shone and set,Since God made Time and Death and Sleep: the otherStretched his long arm to where, a misty smother,The stream churned, churned, and churned--his lips apart,As though he told his never slumbering heartOf every foamdrop on its misty way:Tying the horse to his vast foot that layHalf in the unvesselled sea, we climbed the stairsAnd climbed so long, I thought the last steps wereHung from the morning star; when these mild wordsFanned the delighted air like wings of birds:"My brothers spring out of their beds at morn,"A-murmur like young partridge: with loud horn"They chase the noontide deer;"And when the dew-drowned stars hang in the air"Look to long fishing-lines, or point and pare"An ash-wood hunting spear.

"O sigh, O fluttering sigh, be kind to me;"Flutter along the froth lips of the sea,"And shores, the froth lips wet:"And stay a little while, and bid them weep:"Ah, touch their blue-veined eyelids if they sleep,"And shake their coverlet.

"When you have told how I weep endlessly,"Flutter along the froth lips of the sea"And home to me again,"And in the shadow of my hair lie hid,"And tell me how you came to one unbid,"The saddest of all men."

A maiden with soft eyes like funeral tapers,And face that seemed wrought out of moonlit vapours,And a sad mouth, that fear made tremulousAs any ruddy moth, looked down on us;And she with a wave-rusted chain was tiedTo two old eagles, full of ancient pride,That with dim eyeballs stood on either side.Few feathers were on their dishevelled wings,For their dim minds were with the ancient things."I bring deliverance," pearl-pale Niam said.

"Neither the living, nor the unlabouring dead,"Nor the high gods who never lived, may fight"My enemy and hope; demons for fright"Jabber and scream about him in the night;"For he is strong and crafty as the seas"That sprang under the Seven Hazel Trees,"And I must needs endure and hate and weep,"Until the gods and demons drop asleep,"Hearing Aed touch the mournful strings of gold."

"Is he so dreadful?"

"Be not over bold,"But flee while you may flee from him."

Then I:"This demon shall be pierced and drop and die,"And his loose bulk be thrown in the loud tide."

"Flee from him," pearl-pale Niam weeping cried,"For all men flee the demons"; but moved notMy angry, king remembering soul one jot;There was no mightier soul of Heber's line;Now it is old and mouse-like: for a signI burst the chain: still earless, nerveless, blind,Wrapped in the things of the unhuman mind,In some dim memory or ancient moodStill earless, nerveless, blind, the eagles stood.

And then we climbed the stair to a high door;A hundred horsemen on the basalt floorBeneath had paced content: we held our wayAnd stood within: clothed in a misty rayI saw a foam-white seagull drift and floatUnder the roof, and with a straining throatShouted, and hailed him: he hung there a star,For no man's cry shall ever mount so far;Not even your God could have thrown down that hall;Stabling His unloosed lightnings in their stall,He had sat down and sighed with cumbered heart,As though His hour were come.

We sought the partThat was most distant from the door; green slimeMade the way slippery, and time on timeShowed prints of sea-born scales, while down through itThe captive's journeys to and fro were writLike a small river, and, where feet touched, cameA momentary gleam of phosphorus flame.Under the deepest shadows of the hallThat maiden found a ring hung on the wall,And in the ring a torch, and with its flareMaking a world about her in the air,Passed under a dim doorway, out of sightAnd came again, holding a second lightBurning between her fingers, and in mineLaid it and sighed: I held a sword whose shineNo centuries could dim: and a word ranThereon in Ogham letters, "Mananan";That sea god's name, who in a deep contentSprang dripping, and, with captive demons sentOut of the seven-fold seas, built the dark hallRooted in foam and clouds, and cried to allThe mightier masters of a mightier race;And at his cry there came no milk-pale faceUnder a crown of thorns and dark with blood,But only exultant faces.

Niam stoodWith bowed head, trembling when the white blade shone,But she whose hours of tenderness were goneHad neither hope nor fear. I bade them hideUnder the shadows till the tumults diedOf the loud crashing and earth shaking fight,Lest they should look upon some dreadful sight;And thrust the torch between the slimy flags.A dome made out of endless carven jags,Where shadowy face flowed into shadowy face,Looked down on me; and in the self-same placeI waited hour by hour, and the high dome,Windowless, pillarless, multitudinous homeOf faces, waited; and the leisured gazeWas loaded with the memory of daysBuried and mighty. When through the great doorThe dawn came in, and glimmered on the floorWith a pale light, I journeyed round the hallAnd found a door deep sunken in the wall,The least of doors; beyond on a dim plainA little runnel made a bubbling strain,And on the runnel's stony and bare edgeA husky demon dry as a withered sedgeSwayed, crooning to himself an unknown tongue:In a sad revelry he sang and swungBacchant and mournful, passing to and froHis hand along the runnel's side, as thoughThe flowers still grew there: far on the sea's wasteShaking and waving, vapour vapour chased,While high frail cloudlets, fed with a green light,Like drifts of leaves, immovable and bright,Hung in the passionate dawn. He slowly turned:A demon's leisure: eyes, first white, now burnedLike wings of kingfishers; and he aroseBarking. We trampled up and down with blowsOf sword and brazen battle-axe, while dayGave to high noon and noon to night gave way;And when at withering of the sun he knewThe Druid sword of Mananan, he grewTo many shapes; I lunged at the smooth throatOf a great eel; it changed, and I but smoteA fir-tree roaring in its leafless top;I held a dripping corpse, with livid chopAnd sunken shape, against my face and breast,When I tore down the tree; but when the westSurged up in plumy fire, I lunged and draveThrough heart and spine, and cast him in the wave,Lest Niam shudder.

Full of hope and dreadThose two came carrying wine and meat and bread,And healed my wounds with unguents out of flowersThat feed white moths by some De Danaan shrine;Then in that hall, lit by the dim sea shine,We lay on skins of otters, and drank wine,Brewed by the sea-gods, from huge cups that layUpon the lips of sea-gods in their day;And then on heaped-up skins of otters slept.But when the sun once more in saffron stept,Rolling his flagrant wheel out of the deep,We sang the loves and angers without sleep,And all the exultant labours of the strong:

But now the lying clerics murder songWith barren words and flatteries of the weak.In what land do the powerless turn the beakOf ravening Sorrow, or the hand of Wrath?For all your croziers, they have left the pathAnd wander in the storms and clinging snows,Hopeless for ever: ancient Usheen knows,For he is weak and poor and blind, and liesOn the anvil of the world.