vengeance were near.
But keener eyes seeing how each, as with pain seemed avoid-
ing the other
When they chanced to encounter abroad, or at feast in the
hall, and who saw
How they were enraptured with rare Lassairfhnia, whose
words were their law,
Soon discovered the subtle enchantress, to either had made
herself dear,
And that love so enkindled, had wakened in secret, the
hatred of brother for brother.
Then it came to be known to the listening slaves, that each
chieftain had asked her ns wife
Seeking occasion alone; while the blue-veined beauty, as
cunning as bold,
Seemed affected to both, though when present with both,
appeared charmingly, carelessly cold ;
And all saw in the challenge of secret hot passion, thus fronted,
implacable strife.
VII.
It happened one day, when they'd ridden by separate ways
with their bands,
To the chase, on the western frontier, which marked their
division of lands,
That a great elk and swift, through a forest way starting,
was seen of them then,
And for many a mile in a gallop, they followed his horng
with their men,
Until, sudden as fish sinks, the beast disappeared in a glen,
leaving all
The hunters at bay, in confusion, well wearied, and ruffled
with gall
At his loss; while the hounds keenest scented, yelped round
them in piteous rage,
Sore grieved and wild, as a bird flock that beats at the bars
of a cage.
22
So the companies rode 011 together, until they caino out of the
glen,
And the broad-rivered plain spread around them, all dotted
with cattle and men,
Where the women were cutting the rushes, for couches, along
the green streams;
Where the naked slaves bound the reel sheaves of the corn in
the sinking sun's beams;
Where the tall shepherds stretched under trees in the
meadows, because of the heat,
And panted the sheep and the horses with drought in the
hollows of peat.
VIII.
Two moons, it was said, had grown dim in the sky since the
chiefs had exchanged,
Save in trivial words, their dark minds, so averse had they
grown, and estranged;
And their trains felt a dubious joy, when they saw them
once more side by side
Bide palace ward; until they heard fierce Eoclga cry "She
is my bride. "
While Mugha, whose brow had grown wrathful and som-
brous, drew rein on his horse,
And fronting its head to Eodga's, had suddenly stopped on
the gorse.
Then as round them their men gathered, seeing the hour
lon^ expected had come,
And while some of them murmured in whispers, and others
held dumb,
Eodga, uncovering his forehead, and pointing away to the sun,
Called out to both trains to be witness of what should be said
to be done.
Then spake to his brother "Now, Mugha, my brother, all
vain are the arts
By which men lov'ii^ bctli the one woman as we, seek to
smother their hearts ;
From our youth upward, even till now, you and I, who are
fruit of one womb,
Together have sported, together have voyaged, together have
fought side by side,
While the ghosts of our ancestors looked from the clouds o'er
our combats on plain and on tide;
And we held it a hope and a truth that in time we should
rest in the self-same tomb;
But another fate that we guessed not of has now fallen
between us twain,
Until each has become in the sight of the other a sight of
wrath and of pain;
23
For the beauty and soul of this nudden we love, like somo
magical spell
Has broken our faith in each other, and broken our past lives
as well.
I love Lassairfhina, whoso blood beats to mine as her breath
to my breath.
And no man and no god of the land shall prevent her being
mine, soul and body, save Death.
Yield up, then, this maiden to me as my own, and, in lieu,
take all manifold things
I hold here in Erie, possessions and riches bequeathed by our
long race of kings ;
Then peace and then love shall be ours, and our lives shall
be bright as they were in the hour
When our grey father, Guyon, departing, decreed us the
equal heirs of his power.
If not, there's but one way for us, Mugha, for mine shall
this maiden be
If I live : or if another's bride, 'twill be his that shall dio
with me."
His words ceased in foam on his lips; white and fixed as fata
was his face,
White and fixed was Mugha's also, in which love was usurped
by hot hate,
And as like seemed those furious chiefs as the figures of
rock at the gate
Of their palace, by Alabrha carved. Then cried Mugha,
whose hand on his mace
Showed each knuckle bone white, and of every sinew tho
strong rigid trace.
1 Eodga, as we two are brothers whose love for one maid
Has awakened a hate that alone in hot blood can be
layed,
Few words will suffice. I have but to repeat the same words
which you said:
1 love Lassairfhina, whose heart beats to mine as her breath
to my breath,
And no man and no god of the land shall prevent her being
mine, saving Death.
If, instead of the wealth you would buy her of me with, it3
store
Were as broad as the earth, and as deep as the sea at its
ultimate shore,
It would weigh in the scale of my purpose more light than
the down
Of yon thistle more worthless than one drop of rain on the
gold of my crown.
