* Oh, Succat, declare to us here this unknown Deity
Whom you worship, and would have our people to worship,

who long
With more reason than you have but bent to the gods they

can see;

li ' Grian, lord of the heavens, filling nature with glory divine;
JAile Easga, the queen of the dead; Lir, the God of the brine;
These know we because we behold, and with sacrifice vari-
ous and song

These adore, inasmuch as they serve us: now say how much
better is thine ?'

" Then I said: c Say, oh ! Dubtach, whether them canst

behold thy own thought,
The spirit that moveth within thee, and without which thy

body were naught;
Which invisibly acts in thy being, as in all things around

thee, in sooth,
Views and governs all, and stores up whatsoe'er it is taught ?

" 'Even such is the Spirit we worship, omnipresent in nature

and life,
Though unseen the bright source of the world, and the

heavens with his excellence rife;
In thy head when thou thinkest, thy heart when thou

feelest with truth;
He it is, who beholding the Heathen rolled in darkness and

strife,

" ' Has late caused to appear His own Son, Holy Christ, from

above,
To teach love to man, and redeem all the nations through

love.

The faith that I teach is the faith in this spirit of Power,
As of Goodness, whose wing is not that of the eagle but

dove

"'God, whose spirit once entered into us through a pure

heart and prayer,
Our soul enters into the bliss which his chosen but share,

Loving all, serving all, grows impregnable from the same hour
To the evils of life he has taught us to mend and to bear.



33

" ' Sun and moon look alike on the fields of sweet corn and
red war;

The senseless sea wafts us to friends as to battles afar;
But when tempest has shaken the skies, when the light-
ning has riven

The clouds, our heart kindles with joy looking on the first
star;

" ' Not like sun or like moon is our God, but a Father whose

eyes
Watch His children with love ever more, day and night from

the skies,

And whose infinite love is a sea that but bears us to Heaven,
While disposing in earth and in Heaven their vast destinies. '

" Then the King, who had listened while closely his Druids

around
Had gathered in dread lest that I, with some potent spell

crowned,
Should win him to me after saying that more I should

speak
On some common day, not like that Feis day, rode off from

the ground.

' * But numbers gave ear, though he went unannealed to the

dead,
And throughout the isle I with the Faith many multitudes

fed,

Where various, who ere that I came from Paladius the Meek
Had been Christ's, brought a many to hear ' what Patricius

said. '

" But as yet was my mission unauthorised, save by the will
Of my passionate heart to make His this dark race, and

fulfil
Christ's commands to go forth and to preach to the Gentiles

his Word,
And that Voice in the heaven-sent dream which inspired me,

until

" Having raised numerous churches to guard the good tidings,
I sailed

Hence to Gaul, and was there at Auxerre, by Germain, the

Saint hailed

Of Hibernia; and his learning illumed me and his eloquence
stirred

Me to journey to Rome, and obtain Jesus' staff, and pre-
vailed ;



37

" So, soon by Segetius, the presbyter, valiant and true
Companioned, 1 passed the proud tribes of the Senoneg

through,

And up the defiles of Jurassa ascended the snow
To the crown of the world, whence beneath us spread

Lemanus blue;

1 ' And, the higher hills traversed, descended the Paduan

plain }

Spreading rich in the sun its expanses of vineyard and grain;
And through olive groves yellow from Mediolan followed

the flow
Of the river, the Cassian Way, and Etruria's train

' ' Of aged and opulent cities ; 'till one starry night

Mighty Rome, marble pilled 011 its mountains, saluted our

sight ;
And we passed the steep streets amid temples to churches

now turned,
And where fortified palaces, many lamped, shone from each

height.

" There the Pagans delighted indeed in the sumptuous display
Of superlative luxuries aureate and silken array,

In their villas and baths, where the client crowds bent to

the knees,
In their chariots of silver, white horsed, on the Appian Way.

" For the fear of the Goth's giant armies and fierce swarthy

Hun,

Had passed like a thunder cloud from that domain of the sun;
And the nobles still trifled with time and its poor vanities,
While the militant Churches triumphed in the peoples they'd
won.

" There the while in the foreigner's quarter, the thronged

Aventiiie,
We tarried; Germain with seven deacons arrived by the

brine,
And his coming was bread to my hungry heart, when I

found
By his influence sweet that the consecrate gift should be

mine.

" And, verily, soon it befell in a glorious hour,
As I knelt in the aisle of Petros, near the altar's bright bower,
By the heir of his Keys, Celestine, holy Papa, I was

crowned,
While the court of the Emperor crowded each galleried

tower.