?o, as you offer insult, in insult 1 offer alike for her hand-
And all will be smooth again with us my wealth and my
power and my land,
But I see that your hatred grows stronger as stronger waxed
mine
When you spake; and, behold! the great Sun-God descends
to the brine,
Look your last on his glory, Eodga, as I maychance do,
For I swear by his splendour, I swear by my valour, I swear
by this isle and our race,
Of which, like the last lonely oaks of a great wood we're left,
that his face
One or other no more shall behold 'till this anger is quenched
'twixt us two. "
IX.
Thus Mugha retorted his wrath to Eodga enraged;
And the multitude, moved like an ocean in tempest or fleet
in a gale,
Some crimson with rivalrous anger, and some very pale,
Roared out to the Sun that by iron alone could their wrath
be assuaged.
First the brethren glanced at each other, then pointed away
to the west,
AY here rose the grey hills in whose bosom a deep lake lay
deadly and still,
And without other word rode away from the place to the
place they thought best
To decide unappeasable fury ; the while their numerous
train
Silent also, in groups took their way to their dwellings of
rest,
Leaving each to revenge on the other, as fate should decide
it, his will.
'Twas sunset: and as the two, passing the broad sweeping
kine-covered meadows,
And ford by the river, ascended the steep rocky hill-side, the
shadows
Grew deeper, and gleamed on the black lake a moon in the
wane.
x.
At length when they came to a bare open space, where the
gloomy hills round
Cast their shade on the deep cjuiet waters, they sprang from
their steeds on the ground.
Next instant, their brands in the moon shimmered lightnings
amid the dark air,
And rang the harsh echoes of blow upon blow through the
arid rocks there.
But though wild with fierce hatred, and fired with fierce
hope, each of gaining his prize,
Yet, so mightily matched were those leaders of battle in
practice and strength,
That the combat hung bloodless, while sword turned on
sword, eyes to eyes
Flashed their quick fires ; like keen angry eagles that circling
wheel through the skies
Near and nearer, till plunging together they tear out their
heart's gore. At length
Both their heavy swords sprang into fragments : Then came
a dread pause,
That seemed for a moment to balance the love and the wrath
of this cause;
For something of anguish gleamed ghastly from cither's pale
cheek
As they saw, like a smile from the dead, in their faces their
mother's face meek,
Which, despite of their fury, made both for a second's space
trembling and weak,
And each to each other, in strong sudden kindness seemed
moved to speak,
WLen the rocky path rung with the trampling tread of a
horse, and the night with a shriek,
And the fair Lassairfhina, more lovely and fell than that
fiend of the brine
That springs up from the depths to the shipwrecked, and
swimming with sleek eyes that shine
With ruth, clasps and drags him below stood before them
and cried, "His am I
4 * Who in combat shall win me, and who for my beauty dare die !"
As when in some loud crashing storm of the night comes a
lull, when you hear
The woods only quiver their boughs, and the dim seamoan drear,
Till the red beauteous lightning gleams fearfully, signalling on
The thundering powers of the tempest, and the force of the
rage that was gone
Rushes back on the world, where the frowning clouds bury
once more
The stars, and the maddened woods roar, and the mighty
sea tramples the shore,
So the chiefs, when they saw the fell beauty accursed,
breathing deep,
Blind with fury, love maddened, rewrapp'd in the storm of
their hate,
Rushed together once more with a hunger death only could sate,
And clasped in one mighty last writhing embrace, reeling
over the steep
20
That was higher than fifty tall oaks, and as straight as a
spear,
Plunged and sunk down for ever in the fathomless depths of
the meer;
While the fierce Lassairfhina, who watched from the cliff
till she saw they were dead,
Rode away to the realm of her kindredher love vented ven-
geance thus sped,
Crying, "Irrah, my father, King Guy on once wrought you a
wrong years ago,
And instead of an army you sent me with beauty to combat
your foe,
And behold, with love's weapons alone have I wiped out
your woe,
And dead in the depths of the lake the last heirs of his throne
have laid low!"
Thus perished Eodga and Mugha, the mightiest chiefs of
their time.
Lassairfhina was blasted with lightning, 'twas said, but a
month from that night.
So vanish the lives of the greatest and fairest, like dim
changing clouds of the height,
Like the leaves 011 the wind, like the song of a bard: I
have ended niy rhyme.
THE LEGEND OF DIORTHA, THE BARD,
i.
FROM noonday to dark had the fields of Gno Beag and Gno
More
Been covered with dead and with wounded, and deluged with
gore,
In the battle that Guaire Aidhne fought with Flaithbeartach
the Famed,
Till, with hardly a thousand, he fled along Orbsen's grey shore,
To the woods for a rest and a rally. In Guaire Aidhne 'a
force
Was Diortha the bard; to the foe, by his helm and his horse,
Ever known fighting foremost, till his steed, by an arrow
well aimed,
From a fugitive handful in ambush, sunk dead in a gorse,
AVhom he followed on foot, slaying some ; for, if stricken in
years,
None rivalled the warrior poet in the combat of spears,
27
Save Iniligh, his son, who, though lost to his eyes in the
light,
Was too mighty a sworder to waken his fatherly fears :
So, his blood still with victory afire, waving wild his red
brand,
He, the enemy flying, pursued through the forests near hand,
In whose branches a tempest, arisen with the fall of the
night,
Drowned the wounded's drear moan and the cries of each
conquering band.
At length, when he'd come to a place where the night's cloudy
frown
"Was doubled in shade by the horrent wood's gloomiest crown,
Of a sudden a figure sprang out 'twixt the boughs but as
soon
Sprang Diortha's keen sword through the dark on his foe
bearing down.
And next moment he knew he had plunged it right through,
by the rush
Of gore spouting into his eyes ; while the man, repulsed, fell
in a bush.
All was dark ; all around roared the forest, and there was
no moon,
As the victor, dim groping, knelt down on the vanquished, to
crush
Out his last breath, hard -breathed and blood-blind ; but that
last breath was gone :
Then, feeling about for the neck of his foe lying prone,
Tearing off as a trophy the heavy gold torque he had worn,
Took it to him, exulting in soul at the deed he had clone.
And wearied in limb and in brain with the rnany-houred toil
Of the battle, lay down in the dark by the side of his spoil,
And slept till above the grey hills by the ocean, pale morn
Touched the graves of the heroes far off on the heights of Tir
Moil.
II.
When Diortha awoke, his first thought was the collar of gold,
Which, in pride, he had laid by his heart in his vesture's blue
fold,
And, arisen the while the sun flamed through the trunks
of the trees,
From the clear joyous heavens on the distance of green wood
feud wold,
On the bird-singing branches and fresh dewy grasses around
Had but glanced at his warrior treasure, when lo! without
sound,
But with both arms up flung in despair, he sunk down on
his knees,
Then, fallen flat, dashed his grey brows again and again on
the ground ;
For, alas ! and alas ! when he looked on that torque he had
won,
The name met his eyes of his son, of his best beloved son,
Of Irnligh, his warrior's pride, the strong branch of his
heart,
His dead mother's glory, his age's last darlingest one ;
Of Imligh, whose heart his cursed arm, his cursed sword, had
pierced through,
The heart that had beat to his own, ever tender and true,
Whose eyes used to shine as he voiced the high strains of
his art,
In the bower or the fortress's hall, till their lives as one
grew;
Whose dear blood ah, why had his eyes been restored to the
day,
So heinously blotted that hour; on his robe and hands lay,
His sweet blood, the fount of his own brighter youth,
emptied now
Of its vigour for ayne by his curs'd sire, left lonely and grey.
What demon had darkened the night ? nay, what demon
Him, Diortha, whose sword had thus slaughtered his own son,
his best ?
Impelled by a fate from the damned with that cruel blind
blow
Yes, a demon had seized on his soul, and was now its dark
guest.
Inhuman in deed, feeling human no longer, he rose,
Tore his grey hair in handfuls, and tore from his body its
clothes
In the sun standing naked as on the same hour he was
born
Then, for care of the thing hated most, as a madman oft does,
Clutching up his red brand, rushed away through the Woods,
over dale,
Past the cots by the lake, where all, seeing him furious and
pale,
20
Fled before him, and hid from his sight and the light of the
morn,
'Till his dread form was lost, and had vanished the sound of
his wail.
in.
Wild wandering over theLand where the tribes who had heard
Of his madness-made woes, with dark awe and with deep
pity stirred,
Though they fled him, left food by their closely barred doors,
when he came
And eat, now at night in the moonbeam, or when the first bird
Sang clear to the dawn's yellow streak from the hedge or the
tree
Came Dithora one neon where the ocean spread boundless and
free.
'Twas late autumn ; through sombre mists glimmered tho
sun's withering flame
On the barren high mountains and headlands of grey in the sea.