88

" While about me white-robed, multitudinous ministers

thronged;
While the music rose, hymning the story divine, many-

tongued,
Of the Magi who came to His cradle, illumined by the

star,
Ijwas clothed by his hands with the pallium for which I had

longed

" In the presence of mild Theodosius, who late had arrived
From imperial Ravenna at Christian Rome, to be shrived,
And to witness the bishop -made priest, who had come from

the far
Britannise, where Christ's sword had freed many Satan had

gyved.

" Then, as Celestine's Legate, returned I from, wonderful

Rome,
By the Middle Sea's shores and Iberia's, to this island Home;

For Attila's barbarous armies were ravaging Gaul,
And more dangerous then were its roads than the path of the
foam.

" And, at Uldali arrived, Daire, the wealthy, kiiri chieftain

bestowed

Upon me Drium Sailech, then a hill with a wild willow wood,

As a place for a church and a synod, whate'er might befall ;

And being sick he was healed, and his sins washed away in

Christ's blood.

'" Then I went forth baptizing the tribes from the east to the

west,
From the north to the south ; and of many a chief I was

guest,
For the heads once won o'er the clans follow nor until the

whole isle
Was converted to God. would my soul from its sacred toil

rest.

" And of late in a vision, I seemed caught up into the air,
And saw from the height o'er the lands I had traversed in

care,

From Rome to Hibernia, a long line of light like a smile
That seemed to join both with a lustre eternal as fair.

" Now the Churches are many, the laws of the Pagan

improved ;

I have gathered about me my people long lost and long loved,
Now the hell-given power of the Druids is clouding away;
our various peoples by Christ's saving spirit are moved.



39

" By God's grace, I, Patrick, have grown the isle's spiritual

King ;
But my time drawcth near : and night wanes, and the dismal

winds sing,
So come, my good Aengus, let us kneel ere we rest us and

pray
To the One who for ever shall shelter us under His wing :

" ' Holy Christ, by Thy great love, we bind us to live in Thy

light,
By Thy power to shield us from the black incantations of

night,
And we bind to us through Thee the powers of the universe

vast,
To aid us in spreading Thy Scripture, eternal as bright.

* ' ' Oh ! Christ, be thou with us, our guard upon sea and on

shore,

While th' idolaters rage, and around us disasters outpour,
Until Thou in the clouds of the heavens reappearing at

last,
In that glory the Blessed ascend to Thy peace* ever more.' "



ST COLUMBA'S SPELL, A,D. 580.



KINO DIARMUID had wronged Saint Columba, for he had

assailed

Eoch Tiorrnacara, the King of Connaught, many valed,
Who through the Saint's influence long had been Christ's;

and a spell
Had been layed on his life, the which hearing he trembled

and paled.
Two hundred moons rolled through the sky, when at length

in a fight

With Aodh Dub of Dalarada, he fell by his spearmen at night ;
But although for his body they searched through the corse

covered dell,

Never more was that body revealed to humanity's sight.
But, after ten clays, as some hunters passed through a wild

wood,
Of a sudden they stopp'd, and with horror and wonderment

stood;

For, lo ! at the foot of a hollow oak, watched "by a wolf,
Lay the blue ghastly head of the monarch all goutecl with

blood,



40

Which knowing, they seized; and then riding as fast as the

wind,
Bore it off through the gloom from the monster whose red

eyes behind

Still following flamed, till they came to the brink of a gulf ;
This they leaped, when it vanished, as they looking back-
ward opined;
And arrived at the shore of a lake then illumed by the

moon,
Where some clerics and monks stood, awaiting the corrach

that soon
Was to bear them across to their church in an island with

trees,

To those holy men gave for interment the sad-fated boon ;
And, being vassals of Diarmuid and Christians, entreated

that they
Would pray for the soul while they buried the royal red

clay,

Which they did, and, moreover, with kingliest ceremonies,
At Clanmacnoise reared it a tomb which is seen to this day.



Meanwhile came to Enna his son, who had lived a learned

year

With the abbats of Alba, the news of his father's death drear;

And spreading white sails unto Erin he sailed o'er the sea,

With whose brine was commingled many a wind-scattered

tear;

And arrived at Ath Cliath, he hurried, by night and by day,
The galloping steeds of his chariot along the high way,
To the new church that reared over Clanmacnoise' emerald

lea,

Its turrets and walls in the evening tranquil and grey.
But after reflection and prayer, when all had retired
To their cells, moved with anguish, with restless anxiety fired,

That royal sad head once again to behold, he arose,
And although with his sorrow and voyage and travel sore

tired,

Having kindled a torch, with a strong iron implement armed,
Through the chill aisle, that save by the sunbeam had never

been warmed,
With echoing footsteps approached the tomb: then with

blows
Sought to burst it asunder not knowing the while, it was

charmed.
At length when with one mighty effort the stone he had

raised
And rolled aside sudden with terror he startled and gazed,



41

For, lo! from the place where the bloody head lay in the

gloom
Sprang a black Demon Shadow whose eyes with ferocity

blazed;
A shadow that now seemed a wolf 011 the ground, and that

now
Like a human form wavering in darkness and fire seemed to

grow,
Which with threatening gesture held guard by the black

gaping tomb,

Silent, horrible, hellish, potential, impervious to blow,
Deaf to anguish and prayer; for the prince had first struck at

the shade
Till he found but the hollow vault rung with the clash of his

blade ;

Then in terror implored it to let him but look once again
On that face, ere for ever its form from his memory should

fade;
When the Thing springing forward had touched him the

while with a cry,
He fell, and remained as if dead 011 the pavement anigh;

And when he awoke, he was stretched in a cell, full of pain,
And seemed mad for a time, nor could sleep, save with one

watching by.

The tomb wasreclosed; but another moon rounded and died,
Ere his cheek gained its bloom, or his spirit its vigour and

pride,
When he rode with his retinue splendid, with cloak and

with spear,

Toward Rath Mora, to visit young Emer, his beauteous bride,
Through rich shady regions of apples and oaks, by great

forts,
Towns with churches and crosses by many a broad river's

ports,
Tracts of pasture and corn; and arrived at the palace made

clear
By the pulse of his heart, passed a period in revels and

sports.
Day by day his great grief and dark fear for the relic

entombed,

Floated off like a cloud in the morning that love had relumed
For Emer, and sunlight possessed his w r hole soul for a

space,

Nor guessed he the destiny yet unto which he was doomed
Because of the spell; nor am ore of that Shadow thought he,
But of Enter 's blue eyes, where the spring sparkled amiably;
Of the secret soft love-light that beamed from her fair oval

face;
Her voice, like the wind of the dawn breathing over the sea,



42

Tlie amber pale hair clustering round her pure brow like the

hue

That rings round a vaporous moon; of her words soft as dew,
Her white hand, but more than all else of her dear music

soul,
And that snow-vestured heart that to his beat as tender as

true.



It happened just then as one 110011 Enna wandered alone,
Through the beech wood's green shadowypaths, beneath roofa

summer blown,
That, full of sweet fancies, he stretched beneath one giant

bole

And slept; till a sudden his slumber was stirred by a moan;
When, springing afoot, he looked round. It was sunset; the

light
Here and there upon tree-trunks and branches was goldening

bright,

And with radiant angels the forest's recesses seemed filled.
And the drift of a cascade alone broke the calm when his

sight

Was horrored; for there by a lightning struck oak in a dim
Xook anear, stood the hideous (Shadow form glaring at him,
Black as night, fixed as fate, when a shuddering terror

pulse chill'd
All his blood, blanked his mind, and awhile stiffened every

limb.

At length while he prayed, vigour back to him slowly returned,
And he gazed on the demon whose eyes in the heavy gloom

burned
The redder, nor moved it until he had moved; then as

down

The forest he hurried, still followed him until he turned
I'rom its shores on the grey evening meadows and highway

that led
To the palace, when looking behind him, he found it had fled.

Fled but to return ; on the youth ever rested its frown,
And Enna was haunted henceforth by the Demon of the

Dead.
Sometimes when the morning ray sundered his lids, its black

form
Would seem bending o'er him, sometimes from the azure

noon warm
In the orchards with Einer it watched them l>y him alone

seen

It pursued him at night when he rode in the gloom of the.
storm ;



43

Xow, o'er tlie white plains of the snow when he travelled

afar,

The moon blent its shadow with his; in the thick of the war
Dimm'd his eyes when he fronted the foeman, or rose like a

screen
When voyaging in tempest he gazed on some ship-guiding

star,
When the mountainous billows rose round, and their hoarse

hungry roar

Boded death 011 the rocks of some sightless precipitous shore.
By its presence all places, all times were made fearful; in

prayer

Its influence diverted his spirit howe'er it might soar
In pure faith to the heavens, and wintered each radiant hour
Of the lovers when whispering at sunset in chamber and

bower.

Companioned or lonely, on land or on ocean, all where
Like his shadow lived by him this hell-shadowed, feared

Phantom Power,



Thus three restless years had rolled on 'mid the pleasures

and din
Of the court and the field, and the shade -haunted prince had

grown thin,
And his sighs were half loves and half deaths; when a

voice in a dream

Proclaimed that the fate he endured was because of the sin
Of his father, whose demon he knew not till then was the

Thing
Which pursued him; and counselled, that spreading swift

sails on the wing
Of the winds, he, with Emer companioned, with morning's

first beam

Should hie to the bay of Feal Lodain, and thence voyaging
O'er the northern seas to Columba at Hy, should entreat
With prayer the great saint to remove by his influence sweet,
And power with the heavens, the spell he had layed on the

soul

Of the monarch; and banish the demon that followed his feet.
>So the lovers set forth in a pinnace which held but the twain,
O'er the breezy blue spacious waste of the foam-lined main ;
And although like a cloud, it still followed their course

toward the pole,
Its approach by their hymns was averted, and its power

seemed to wane.

And when the late moon in its fulness arose in the sky,
Arose o'er the waters the hills and the churches of Hy,



44

The cliffs of the streams, the blue inlets with crosses and

tombs,
The white strand of the monks, Oran's grave and the Carbeal

Muiri,
And passed copses of nut trees, and yellow furze down, and

pure well,

They entered the church, and along by each anchorite's cell
Approached the high altar beneath where the great turret

looms,

And prayed to its patron Columba, to banish the spell.
And as they yet knelt, and with whispers the stillness

beguiled
Enna stooped like a young ash, Emer like a sea-flower

wild

A figure gigantic stood by them, majestic in mien,
Lightning- eyed, but whose countenance seen through his

cochal was mild;
Who saluted each forehead with the kiss of sweet peace and

with prayer,
And deep incantation averted the curse from the pair;

And their spirits were freed, and the Shadow no longer

was seen,
A s they bent to that warrior of Christ smiling down on them

there.



THE BATTLE OF CILL MOSANHOG.

(Eathfarnham. )
Danish Period October, A.D., 917.

E centuries after Christ ascended to glory,
Through the deep eastern heavens, and in Eire his reign
For four hundred golden years had hallowed the main ;
When the Northmen reddened our shores and ruined our
temples hoary,

Opens our battle story,
Here in Ath Cliath, ruled by Sitruic Imar, the Dane.

It was a morn of autumn, splendrously glowed the sun
Over the tranquil space of the dazzling azure bay,
Spreading from green Ben Edair to Cualan's mountains grey,
Sloped and spired from their woods upon the listless cascades
run

Over many a dun,
Built on the shady plain by river and winding way.



45

Along the sandy shores of the Life currenting bright,
Up to the trenched walls of Dublin fort by the shore,
Long black barques of battle were anchored, and many more
Of commerce of the Gaels, with skin sails spread in the light

Many were vessels of might;

With lofty decks and armoured sterns and raven banners
floating o'er.

Niall Glundub, Uladh's monarch, long had he been enraged,
Seeing the Danar's armies ruling the coast and south of the

town,
Seeing the life of the people gloomed in the foreigners'

frown;
Long in mustering the septs of theJDalarads was he engaged;

Many the wars he had waged,

And now resolved to a tinal fight to carry his sword and
crown.

'Twas on a morn, in the midst of the month that ends the

autumn year,
When harvest was gathered, and plenty reigned through the

head and heart of the land,

He led the manifold host that marshalled beneath the com-
mand

Of ten strong succouring kings, across the Life's narrowest
weir:

It was a spectacle grand

To see that long battalioned host advance in its warlike
gear.

In shirts of mail were the soldiery attired and tunics gay,
Each bore a variegated shield, a hazel spear and sword,
Or pike or heavy headed axe a proud and valorous band,
Laughing and glittering in the sun, just risen above the bay,

Their active ranks moved toward

The grassy plain of Cill Mosanhog, where the Danar's army
lay.

The Danar's lines advanced to combat fire-like and heavily;
Their corslets triple-plated flamed, dazzling aside the light;
Some bore the scymitar and some the long sword weighty

and bright;
Some ponderous battle-axes gleaming keen and awsomely:

The war-clubs' iron tree,

And spears innumerable that swayed like waves in a
rocky sea.

On Cill Mosanhog's meadows, front to front embattled,
Under the wooded slope of the hills, for a moment stood
The foreigner's host and army of Eire; splendidly from the
flood



40

Shone the sun on the spacious plain, viliagcd and many
cattled;

The next the arrows rattled,

A storm of steel, and the battles roared, and the front ranks
spouted blood.

And noa, noa ! roared the Norsemen, clashing on their arms,
As rank and rank, a wall of brass and iron they onward came,
Invoking Thor and Odin breasts and helmets all a flame,

Chaunting furious battle-songs while dealing deadly harms,

Answering our alarms,
Hushed on us 'mid the thunder of armisonous acclaim.

And hand to hand the green swords met the blue swords, and

the clash

Of armour-cleaving axes rung, and together rolled the horse,
Like thunder-clouds, while chariots galloped over many a

corse;
Battalion with battalion fierce encountering 'mid the crash

Of breastplates and the smash

Of bones and spears, till thousands writhed upon the bloody
gorse.

Champions of mighty stature, whose renown in singing tales
Was to re-echo from that day, yielded in fight their breath.
And, drunk with battle, hosts of heated warriors bit the

heath,
While the fierceness of the Danar, the proud valour of the Gaels,

Through terrored woods and vales
Swept raging to their ruin underneath the cloud of Death.

For hours the combat lasted, when a storm began to blow.
And thunder clamoured o'er them, where the lurid moving

heaven
Seemed imagining our combat 'mid the vapours lightning

riven;

And Niall, though outnumbered, fought o'er thousands laid
below,

When Imar cried out " Lo!
The Yalekyrse's horses come to bear our brave to heaven!"

Then, dread grew the kingly slaughter on Gill Mosanhog

that day,
For Niall himself was spear-transfixed in the foremost press

of the war,

And Conaing, Eire's heir to be, and mighty Conchobar;
Flaithbhertach, likewise Maelme, son of Flangan, king of
Bregh,

The golden-helmed Aedh,
And Congalach, Mailinuire, Eremhon, each a red battle star.



47

THE WANDERINGS AND LAMENTATIONS OF
QUEEN GORMFLAITH.*

LATE was the eve in autumn time, from tlic dead and dreary

west,
The sunset shed a wildered flame where all was gloom and

rest,

O'er Fortuatha's leaden hills and silent sullen lakes,
Touching along the steep sad shores the white foam's flying

flakes
That chaffed by the rising twilight breeze, fluttered up rock

and beach:

O'er the heron perched upon one leg within some rushy reach;
O'er caverns yawning in the sides of precipices drear,
Lone hermitages hanging o'er the fathomless black mere ;
And o'er the ruined town the Danes destroyed in days fore-
gone,

Which spread afar, a dreary waste of ashes and of stone;
And on the Churches greyly, clustering amid trees beneath
The lofty tower that rose beside them on the sombre heath.
For although rifled of their wealth those dim asylums stood
Sole relics of war's ravages above the shadowy flood.
Already night in cloudy desolation domed the sky,
And the last crows flew towards Cualan's woods with faint

inconstant cry,

When by the road that drily wound through barren moun-
tains where

The brown heath shivered blankly in the gusts of upper air,
Down by the well beside the cross, and through the thinning

trees,
Whose fallen leaves blent their withered sounds with the

grey wind's litanies

A woman, tall and aged, poorly garbed and deadly pale,
Approached the Hospitable House above the dismal vale,
And entered; where the large, low raftered room was full of

din;
Where the pine-torch lit a board with bread and meat and

megathm;
And by the hearth's hot oaken fire, stretched on the rushes

green,

A company of poor and boisterous travellers were seen:
And by the door were horse boys, clowns, lampooners,

jesters, layed,
Disputing, drinking, quarrelling, while a drunken harper

played.

But, as the woman entered, of a sudden ceased the sound
Of bitter words and laughter loudly clamouring around;

* Pronounced Gunnley.



48

The clown's leer turned into a gape, and all seemed sore

afraid.
The minstrel stopp'd and made pretence to pat the sleepy

hound

Stretched at his feet, and even the Biatach obeisant bowed,
Looking upon that wanderer's countenance, beautiful and

proud;

And as she motioned for a seat with an imperial air,
All standing guessed with looks downcast that majesty was

there.

Alas! and something more than even majesty could show;
For those blue eyes with all their deep divine and tranquil glow
Were full of awe as they had looked on many scenes of woe,
On horror, dole, and havoc : with that wasted figure drear,
Seemed sorrow like its shade allied for many a gloomy year.

"And who art thou?" with reverence asked the Biatach, while

the fool
With straightened face and upraised brows, first-brushed,

then placed a stool.

"A wanderer!" the woman gently answered, " who has been,
Though little boots it now a monarch's daughter and twice

queen.
Hast thou ne'er heard of Gorniflaith, when her sire, Flami

Simla's reign,

G oldened in peace and plenty over Mumhain's spacious plain?
Hast thou ne'er heard of Cormac my betrothed, the noblest

man

For learning, beauty, valour Erie's more unhappy Flann