Then, as standing up gaunt in the wind turned his hollow-
eyed glance
On the endless majestical glory of Lir's mighty foam-waved
expanse ;
And, as at his feet heavy thundered the green-billowed
tumult of foam,
And the spray on his naked form drifted, his soul rose
sublimed in a trance ;
* And he felt that his nature was one with the wind and the
wave,
With the sun and the ocean, with phantoms returned from
the grave,
And that earth and the heavens and the heights and the
depths were the home
Of a spirit, howe'er through its wilderness sorrow might rave ;
And that death was the change of the cloud from the waters
upfurled
From darkness to light, that in shadow, in splendour now
curled,
Careering in wind, everlastingly followed the sun,
Or was by the sun followed along the vast reach of the world.
But short was the clear orbed dream of a fancy astray ;
Soon a voice in the breeze, like his son's, from the dim dying
day
Turned his mind on the keen-panged past, as with head
sunk upon
His bosom of sobs, through the twilight he held his sad way.
3J
IV.
Thus roved he for years through the brown moors of
Conniaicne Mara,
The wild woods of Crumann, the bounteous green elopes of
Ceara,
O'er Echtges's grey hills, from which Grian is seen flowing
south;
By the towns of Clann Cathel, the frowning high forts of
Diainara;
Through the lake vales of Luaigne, by Magh Luirg, famed for
horses of speed, [of mead,
Where the great race of Aodha renowned for the banquets
Filled up plenteous the bowls of white stone for the
traveller's mouth,
And had ever a sheep, horse or cloak for the stranger in
need.
But lone as the wind was Diortha, whose heart was the food
Of remorse, of a sorrow that maddened each fugitive mood
Of his spirit, which, like an oak blasted, but yielded tho
sound
Of its harsh gnarring boughs, whose green leaves could no
more be renewed ;
Through his veins a wild light like the fire of the fen ever
ran;
He, a man w r ho had slain his own son, his beloved, hated
man,
His own shape, with a hatred insane that forbiddingly
wound
Like a serpent, but widened the range of humanity's ban.
Yet, often at times, morn and even, as the naked one lone
Stretched, in cavern or wood, when the song of a bird broke
his moan,
He would tell to the wind his sweet verses, or sing to tho
seas
Ancient memories of time and great wars, in a faint monotone;
Old fancies of scng would spring up through his brain, like
the glow
Of the strange flitting lights of the North o'er a mountain of
snow ;
And the stormy melodious surge of his soul's rhapsodies,
Bursting forth for a little would drown irredeemable woe.
At length, on an evening of beauty, when the air and the
ocean were still,
When the showery spring cloud was veiling remotely the
green sloping hill,
SI
When aloft the black lines of tho crows floated woodward
athwart the dim sky,
Beneath the tide rippled, and near him through mosses the
clear bubbled rill,
While the twilight orb sparkling 'mid hazes of rose on tho
breast
Of the sea, blent its beam with the emerald wave of the west
At the loot of an oak on the shore weird Diortha had lain
to die,
His white giant bones weather-bleached, with life weary, and
yearning for rest.
Then, as comes to one pacing the evening fields, from afar
Undulating, a strange and vague stream of sweet sound, from
that star
Camo across the calm waters along the thin radiance it
cast
A whisper harmonious from the realms where tho blessed
ones are,
Whispering, "Come, wearied Poet soul, coine to the regions
above,
Here is peace; here await thy sad spirit the friends whom
you love;"
Then a smile lit his face, as he sighed and that sigh \vas
his last !
On the hush came the dirge of the seas, from the woodlands
the moan of the clove.
ST PATRICK AND AENGUS,
Christian Period.
FROM the wintry wild West fell the daylight's last gleam of
grey gold,
Over iJladh's dim pastures, all dotted with hamlet and
fold;
O'er the long ridge of mountains that ended in one higher
still,
Whose pyramid fronted the desert seas, stony and cold,
Crowned with storm cloud; and deepened the blank windy
darkness below,
Hound the wavy Snarnh Aignech and the sullen shores dreary
with snow,
Where the white woodlands moaned in the blast, when
upon a white hill
Through the solitude shone a light, faint, but with steadfastcst
glow,
Which came from the casemented niohe of a Church rude
and small,
With barn and with dwelling surrounded by oaks bare and
tall,
In whose chamber two Figures were seated before a wood
fire,
Which flashed on the smoky brown roof and on either stone
wall,
On a table, where bread, milk, and honey in bowls had been
placed,
On a scriptural scroll whose dim parchment was worn and
defaced,
On a staff, ivory tippeJ, and a cloak stiff with frost and
with mire ;
On the men in black robes girdled in with a rope at the
waist.
One was still in his youth, and though pale, courage -fronted
and strong,
Whose bright eyes as he listened were hid by his black lashes
long;
While the other was far on his way to the region of
Death,
Whose moonlight fell cold on his locks and his white beard
among;
But in whose deep eyes shone the holy and conquering light
Of a soul that had won many souls from the armies of night;
And a vigour immortal flamed round his broad brow, and
Christ's breath
From his pale lips breathed calm of the conquests of Love
and of Eight.
Long had he been speaking, and then as the slow gathering
tear
Dimmed the young abbot's eyes, said : " Yes, Aengus, my
time draweth near,
But the younger will follow my footsteps, and lead up to
God
From the gloom of the heathen this people, to me ever dear;
1 ' Shall tend the poor sheep I have snatched from the wolf in
the dark,
Shall guard them till sinks this wide deluge in Christ's
saving ark,
Till the whole isle, illumed by the seed I have sown as I
trod,
Shall be His, when beyond the earth's sunset has sailed my
eoul's barque.
"What although still Hibernia spreads round from the flood
to the flood,
Hardly here arid there sacredly shining from His love and
blood,
Like a cloud that looms low in the air, from the eastern
dawn,
But tinged on its loftiest summits for the rest wild and
rude,
"Yet nevertheless, thanks to the Heavens, somewhat has
been done
Since the dim rolling arduous years when my work was begun;
And already the shades of the Past from the island with-
drawn,
Have let on its nations the light of the new risen sun.
"Ah me! what vicissitudes gloomy have passed, since, a
child
At Nemthur I lived, amid forests and races as wild,
Save those of the Britons who came from the Southern
towns,
Who had learned in the churches the story of Christ undefiled,
"Which I took to my heart with rejoicing, as one waked
with fear
'Mid the savage dark woods full of beasts, sees the dawn
rising clear;
And grew stronger than though on my forehead I wore the
world's crowns;
But that golden hour passed, and a period of terror was near
"For, scarce on the Ichtian sea, with my people I'd past,
To visit our kindred at Letha, when came 011 the blast
The fleet of King Sectmaid's, who deluged all Gussrigh with
gore,
Killing most, save the young, whom they bore to their black
vessels fast,
"There Conches, my mother, was wounded, and the rest of
us torn
From our hearth, bound with cords, o'er the seas to Hibernia
were borne;
Some escaped, but there Lupait was sold on Conaille
Murthemne's shore,
And I, when our vessel had reached Dalaraidhe's wild bourne.
"There for six years I lived in the woods tending kine, but
each day
Wrapped in prayer, which drew down on my bondage a
Heaven-sent ray;
o
31
For one morn at that time to the beach came a wandering
ship,
In the which I escaped, and was borne by the Pagans away.
* ' For three suns we sailed, and at length I was cast on a land
Like a wilderness waste, where for ten days and six by the
strand
I wandered alone, nor save water and roots crossed my lip
Other foocl, 'till one sunset I saw through the vapours a hand
' ; Point South, which, though weak unto death, I then
followed; and soon
God gave me both fire, food, and rest and the next rounded
moon
Saw me once again girt by my friends at the Athcluid for a
space
And I thanked my great God who had granted that bountiful
boon.
' ' There it was that I heard a Voice call nie one night in a
dream,
Crying: * Succat, Hibernia revokes you to teach and redeem
With Christ's faith, from the kingdom of Satan, her night-
dwelling race. '
And, as one filled with new life I rose, and with morning's
first beam
" Took ship on the green rolling seas to this island of green,
Where many a danger awhile threatened round me I ween,
Preaching Truth to the heathen, but where as years sped I
was known
As the Apostle of God in the land where a slave I had been.
" At length when I'd preached to the chieftains of Uladh,
and to
The Gaels of Ath Cliath, and founded of churches a few,
The noise of my mission around the broad land being blown,
And many accepting the Gospel as holy and true.
4 ' Through the tillages goodly, and fair fields, towards Tara
I came,
On that festival eve when the Druids had quenched every
llame,
Save the fire of the King Laoghaire that antique Pagan
rite
When I lit on a hill, with the f ew who had followed my fame,
" The fire of the Paschal. Then saw I his host all in arms,
Horsed, on foot, and in chariot, and his Druids with staves
and with charms,
Approach with the noise of brown shields and horns blown
through the night ;
And arrived^ while the king from his charger averted all
harms,
" Keen Dubtach, his Druid, advancing cried out unto me: